“You meaning to tell me, you show me our beautiful home today, and I’m spending my night in a cemetery.” Mia groaned, but I couldn’t see her anymore against the pitch-black night. “And I have to pee.”
“You’ll have to hold it, love. It’s illegal to urinate on sacred ground.” And I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth.
“But it’s perfectly okay to hide forty-three thousand dollars beside a famous dead novelist?” She gritted out in a whisper-yell, and I was sure her hands were flying, and I could only imagine her expression. “Is anything we’re doing right now legal, Ollie?”
Her tone only meant I was in trouble. “All right, you’re right,” I pushed my hands through my hair and turned in place, “pop-a-squat, princess.”
“Here?”
“I would rather you do it here than back at a grave.”
She shone the flashlight on my face. “Okay, don’t look.”
“Mia, I can hardly see my own hand.”
“And plug your ears.”
Chuckling, I turned and hung my head, thinking maybe I should ring Travis to rescue us, but remembered I’d left my mobile back in the car. Mia shuffled inside her jeans, and a tree limb fell. I jerked my head around. An owl hooted overhead. The taunting night wasn’t on our side. “Mia, are you finished?” I was ready to get out of the choking vegetation and back under the moon.
Another twig snapped. I whipped my head around.
“Mia?”
The silence screamed, playing tricks on me. I scanned the forest for her flashlight.
“Dammit, Mia. Answer me!” A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I twisted in place to see Mia jump from behind with the flashlight in her face, giggling. “Christ,” I let out a breath and clutched my hammering heart. “That’s not funny. You are not funny.”
“What’s wrong, Ollie? Are you afraid?” She laughed.
I shook my head and scooped the bag from the ground. “No.” Yes. But only of losing her.
We walked back through the thick, overgrown brush to higher ground, Mia trailing close behind. We couldn’t have been out here for more than three hours, which meant sunrise would come in no more than two. Tossing the bag at the nearest headstone, I took a seat and leaned back against the rock looking up at her.
The wind hadn’t slowed and only blew more fiercely against her, sending twisted chocolate-brown strands to stick to her chapped, rosy-tinted lips. But the wind didn’t throw her off-kilter. It was as if she summoned it, and nature followed her. The force in the air snatched dead leaves from the ground, floating and swirling around us, dancing right in her hair.
A night’s spell.
I pulled my knees up and dropped my head back, mesmerized as she spoke, entirely captivated with the way her lips moved, the way the moon complimented her. Her black jeans hugged her hips so tight it could rip the skin. And I had to tear my eyes away to prevent myself from stripping her bare under the moon. We were probably already going to hell, and fucking her in a cemetery would grant us a one-way ticket.
Plus, Mia was the kind of girl to take your time with. An art. A canvas that deserved a Da Vinci. But I was weak against her, already gone. I reached for the flask I’d hidden with the money from the duffle, needing a shot of some booze—brilliant idea at the time, finally serving a purpose to calm the raging hormones Mia tended to call upon whenever she was near. I unscrewed the cap and felt the burn.
Mia tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Honestly, no. I can’t hear anything over all that sex appeal.”
Mia’s shoulders relaxed, and her lip turned into a simple smile
“Come sit down,” I offered, pointing to the space between my legs, and she eyed me skeptically, taking the flask from my hand. She twirled in place, drinking from the antique bottle, then stopped in front of me and pushed her thumb to the corner of her mouth to catch a drip. As if she were snow, Mia drifted between my legs and anchored her hands to my thighs, her head falling back against my chest.
It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep. It also didn’t take long for the sun to rise and fight through the clouded skies and canopies. I wanted to stall a little while longer. And I held on to five more minutes of her in my arms before waking her and gathering our things. Sleepy, Mia sluggishly walked behind me through the brush and back to the secret door.
When we reached the stone wall, my gaze followed the length until they fell upon my secret door—wide-open.
I turned to face Mia, who had confusion painted over her face. “I thought you said it was stuck.”
“It was.”
I DIDN’T WANT to leave Mia. I hated to leave her. But Dex Sullivan was where I drew the line. I had to keep Mia far away from him. Dex knew her name, which was enough to want to shove her into a box, lock it, and push it under my bed to keep her safe. Of course, I had not done that, but Mia had a way about her, putting herself in the aim of fire. And Dex was a different breed than Dolor.
Dex didn’t have any reservations when it came to murder.
Instead, I took her to the hardware store in the village and let her pick out paint and supplies. She hated the white walls. Said it reminded her of a mental institution. Why didn’t I think of that?
Mia had picked a moss green named Nature’s Cure, and I’d left her in the living room with the furniture pushed in the center and covered in plastic to keep safe from her. When it came to talents, anything paint-related didn’t make it to her resume. Her fingers were created to only touch piano keys, a camera, and my skin.
I’d already had the number for a painter from London to touch up. Just in case.
I drove to the Links property in Grays South and parked on the curb. Adrian was hunched over on the front step, smoking a cigarette when I walked up. His eyes lit up when he lifted his head and immediately got to his feet to greet me. Our hands linked, and he pounded his fist against my back. “Oliver, you look like a whole new man. Where have you been, mate?”
Adrian’s lip was busted and swollen, and a cut below his right eye.
“Around. What happened to your face?”
He snatched the cigarette from the edge of the step and pulled it to his mouth. “It’s nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing,” I probed, and Adrian shoved his hand into his pocket and offered me a cigarette. “I quit.”
He raised a brow. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” I gripped his shoulder, “how are the other two nitwits? Staying out of trouble.”
“You could say that.”
James was the one to worry about. Adrian had an honest heart and good head on his shoulders, Reggi had already burnt his brain cells to a crisp, but the way Dex looked at James was the same way Oscar used to look at me. A project. A slab of wet concrete, begging to be molded and shaped into the perfect criminal. But I couldn’t be everyone’s hero.
“Dex is mad you left,” Adrian warned, and then it dawned on me. Did Dex tear up his face because of me?
“I’m paying myself off and done for good.”
“You can’t just leave.”
“I was never staying, Adrian. Dex and I had a deal. I’m following up on my end.”