“Maybe because it got out of hand. That’s usually when you guys get called in, right? So they needed you.” He nodded.
I wasn’t sure what the hell to do now.
Don’t trust anybody?
Right.
Earlier I’d messaged Wes to let him know where I was. He said Ethan was still with him working on stuff in Vegas, but he’d come. He was on the way here.
I’d thought at the time that I would speak to Ethan separately. Now it was looking like I needed to. Someone was using him, had used him and I had to find some way of stopping him from getting the prints, and getting the prints back to headquarters.
“There’s a guy I know, a contact of mine with skills a little like yours. Can hack most systems without leaving a trace. He’s good with backtracking. Very old school. I reckon your skills combined could give you more answers,” Jack suggested.
Answers would be good.
It was what I needed to get me on track. Some answers would give direction.
“I need to meet with him soon as.”
Jack nodded. “I’ll set something up for tomorrow.”
“Thanks Jack. I’m grateful.”
My nerves spiked with a sense of awareness. The CIA or SMF working with Balthazar and The Ra.
Shit!
That was definitely something new and an angle I’d never explored before.
It wasn’t something I would have even thought of because it was so damn bizarre.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Jia
I wouldn’t deny that it felt a little strange being here.
Jack was really nice.
The kind of nice I would have loved from my own father. To me he was the opposite of Pa.
Or maybe a different version of what Pa could have been like. Tough and in his late fifties with muscle that showed his years of looking after himself to get that way, and what he’d done for work.
That was what Pa was like and Jack seemed the same. Except my father was evil. Jack was not.
And…
Jack had a daughter who loved Xander and Xander loved her so much he wanted to spend forever with her.
Was it wrong to be jealous of a perfect woman who was dead? Especially when just the other night Xander asked me to be his.
Was I crazy?
Maybe it was just being here.
We’d been here all day and it was the first time I’d felt safe since leaving the airport. It was the first time.
It was the first moment when I could actually stop and take a breath but I wasn’t sure if I could, so it was just after two in the morning and I was sitting by the window with two great views to capture my heart.
The first view was of my man sleeping in the king-size bed in the center of the room. We didn’t have to be quiet here earlier when we had sex and I made him think I was going to drift off to sleep in his arms.
This room was on the other side of the house in what I thought classed as a wing. Or at the very least an apartment style setting fit for a couple. This was Xander’s old room. He’d told me when he’d first moved here Jack had set it up so it was like he could have his own privacy and space.
I came from wealth so I knew what space was. This was definitely comparable to that, just cleaner.
Cleaner like the view before me of the landscape.
I loved it from the second we’d entered Idaho. I’d never been here before but it was just the place where an artist like me could fall in love with the landscape. Definitely fall in love.
I fell and now I was taking every opportunity I could get.
The thing I thought of first was that painting I’d promised Xander. I didn’t have my paints or anything but what I did have was a good old number two pencil and a large notepad I’d found earlier. Jack gave it to me when he saw me looking at it. I’d told him I was an artist.
Since I couldn’t sleep and it didn’t look like I was going to bed any time soon, I wanted to make use of the time.
I drew Xander standing by the lake.
All from my imagination and what I’d conjured up even though I was staring out at the lake now and it couldn’t have been darker outside. I’d drawn the parts illuminated by the moon.
That was it, just those parts and I imagined what they must have been like in the sunlight with Xander standing next to them.
I gave him a half smile. He never fully smiled at anything except for when he was flirting or being charming, or cocky. Or when I took my clothes off.
Most of the time it was a half-smile, almost like he was showing that he took note of something to smile at, but holding off to maintain that cool edge.
I looked over to him and watched him sleep. Deep in slumber he was, looking like he needed it. I supposed we all did really and I should be sleeping too.
I returned my gaze to the shadows of night outside the window and the smooth breath of wind that rippled over the lake. It made me think of Pa, what he must have been doing now.
I could almost feel his worry. Worry over me.
No, not almost. I could feel it, no matter how far we were I could feel it.
This would have been the first time in my life that I’d done this, and realistically this was the very thing that I’d thought of doing weeks ago. Escaping.
I’d wanted to escape his controlling hand.
My sketchy plan had been to take small amounts of cash every other day in a week from my account so he wouldn’t notice. Then I’d make a move and run off. Pa was clever though. He stopped me right in my damn tracks with that plan. It was at that point too, that I realized just how bad things were. That something else, or rather something more than usual was going on.
That something led me here.
Here as in right now, as I wondered if it was fair to allow not just Xander but Frankie to be part of this fiasco. The crux of the matter was we were now running from my father. Because of me.
If Pa found us he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Xander and Frankie.
Death.
It would always come back to that, somewhere in the mix it would come back to that.
Death and dying. Was it fair to be selfish with the man I loved when realistically this probably would never be over?
That was why I was jealous of Claire. She didn’t come from a bad seed. She didn’t come from bad. Everything here was goodness. Everything in pureness.
Xander shuffled in the bed. I turned to look at him and smiled when his hands reached over to the space where I’d laid beside him.
“Baby…” He breathed and shuffled to sit up.
He looked straight at me. The moonlight lit him up and just like the other night, he looked perfect.
He slipped off the bed showing off that body of his. In his Calvin Klein’s, that walking advert came to my mind again.
“Jia what are you doing? You should…” His voice trailed off when he saw my drawing. He looked at me and smiled, then pulled up the other chair to sit in front of me.
I handed him the sketch pad when he reached for it.
“Jia, this is amazing. I’m always blown away by your talent.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you like it because it’s yours.”
He raised his brows and smiled wide.
An unexpected smile. I forgot and now thought I had to give more credit to his smile where it was due… he smiled like that when he was with me.
Yes… that was more accurate. He smiled showing me his soul when he was with me.