The house had a state-of-the-art climate-control system that included radiant floor heating, but the fire was nice in the winter so we kept it going all the time.
“Don’t make her too comfortable,” I muttered, taking a seat by the fire. The only thing worse than the memory of what we’d done to Lilah Abbott was having to look at her every day.
I’d done my time making up for it.
“Don’t be a dick,” Jude said.
“Think the girl Lilah saw being pushed into the car has something to do with that thing that went down with Jace, Wolf, and Otis?” Nolan asked.
He was changing the subject to keep the peace. That was what Nolan did. He was a fixer. It was one of the reasons he’d become a medic with the SEALs, an attempt to fix something when most of what had been wrong in his life couldn’t be fixed.
“No idea.” I picked up the iron poker next to the fireplace just to have something to do with my hands. “And it’s none of our business.”
“You’re saying you’re good with the possibility that it’s not over?” Jude asked. “That someone’s still out there taking girls. Hurting them?”
“I’m saying it’s none of our business.”
“What is our business?” Nolan asked, setting down his phone and digging through his medic’s bag.
“That’s up to whoever’s wiring us money.” It was cynical, even for me, but not untrue. We’d served our country — before and after our dishonorable discharge. We’d tried to make amends for what we’d done to Lilah, if not directly, then indirectly, and we’d come up against one hell of a shitstorm for our trouble.
Now we hired ourselves out to the highest bidder and I was A-fucking-okay with it.
“I think we should ask Jace,” Jude said. “See if the cops made any progress after they took down Arlo, that fucker Piers, and his inbred dickhead of a son.”
“What would be the point?” I could feel the mess coming, like the moment right before you stepped in dog shit.
“Maybe we can help,” Nolan said.
I pointed the poker at him. “And there it is.”
Nolan looked up from his bag. “What?”
“Mr. Do-Good on another mission,” I sneered.
Nolan scowled. “I don’t have to be Mother Theresa to give a shit if girls are still being kidnapped in Blackwell Falls.”
“Not technically Blackwell Falls,” I said. “Vic’s bar is in Greenvale.”
Nolan shook his head. He was sick of my shit and when he got sick of my shit he stopped adding fuel to the fire, which was one of the most annoying things about him.
When I was on fire I wanted toburn, not just myself but everything in my path. It had served me well in the military.
In real life? Not so much.
Now I had a bad feeling, the kind I’d gotten on a mission right before something went really fucking wrong, and deep down I knew why: it was because of her.
Lilah Abbott.
The image of her in high school was engraved in my memory: a timid wallflower who’d let everyone walk all over her, hair hiding her face, eating lunch in the library instead of the cafeteria or out on the quad with all the normal people.
I’d never even kissed her luscious fucking mouth, and she was still the one girl I hadn’t been able to shake. I’d spent the last six years running from the thought of her.
Now she was here, right under my fucking roof, a reminder of exactly what I was.
11
LILAH