Nolan’s alarm went off on both his phone and his watch and we all looked his way.
He looked from Rafe to me. “We done here?”
I nodded and we all stood, Storm included.
“Thanks again,” Rafe told her. “We’ll send payment tonight.”
“Anytime.” She closed her laptop and looked at Lilah. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” Lilah said. “Thanks for trying.”
“Sure thing.”
We stood there watching Storm leave, and I couldn’t speak for anyone else, but I was feeling pretty fucking deflated. Storm had identified the car and the shell company, but it hadn’t gotten us any closer to identifying Mr. Suit.
“Ugh,” Lilah said.
I looked at her and felt my spirits lift, then felt like an asshole. The truth was, I liked having her around and wasn’t in a hurry to see her go. But I knew she hated us — well, maybe not Nolan anymore, but definitely me and Rafe — and wanted to leave ASAP.
Rafe scowled as Nolan draped a casual arm around Lilah’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“What now?” she asked no one in particular.
“Now we go home, sweetheart.” Nolan headed for the door, taking Lilah with him.
Rafe frowned at me, an obvious question in his eyes. I shrugged, because what could I say? Nolan had gotten there first and Rafe was a fucking liar if he claimed he wasn’t jealous as fuck.
26
LILAH
I turnedover in bed for the hundredth time that night and kicked off the covers with a sigh. Insomnia was nothing new for me — my brain liked to chew on loose ends and my life was a veritable carnival of loose ends — but it never got less frustrating.
Back in the bad old days, I’d lain awake thinking about my infractions, the mistakes and missteps that had landed me in the hall closet. Then it was what had happened between the Bastards and me and the fact that the entire school had seen my tits. After that, there was a period where I slept, but only because I was heavily medicated at Oak Hill.
A relief, if I was going to be honest.
Since living with the Bastards I’d gone from worrying they were going to bust my door down and assault me in the middle of the night to worrying about my increasingly undeniable attraction to them.
Basically, there was never a shortage of things to think about, and my brain was determined to cover them all, but only at 2 a.m. when I was desperate for sleep.
Tonight had started with Nolan and the way he’d made me feel at the beach, my body alive in places I hadn’t even known existed, even with my vibrator. Now I was thinking about Mr. Suit’s car and the shell company, about where to go from here.
Thinking about Nolan was a lot more pleasant, but also a lot more confusing, so I’d been worrying the problem of Mr. Suit for the last half hour instead, tossing and turning, trying not to give in to the impulse to go to the kitchen.
Because if I went to the kitchen Jude would come down and make me tea and grilled cheese and then I’d be even more confused, because if it was wrong to want one of the bastards who’d ruined my life, what could I call it when I wanted two of them?
I left Rafe out on purpose. I did NOT want Rafe Maddox.
Finally, I sat up with a sigh. This was so messed up.
I pulled on the sweatpants that had become my uniform, grabbed my knife from under my pillow, and slipped it into the pocket of my hoodie. Then I stepped out into the hall.
At first it seemed like the house was quiet as usual. Other than my time at Oak Hill, I’d only ever lived in a drafty old house and a drafty old apartment. It had taken me a while to get used to the house in the mountains, which was so well designed, so well built, it sometimes felt like being sealed inside a tomb.
A luxe tomb, but still.
Except as I made my way down the hall I heard something coming from the door on the left.