Rafe, filtering through the requests that had come through for our services on his laptop, just grunted in greeting. I hadn’t told him that Lilah had heard his nightmare the night before. The less vulnerable Rafe felt around Lilah the better.
And vice versa really.
They were twin gladiators, bleeding through their armor and determined not to show their wounds.
I was surprised to see Lilah dressed in black jeans and a mossy green hoodie that made her eyes look like an untouched river in a forgotten forest. She didn’t have her shoes on — she left her sneakers and black boots by the door when she was home — but she was carrying her bag, her stride purposeful as she walked to the cupboard.
Jude watched her like a jungle cat half-asleep in the sun, eyeing a rabbit for later. “Where you headed, boss?”
“Work,” she said, putting a travel mug under the coffee machine.
“You don’t have work until Wednesday.” Regret washed over Jude’s face as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
Lilah turned around slowly while coffee dripped into her cup. She folded her arms over her chest. “How would you know?”
“Just… uh, don’t you usually work on Wednesdays?”
Jude was a world-class interrogator and the shittiest liar known to man.
“Try again,” Lilah said, her eyes hard as emeralds.
Jude sighed. “It’s for your protection.”
I walked over to the coffee machine and removed Lilah’s cup, then twisted on the lid.
“We’re just keeping an eye on you, sweetheart. Making sure you’re covered.”
“Define ‘keeping an eye on me.’” She glared up at me and all I wanted to do was kiss her angry mouth.
“What these pussies are trying to say is that we track your phone,” Rafe said from the island. Asshole didn’t even bother looking up from his computer. “And your car.”
Her mouth dropped open in horror. “You… I’m sorry you do what now?”
“We track your shit,” Rafe said.
She looked up at me again. “Is that true?”
“Jude’s right,” I said, handing her the cup. “We’re just looking out for you. Think we’re going to let you run around without protection with Lombardi and Mr. Suit out there?”
She barked out a laugh and shook her head. “Un-fucking-believable. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? Knowing you’ve been watching me?”
“Not technically watching you,” Jude said. “Unless you count the little blue dot on the tracker.”
Her eyes shot daggers at him. “I do.”
“We just wanted to have a way to find you if Lombardi made a move,” I said. “Or Mr. Suit.”
“Get over it,” Rafe said. “You’re trying to distract us from the fact that you’re a fucking liar.”
“Excuse me?”
Her blood was really boiling now, her face pink, her chest rising and falling. I wondered if I was going to need my stethoscope, if Lilah had taken her medication.
“You heard me.” Rafe almost sounded bored. “You said you were going to work. You don’t work today. Hence, you’re a fucking liar.”
“You did technically lie,” Jude pointed out.
I sighed.