Hotels meant other people — front desk clerks, doormen, valets, other guests. If whoever was behind Imperium Fratrum was as powerful as I suspected, they were probably well connected on the island. I had no reason to believe the figures behind the organization knew we were here, but I’d done enough work in the shadows to know it was safer not to take anything for granted.
And while being safe wasn’t usually my priority, I had Lilah to think about now, and fuck if I was going to let anything happen to her.
My breath caught as I watched her walk toward the cliff, her hair flaring gold in the sunlight. It blew around her shoulders as she approached the edge, her hips moving under the baggie hoodie she’d worn with black jeans on the plane.
I hated that as much as I wanted to protect her — as much as I wanted to give her the fuckingworld— I also wanted to fuck her.
To fuckingpossessher. For real this time.
And I had no right — no fucking right — to want that from her.
“There are stairs,” she said, walking back toward us. “To the beach.”
She seemed almost excited for the first time since our fight at the house.
“Better get your suit,” Nolan said.
“Can we look at the house?” she asked.
She was like a kid at Disneyland, and I wondered if she’d ever even had a vacation. I was overwhelmed with the desire to take her everywhere, show her everything, introduce her to the world she’d been missing while she’d been fighting for her life all these years.
Jude threw an arm over her shoulder. “Let’s go, boss.”
I envied the fuck out of him. Nolan too. The way they could own their mistakes, the words that seemed to come so easy to them when they talked to Lilah, like they weren't haunted by the past at all, like the ghosts in their head weren’t so loud they drowned out everything in the here and now.
I blamed Sandoval. Or more accurately, I blamed myself for idolizing Sandoval, and that blame prevented me from letting go of what had happened in the military. We’d joined to make upfor what we’d done to Lilah and had ended up being part of yet more fucked-up shit.
How the fuck was I supposed to move on from all we’d done, let alone forgive myself for it? And if I couldn’t forgive myself, I sure as fuck didn’t expect Lilah to forgive me.
I watched as she took Nolan’s hand and walked toward the white house we’d rented. Jude was with them, the three of them talking easily, like the past had never happened at all.
But it had. I knew it had just like I knew I’d never — not in a million years — be able to make up for it.
I couldn’t do that, but I could do something else. I could do this for Lilah: bring her to Folegandros, figure out what the fuck was going on with Vic and Mr. Suit and the girls.
Lilah wanted to know. And she didn’t know it, but for Lilah?
Well, for Lilah I’d do fucking anything.
51
LILAH
My room wassmall but it had a killer view and glass doors that led right out to the patio, which looked like it hovered over the ocean but had stairs that descended to a pool area.
I didn’t care at all that it was sparsely furnished, with a simple bed covered in lightweight linens, a worn wood desk, a wardrobe, and a small dresser. I’d packed light and it took me all of ten minutes to put my clothes in the dresser, my laptop on the desk, and my few toiletries in the small but private bathroom attached to my room.
I sat at the desk and looked out over the ocean, hardly believing I was in Greece. I’d never even dreamed I’d be able to take a vacation, let alone travel overseas, and the Bastards had paid to get me an expedited passport.
The long flight had been comfortable thanks to the private plane the Bastards had chartered for the trip (I was starting to think they were truly loaded) and I’d felt surprisingly refreshed when we’d landed in Santorini, the closest island to Folegandros.
After that we’d taken a boat to Folegandros and picked up the rental car for the drive to the house.
I thought about Imperium Fratrum and the people behind it. Were they here on the island? Was that why Detective Rodriguez had mentioned it? The island obviously had some kind of connection to the missing girls in and around Blackwell Falls, but I was still shocked the guys had agreed to come.
I was guessing guilt had something to do with it, but at this point, I didn’t really care.
We were here. That was what mattered.