Didn’t I leave my writing desk exactly like this? Wasn’t I drinking tea the last time I was home? Aren’t my bed sheets that same color? My quilt too?
A shudder reverberates through me. I tell myself I’m being paranoid, seeing patterns that don’t truly exist, but my spine prickles and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck straighten.
The room isn’texactlylike mine, but it’s close enough that, if someone were to describe it without seeing it, they would create this.
Fuck.
I’m losing my mind. I have to be. The alternative is too goddamn creepy to even comprehend. I don’t want to believe that Aria has been watching me, studying me, piecing together fragments of my life.
My guys continue to tear the room apart, pulling me kicking and screaming back to reality.
“Um…what are we doing?” I blink at them, wondering if they’ve collectively lost their minds. It wouldn’t surprise me, not after all the shit we’ve been through.
Beckett, who is now standing on the bed studying the three-tiered chandelier, grunts out, “Searching.”
“For your brains?” I arch an eyebrow.
Zane snorts from the bathroom. “No,princesa. Listening devices. Cameras. Anything like that.”
“We don’t have anything with us to scan,” Beckett explains. He sweeps his hand over the top of the chandelier, frowning when his fingers come away coated in dust. “And until we do, we need to make sure the room is clean of bugs and cameras.”
“Or, at least, as sure as we can be,” Dominic adds.
“Do you think it’s possible that Aria hid her little black book here? In her home?” I ask, fiddling with my glasses.
My guys all pause and exchange wary glances.
“That would be too fucking easy,” Zane says at last.
“Aria isn’t stupid,” Dominic agrees. “She won’t have it anywhere we can easily access it. She knows us too well. She has to suspect that we’ll tear this house apart searching for it.”
“And we will,” Beckett assures me. “Tear this house apart, I mean. As soon as the queen bitch leaves, we’ll go from room to room. But…”
But we probably won’t find it here.
The knowledge sits like a lead weight in my chest.
If the little black book isn’t at the place Aria considers “home,” then where would it be?
For the next two hours, my guys work diligently, meticulously, to check for these elusive bugs and cameras. I swear they tear the entire room apart.
I stand away from them, knowing I’ll only get in the way. Until a few months ago, when POP first started inserting themselves into my life, I’d been living in a bubble. A rich, privileged bubble where the worst thing that could happen to me would be breaking a nail.
Or cutting, though I don’t like to think about that time, when the darkness became too much, too oppressive, and I thought there was no escaping.
Almost absently, I run a finger across the mutilated skin of my wrist. The wounds have healed, technically, but they’ll never go away. My body will always wear the scars of the lowest point of my life.
“You should change, love.” Beckett’s accented voice sounds from directly beside my ear, startling me. His breath fans across my neck in a way that elicits a fresh round of goose bumps.
“Change?” I ask, somewhat dazed. It’s only then I realize I’m still dressed in the god-awful cloak that all Paragons of Prosperity members are required to wear. At least I’m no longer wearing the mask.
Nodding, I duck into the bathroom—which Zane cheerfully declared is “clear of creepy, crawly, mechanical bugs”—and pull off the cloak, tossing it on the floor. Fuck that shit.
I don’t have any pajamas to wear here, and I sure as hell am not going to wear any of the clothes in the armoire, so I settle for straightening out the outfit I have on. The gray sweater dress isn’t exactly comfortable, but it’s better than nothing.
Though the thought of wearing “nothing” when three of my guys are just out the door…
Heat crawls up my neck, and I quickly turn on the faucet, lowering my hands to cup some water. I splash it on my cheeks, but that does little to dispel the inferno in my lower belly.