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Bow Reed was sitting on my bed, beaming, but she stopped when she saw me. She stood. “Sloane?”
I suppose she’d been asked to be here like the other Legacy boys. I could assume anyway.
God, they all really do care.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” she said, looking around. She put her hands together. “I asked if I could stay the night. Is that okay?”
It was more than okay, but I couldn’t seem to find the words. I just wanted to cry, finally cry, and she came over.
She didn’t say a word, and when she saw my tears, she hugged me, her little body just holding me, which probably looked hilarious. I was so much taller than her.
“It’s okay,” she said, letting me sob into her hair. She touched mine. “Is there anything I can do?”
She was already doing it.
She just didn’t know it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dorian
“Yeah, I can get you what you need.” Thatcher swiveled around in the computer chair, legs stamped out, fingers folded. He opened his hands. “But why are you asking me to.”
Hacking into any database wasn’t a thing for my friend, not at his level of technological experience. Knowing the ins and outs of how online security worked from his dad’s security company gave him that, so getting access to a few digital records wouldn’t be an issue.
But of course, that wasn’t why he was looking at me the way he was now.
Pushing the sleeves of my academy jacket up, I leaned forward. “You and I both know justice hasn’t been served.” I nodded. “I need to know any and all players involved in Noa’s case.”
I was aware the parents were conducting their own investigations surrounding Sloane’s kidnapping. They could do that, and what I was doing wouldn’t interfere with it. I just needed my own answers.
I needed my own closure.
Thatcher shifted weight between his feet, his chair moving. I’d caught him and the tech lab in a rare moment where either him or Wells weren’t boning a chick. In Wells’s case, I usually caught him with dudes more. He’d been hooking up with a couple teammates recently, guys who were closeted and weren’t as in touch with their sexuality as himself. I was pretty sure his hookups both knew about the other, but who knew. Thatcher and Wells tended to go through them, Ares too but not as of late. He’d had his mind on other things.
Gone, obviously, were those days for me, long gone, and I got nothing but Thatcher’s sigh in front of me.
“And what will that do for you besides drive you fucking crazing?” He had his jacket draped over the computer desk, and he pushed his arms through it. Leaving the collar popped, he crossed his arms. “I think you’re channeling, my guy. Things are fucking shit right now, and you’re needing something to control.”
My friend thought he knew me, didn’t he?
Thatcher frowned. “Of course, I can get you Sloane’s adoption records.” Thatcher clicked around, putting the monitor in front of him to sleep. “I can, but I don’t see the point.”
He didn’t see one, but I did.
“I mean, what are you going to do?” he asked. “Hunt every fucker down that had anything to do with Sloane’s kidnapping? It’s crazy.”
I didn’t ask for his opinion, and what I did or did not do with the records had nothing to do with him. “I need to know who was involved in this. You can’t just adopt a kid who’s been kidnapped without knowing a few people.” And if those people were out there, they needed to be found. “Noa deserves justice.”
“Yeah, she does. I agree.” He threw fingers through the dark wave that normally fell over his eyes. He let go, and it sprung back, earrings in both his ears today. “But we both know that’s not what this is about. You’re going stir-fucking-crazy because you haven’t talked to her, and now, you’re asking me to do shit I don’t want to do.”
I didn’t like what he had to say.
I didn’t like even more that he was right.
I hadn’t talked to Sloane, but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. She had so much more shit to deal with right now, and as far as us… us…
I needed this right now, and I needed him to help me. I needed to feel fucking useful for once instead of the fuck up I was and continued to be in her life. “I need less of your opinions right now and more of your help.”
