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24
Trouble
Cy
“Youfuckin’withme? You want to bring who inna this shit?” My voice booms around the living room. So much so that Kieran cowers with his hands over his ears on the couch. I grab the headset off the coffee table as I make my way over to him.
“Sorry, kid. Didn’t mean to get so loud.” Fiddling with the headphones, I extend my arm, presenting my offering to him. He looks up at me with those big eyes of his, and I smile. Grabbing the headphones, he races off with the dog at his heels.
There’s defeat in the sigh I push out.
They’re all idiots if they think we’re doing this.
“Cy, consider for a moment…” I appreciate Ember trying to get me to calm down, but they’re really not helping. My frustration is justified, and I’m not ready to let it go yet.
“No, we’re not considering shit, Ember.”
We all gathered in the living room after the two lovers finally emerge from the girl’s bedroom. Everyone’s well aware of what went on in there. Kieran was even sequestered to Ember’s workroom while the two worked whatever the fuck they needed to get out of their systems.
They both seem happier though, and I envy it a bit.
Not that they were happy, but that the guy is the reason. Hard as it is to admit, there is a part of me that’s jealous. After the months she’s lived under our roof, not once has she smiled the way she does when she looks at her friend. Lover?
Whatever the fuck it is, it’s complicated. I don’t do complicated.
“We already been through this with him,” I growl, gesturing to her friend. “It’s too much of a security risk bringing in more people. Not strangers and ’specially not cops.”
I look over at the others, and the girl’s expression nearly flattens me.
She’s put up a damn strong front. Takes everything I throw at her and never complains. But she’s been going through the motions. I see it every time I’m with her. She does what she’s told, what she’s pushed to do, and not of her own will. More like she seems directionless, and it’s easier to follow than lead.
But she is a leader. She needs to find her fight.
The look she gives me holds the same brokenness from when she arrived. Gone is the content expression from earlier.
I look at Ember, hoping to clear the suffocating feeling building in my chest. No luck there. They’re as wrapped around Juliana’s finger as the rest of us.
Fuck.
The girl walks over and sits across from me. My gaze travels from the hand she’s placed on my thigh up to meet her eyes.
“Cy.” When she says my name like that? Fuck me. “You saw him. He cares about me. I don’t think he’s the bad guy here.”
Remembering the look on the man’s face from our rescue mission right before we left… yeah, the guy is smitten. She’s probably right about that.
But a cop?
I don’t know how to trust that. No matter how good of a guy he might seem. Doesn’t even matter he probably saved us a lot of trouble getting her out.
Like a coward, I pull away and rise to escape the girl’s gravitational pull.
“Sage, even you gotta see how bad of an idea this is,” I say.
“I’ve met Griffin a couple of times. He works for my husband.” She looks to Juliana, whose expression crumbles before us, then forces her attention back to me. “I never knew he was a cop. He’s been loyal to Arrick.”
Vindicated, I turn around to see Juliana withdrawing. My resolve crumbles as the whispers of doubt in the back of my mind come forward.
“It’s been over two months since this all started. Nothing’s happened since. It will be fine. Look, if you’re worried, then you go with Jay. Oversee everything,” Ember says, caving.
