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“They were something back in the day,” he offers. “This was probably the servants’ quarters, and that was the servants’ staircase.”
He gestures to the stairwell we just came down.
“It gets better,” he tells me.
Bidding me to follow, he moves across the kitchen, around the fireplace, to one of the hallways I saw. We stop, looking ahead to the door flapping in the breeze, the dry leaves of the walled-in back yard blowing just outside.
Ground-level entry. Unsecured door. No knob.Great.
I move toward it.
“Granted, it wouldn’t be hard to get in the front door if they really wanted to get to you,” Hawke says behind me.
“But someone using this entrance will use it when they don’t want witnesses,” I add, his concern heard even without him saying.
“Assume the worst,” he repeats what he already trained me to know years ago.
I squat down and remove a shoelace from my sneaker. Slipping it through the hole for the doorknob, I pull the door closed as tightly as I can and secure the shoelace around a nail jutting from just inside the door.
I back up, satisfied it’s shut, and turn, seeing Hawke look at me like I’m an idiot.
“Hunter is next door,” I point out. “And this was all here long before me.”
I walk past him, into the servants’ kitchen, and toward the stairs.
“What makes you think I won’t tell your parents that you’re living here unsupervised,” he goes on, “next door to one of Ciaran’s safe houses?”
Safe houses?
Now it makes sense. Hunter’s grandfather owning that house is why Hunter stays there. His parents probably believe Ciaran is there all the time.
Hawke goes on, “And sleeping in probably the same bed where the last Pirate slept before she was murdered?” We climb the steps. “This entire situation feels…”
We come back into the upstairs kitchen, and I hear him quietly grunt as he searches for a word.
“Rapey?” I offer.
“Yeah, rapey.”
I turn to face him. “Because if you ruin this for me—when I will undoubtedly ruin it all on my own just fine—I will tell Hunter all about Carnival Tower.” I smile. “And its location. He’s family. He should know. It won’t be my fault if he tells the Rebels.”
“You brat.” He pinches his eyebrows together. “You wouldn’t.”
I offer a contrite look. “I would hate myself a little, Hawke, but gosh, it would make tonight fun, wouldn’t it?”
And I bat my eyelashes twice.
He arches a brow, tipping his chin up. “I guess you’ve kept all of my secrets.”
“I’ve helped you and Aro hide from thepolice.”
“Yeah, all right,” he spits out.
“Stand by me, not in front of me.”
“All right,” he growls.
I grab the lemonade and take another drink, really damn grateful for my overbearing cousin. Thanks to him, I now have dinner, clothes, a spare phone, and money.
