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He came at me while I was still sitting on the bed, and bent down to kiss my lips.
I closed my eyes. The kiss was different from the last one. Relaxed, calmer. Tender.
He stopped and looked at my eyes.
“Ya lyublyu tebya.”
My heart raced. The words, I didn’t understand, but the quiet, serious way he said them told me exactly what he meant: he loved me.
My mind froze. Brandon had said the same thing. Now Raven.
And then I remembered: he didn’t know about Blake. He didn’t know about Axel.
“Raven,” I said quietly.
There was a knock at the door.
I gulped, eyes widening.
Raven stood and went to the door. He peered out, cursed, and then opened the door.
I stood up, ready to bolt if it was the lady.
It was Corey with Henry. Corey was in the same black clothes, only clean of smears. Henry was in jeans and a black sweater. His short dark hair was mussed, as if he’d been running around.
Henry had Corey by the shoulder and shoved him inside.
Corey lowered his head sheepishly.
“What the hell is going on here?” Henry said, pointing at Raven and then at me. “Things have gotten way out of hand.”
Raven took one look at Corey and then turned back to Henry, making fists and looking like he was about to hit him. Possibly because he had a hold of Corey and he was accusing us. Or Raven didn’t know him from anyone else on this ship. Maybe he thought Henry was with Sam.
“Wait!” I said and rushed toward Henry, blocking him from Raven. “No, he’s from your Academy.”
“Yeah,” Corey said, going to Raven, putting a hand over one of his fists and holding on to it. “Don’t. It’s my fault. He knew something was up when I said we should look for Blake. I had to tell him about you.”
Raven seemed to unclench. A little.
“How did you know we were here?” I asked Henry.
“Followed you,” he said. “Figured you were down in the engine rooms if we couldn’t find you upstairs after searching all night. What did you tell that bald guy? And why is he trying so hard to get out of Sam who this investor is?”
Had they managed to get their radios back up?
Maybe we’d given Baldy too much credit. “We might have told him we’d get rid of Sam and let him become the prostitute boss on board if he could help us find who the investor is.”
Henry lifted a hand to his face, and I couldn’t help but notice the ring, the same gold, same very plain style that was on Liam’s finger. “We don’t make deals with people like that. Don’t you remember any of your Academy training?”
“We do what we have to,” Raven said flatly. He was still glaring but had relaxed his fists. “And she’s not Academy.”
“You can’t do it like this.” Henry waved toward the door. “We can’t give him what he wants. And now he’s making an idiot of himself down there. There’s a reason he was the muscle and not the brain.”
“We’re not stupid,” Raven said.
“He didn’t say that,” Corey said and planted a palm on Raven’s chest. He looked Raven in the eye. “But we can’t stay any longer. We need to leave. All of us. She’s exposed now. She’s got a concussion, and she can’t keep running around like this. It won’t take long for Sam to realize what this guy is up to. Then we’re done for.”
My heart sank. The risk we’d taken to try to get to the bottom of the investor’s identity might have created a big problem. I checked in with Raven, but it was clear that since he wasn’t arguing, he believed Corey to be right. He trusted him enough to listen.
“We can stay here for a minute,” Henry said. “And we should hide out somewhere until dark. We have to get out of here before they come after all of us. We can take one of the life rafts.”
It burned through me they were willing to tuck tail and run at this point. Maybe I also didn’t want to admit we had jumped the gun talking to Baldy. “We shouldn’t just run now,” I said.
Raven turned to me, reaching for my hand and holding it. “We have time, but we should plan an escape. Just in case. We probably shouldn’t stay on this boat any longer than we have to. We can’t trust Sam and his people. Once we find out who this investor is, we should really back off. If we spook him, he might run.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Neither did anyone else.
Corey turned to me, looking at my face and touching my cheek. “You okay?”
“Memory is shit,” Raven said for me. “I repeat myself a lot.”
It didn’t seem so bad to me, but it did worry me that he’d noticed, so maybe it was worse than I thought. “Is this going to keep happening?”
“It might,” Corey said, frowning. He checked out my pupils, felt my forehead with his palm. “But Henry’s right. It’ll only get worse the more you run around, and the stress doesn’t help. It might become permanent if you keep going.”
I lowered my head, wondering if the damage wasn’t already done. I couldn’t remember things. My brain was in a fog. There was no way I’d stay steps ahead of Sam or the investor like this.
Corey wrapped his arms around my shoulders, drawing me in for a gentle hug. “Come on, don’t look like that. You’ll get better.”
I pressed my cheek to his chest and sniffed. I breathed in his warmth and felt his strong arms around me.
Raven came up behind me, brushing a hand over my head and then my shoulders. “We’ve got you,” he said in hushed tones. “My little thief doesn’t let something like this get in the way. You’ll come home with us. We’ll fix everything. All of us.”
Raven had said he loved me. I felt it now.
I swallowed the emotion in my throat. I was tired and stressed. They had been right from the start. We hadn’t had time to prepare, thrust into a situation by Blake’s eagerness. I didn’t blame him. It had seemed like a good idea on the outside. We had just pushed things too far too quickly, exposing ourselves.
“Wait,” Henry said. He was standing by the door and had been looking out the peephole. He turned, arms across his chest, and leaned with his back against the door. He looked at Raven, watched as he touched me and then raised an eyebrow. “You know about…about…” His face shifted to annoyance. “Sorry, I’m going to be blunt here. You’re okay with her being romantic with the other guys?”
Not exactly what Raven had been talking about, but maybe he hadn’t been fully listening until that last part.
Raven turned from me, eyebrow raised. “Yeah.”
“You knew? Have you been listening?” He waved his hand. “Sorry, I don’t mean…I’m not trying to be nosy. I was just wondering if you’d been able to hear us.”
Raven frowned. “Not that it’s any of your business, she told us last night. We talked about it then.”
“Right,” Corey said, still holding on to me. I wanted to stand on my own, but my head was starting to throb again. “We were always on board. It took the others longer to come around.”
Henry huffed. “That’s it? Wait, no, she only told you last night, or do you mean the night she disappeared?” He looked right at my face. He didn’t seem concerned, not like Liam had been before, just surprised and curious. “Now I am being nosy. Raven, you know everything and you’re okay with this?”
I frowned and pulled myself away from Corey to look up at Raven’s face. It wasn’t the right time, perhaps, but the others knew, and he needed to also.
“I had sex with both Blake and Axel since I last saw you. I mean, since I got thrown overboard last night.” There. That was it. The last person to know.
Raven didn’t say anything. He blinked repeatedly, taking in the information, and then shrugged. “So?”
My mouth dropped open. “So? What do you mean, so?”
“We just said we were okay with it,” Raven said, looking at Corey to confirm.
Corey nodded and beamed. “Yu
p.”
Henry and I suddenly matched in our shocked expressions.
“Hold on here,” Henry said and pointed to the two of them. “I was informed that you two were into her for more than just sex.”
Raven tilted his head back and laughed. “If I wanted just sex, I would have made it happen ages before now.” He turned his back to Henry, looked me in the eye and took my hand. He kissed my knuckles. “You’re my thief, I told you.”
“And she’s my, uh, Kayli,” Corey said. “Maybe I should make up a better nickname…”
I studied them both. Too calm. Something wasn’t right. “Are you…sure?”
“There’s no way,” Henry said, putting his palm against his forehead. “No way…you all were only told yesterday that she’s been very involved with everyone, and everyone is just okay with this? It’s impossible. You even went about it all wrong.”
“What would you know about us?” Raven asked, letting go of my hand. “What right way is there?”
“I’m not asking about it for my own reasons,” Henry said and shook his head. “Actually, I was at first, but… look, the Academy won’t be happy about this.” He looked at me. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, and you probably shouldn’t hear about it, but someone has to tell them. The Academy is going to take one look at this group and try to split you up. You’re already a distraction to them.”
