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He didn’t wait for me to respond, he just let out a loud laugh and grabbed the back of my head to press a kiss to my forehead.
“Knew you would, Princess,” he called out over his shoulder as he walked away.
I turned slowly to find my way out, and bit the inside of my cheeks to hide my embarrassment when I saw other Holloway members pouring out of the room. Beck stood a few feet away with his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wall, not seeming to notice the other guys surrounding us.
From the warring looks of frustration and indecision on his face, he hadn’t known what Mickey would say, but he didn’t disagree.
“It’s not the worst idea, Lil,” he mumbled when he finally fell into step beside me once we were outside.
“What? Marrying Kieran or moving back into the house?”
“Both.”
“Did Kieran say anything to you?” I asked, slanting a glare his way. “He should’ve been in the meeting. I’ve never known him to choose sleep over work—even a meeting.”
But Beck simply shrugged. “They were gone a long time, Lil. You know he never sleeps on a job. Maybe it’s catching up with him. It was bound to after all this time, ya know? He can’t do this forever.”
Or maybe Beck was lying since he was rambling.
Even with all the lies that had come to light in the last weeks, I trusted Beck wholeheartedly. There were things he hadn’t been able to know at the time because of his loyalty to Kieran, and f
or the same reason, I knew there were things he hadn’t been able to tell me.
But while I knew Beck would never lie to me if given a choice . . . Mickey and Kieran had the power to take that choice away.
I stopped walking, a sigh bursting from me. “Beck, I can’t do this. I’ve been repeatedly hit by news that was too much to handle. I feel like as soon as I start to get the slightest grip on what I’ve learned, I get knocked back down by something else. It’s getting hard to breathe from more than the walls that close in on me here,” I said, gesturing to the guesthouse that was now only dozens of feet from us. “I know you’re lying. Just tell me so I’m not ambushed as soon as I walk into that house.”
With a firm nod, he placed a hand on my back and turned me toward the guesthouse, forcing me to continue walking. “He got back when you were in the shower. I told him what Dare found out about Teagan, and what you figured out about the meeting—but made it sound like it was something I’d come up with. He left immediately and was going to sit on Finn and Teagan’s house until Finn left. He’s gonna get her set up in a hotel, paid with cash, until she can get out of here.”
The relief I felt was so profound I felt dizzy. I hated knowing I would never see Teagan again, but I would take never seeing her over her being kidnapped and sold. Covering my mouth when I choked on a sob, I stepped onto the porch and whispered, “Thank you, Beck.”
“Don’t mention it, Lil.”
As soon as we stepped into the house, we both froze.
“This isn’t a hotel,” Beck mumbled, then hurried to shut the door and started closing all the blinds so no one would see Teagan.
“What are you doing here?” My throat was so tight my question sounded strained. “I thought they were going to hide you . . .” I stopped rushing toward her and looked around when I noticed the hard look on her face and the terrifying charge filling the house and pressing down on me.
“Tell me.”
I jumped and sucked in a gasp when his voice came from the hall.
Without making a sound, he appeared at the entrance, his face tortured. “Tell me,” he repeated.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me what she said isn’t fucking true, Lily,” he roared.
I shakily looked over my shoulder at Teagan, her face pinched with an apology, but the same betrayal and fury burned deep in her eyes.
“What did you do?” I asked, the question no more than a breath.
She lifted her chin high and clenched her jaw. “He needed to know.”
“He would’ve found out anyway, Teagan, but he shouldn’t have found out from you!”
I jumped, staggering back when a crash sounded from in front of me, and found one of the new replacement lamps shattered on the floor by the wall.
