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Fuuuuuck. His twin was still alive? Noah’s heart pounded so hard, he thought it would break out of his chest, and his emotions were all over the place. In that moment, he couldn’t have told someone which way was up and which was down.
“All the more reason you should have fucking told me about him before.”
Lily lifted her head from his shoulder. “What? How could I have told you? I didn’t know.”
His brow furrowed as he looked at her, but then he realized he’d spoken his words to his lion out loud. “No, that wasn’t directed at you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I was talking to my lion.”
“What I’m gathering here is your lion remembered your past, and your brother, but he never told you.”
Exhaling heavily, he nodded as he rubbed his hand over his head. “Yeah. He said I needed to remember on my own, that he couldn’t force the memories. That it wouldn’t have had an impact if he told me since I didn’t know it for myself.”
“Maybe he was right. I know you wanted to know sooner, but—”
“Chance is still alive, Lily. My lion just said he can feel Chance’s lion. He’s out there somewhere, and I could have been looking for him this whole time.”
She sucked in a breath as her eyes went wide. “He’s alive?”
He nodded, and she immediately swung her legs over the side of the bed. Catching her arm before she could stand up, he frowned. “What are you doing?”
“I was going to get my laptop and find your twin. You obviously feel like you missed the chance to find him. No need to let more time go to waste.”
Giving her a small half-smile, he tugged her back toward him. “It doesn’t have to happen right now. It’s three in the morning. It can wait.” Hesitating, he thought hard, fighting with himself, and finally exhaled with resignation. “Actually, it should probably wait longer than that. You’re already working hard, spending almost every waking moment on the dragon case, and I don’t want to add to your load.”
Her brow twitched as she studied him. “Finding your brother is important to you, though.”
Heart heavy, he nodded. “It is. But finding those women and making sure what happened to them can’t happen to anyone else is more important. We—you—need to focus on that first.”
Eyes narrowing, she cocked her head, continuing to watch him closely. “Are you sure it’s not because you’re stalling?”
He huffed a laugh, because she knew him so well already. “That might be a tiny part of it. I haven’t seen Chance since I was eight—and twenty-two years is a long time. And what if he doesn’t want to be found? I doubt he lost his memory like I did. Which means there’s a reason he hasn’t tried to find me. Honestly, though, it’s mostly because I think we need to focus on the case. It’s time sensitive, and those women could be hurt if we don’t find them. Finding my brother can wait.”
Laying back down, he held his arms out to her. She exhaled lightly, giving in and snuggling in next to him, her head on his chest.
“Okay. But once this case is solved and the women are safe, I won’t let you keep stalling. Just remember that.”
Nodding, he pressed a kiss to her head. He was secretly hoping for just that. He wanted to find Chance, he really did. Bu
t he knew himself well enough to know he’d keep stalling if she wasn’t there to push him. He wanted her to keep on him about finding him.
Chance. His brother, his identical twin—his missing piece.
Chapter Sixteen
Lily took a bite of her sandwich, her eyes flicking between laptops. She’d managed to break into the last of the files that morning, and in one of them was a ton of paperwork. She was trying to sift through it all to find the important stuff. Some had addresses on it, and a little digging revealed they were Fernandez’s real estate holdings.
She’d already ruled out a lot of the properties as places the Enforcers should look for the women at. Some of them were legit businesses owned by Fernandez, and some just didn’t feel like what she was looking for. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but in her gut, they didn’t feel right.
Her laptop dinged, and she looked over to find the finished results of the search on the mansion in Idaho. She probably hadn’t needed to run it through again, since Fernandez, Damara, and his men had all cleared out, but she wanted to make sure all loose ends were tied.
Eyes widening, she leaned in. The property had just come up on the market. Fernandez was selling it. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her—she hadn’t thought he’d return, based on having an auction that let others know that location. But she hadn’t considered that he’d sell it, either.
Another tab she had running in the background started flashing and she glanced around, her eyes landing on Noah, standing at the bar as he talked to Luke and Tarun. Seeing that he was occupied, she clicked on the tab, frowning at what she found.
She wasn’t sure how shifters did a lot of things, but she knew they had identification. They had to, to live in a human world. But there were no matches for a Chance Benson anywhere, and the program she used was thorough. No address, no bills, nothing. She’d found a birth certificate, but that was it.
The plus side was that she hadn’t found a death certificate. But finding no record of him at all was presenting a challenge she hadn’t expected.
She wasn’t going to give up, though. She was determined to find him.
