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Jealous?
But she was a Belrose.
Here I was talking about goddamn jealousy when she could easily be chop—
“Do you think they’ll make us hand over weapons?” Keira asked, offering amuch neededescape from the wilderness of my imagination.
What was I evendoing?
“I don’t think weapons would help us anyway,” I said, peering out the car window at the building in front of us.
From the outside, it was just a beautifully modern home set into the cliff, but if I knew as much as I thought I did… the placement was a tactical decision, and the size was deceiving, the outside of the structure designed in a way to provide camouflage.
My theory was proven correct when we were directed down a detour from the main driveway, down a hill to an entrance that looked much more like what I would expect from Alicia.
“Welcome to campus,” the woman herself greeted us at the wide, likely bulletproof, glass doors of the entry. “Thanks, Ros, D,” she told the duo guarding the front doors before she gestured for us to follow her.
The trip through the building was quiet, giving me the chance to take it all in. She’d called it a campus, and even though we were indoors, itdidactually give more of a community vibe than I’d expected, as intimidating as they all seemed. We passed through an open seating area where a few people were scattered, having breakfast from a large, noisy kitchen, passed by offices with the doors open while the occupants worked, a huge open gym area.
Everybody got a warm greeting from Alicia as she passed, a major shift from my most vivid encounter with her. I’d seen her since then on brief occasions, but the memory of her hemming me up inReveriethe day I had ignorantly asked about theRoseswas always at the forefront of my mind.
“So,” she said once we were finally seated in what seemed to be her personal office. Most of the wall was consumed by a large picture window with a gorgeous view of the canyons. “Have we foundanythingelse yet?”
“No,” Keira spoke up, when I couldn’t seem to make my mouth work. “We’ve even checked with the neighbors. Any exterior cameras with a view of the street were scrambled.”
“So whoever did this… this wasn’t a whim,” Alicia mused. “There had to be some planning.”
“Actually, ithadto be on the fly.” We both looked at Keira, who shrugged. “Tati, you basically defied a lockdown order. You weren’t supposed to be at home, let alone have Nyx there with you,” she explained.
“She’s right,” Alicia nodded. “Either someone was watching and waiting, or we’ve got a mole, someone saw y’all leave and made a call. You have access to phone records, right?”
“Teo can get them,” I said, then gestured to Keira, who was already on her feet to step out and make that call. “I want to say I can’t believe we’d have a mole withPredatorink, but after Kev… who the hell knows?”
“Damn near anybody is capable of the unexpected, but… Tati, look me in my face and tell me youreallythought Kev was a good guy.”
I sucked my teeth. “Don’t get me lying on that motherfucker,” I scoffed. “I wasn’t dealing with him for his character. And I got bit in the ass for dealing with a rabid dog instead of putting it down. But… shit,” I breathed, dropping my face into my hands. “I’m not sure I’ve learned from the mistake yet.”
“That’s a reference to Nyx?” Alicia asked, and I nodded, not looking up. “Nyx isn’t Kev, Ipromiseyou,” she said. “And I don’t speak on men’s behalf lightly. He’s… troubled. And broken. Which a lot of men would use as an excuse to be hell for anyone they encountered. There are motherfuckers out here doing that with a lot less reasons,” she huffed. “But Nyx… is much more human, much more worthy, than he thinks. He just needs an opportunity to lean into that. And I’m afraid he hasn’t had nearly enough.”
I pushed out a sigh, finally looking up from my hands to meet her gaze. “Why do y’all always talk around what happened to you inTheGarden? It’s like you’re always speaking in code.”
Alicia gave a soft chuckle. “Sorry. Part of it is… it’s just… it’s not really the kind of thing you talk openly about in ‘polite’ company.”
“Predatorsare never polite company,” I told her, making her grin.
She nodded. “I’m noticing. But more than that… it’s all just fucking traumatic. A lot of it, a lot of the details, we just truly don’t remember. By design. Because some of it would probably drive us insane. Nyx, though… he wasn’t given that gift of forgetting. His mother was a lovely young actress and singer, Saanvi, who the Belrose men, both Renard and Etienne, took an inappropriate liking to. But men like them, they never care. They competed for her attention. She was polite in her rejection at first, but of course, they only got more aggressive. And so, she had to return that aggression. Which… I’m sure I don’t have to explain how that went.”
I shook my head. “I can guess.”
“Right. They made her life hell, even while she was pregnant with Nyx. They terrorized her. Made it impossible for her to continue her career, ruined her reputation. Eventually, she couldn’t take anymore, and they gave her a choice; a chance to leave the private hell they’d placed her in with nothing, but she would at least be free. She took it.”
A heavy, leaden feeling rolled over in my stomach. “What did it cost?”
“Nyx. She left him atThe Garden.”
Shit.
What kind of…
