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My phone starts ringing so I pull it out of my back pocket. The screen display says my landlord is calling.
Shit.
I thought I had longer until I had to decide what to do. How did he find out? Does he have a secret radar for when one of his tenants goes broke?
I answer the call. “Hello?”
“Ms. Willson, this is your landlord. I’m just calling to let you know I received the large sum covering your rent for the next six months. It’s very unorthodox, but appreciated.”
What?
“Oh, I don’t think that was me. Sorry for the confusion, I actually needed to talk to you about-”
“Well no it wasn’t from you. It came through from a Mr. Blaze Varon. I’m looking at it here and there’s a note to, uh, keep it anonymous. So, don’t tell on me. Anyways, talk again in six months.”
He hangs up on me.
Did Blaze pay for my rent? For six months. Six months of rent are covered by Blaze. This doesn’t make any sense.
He’s out with Aksel on stakeout right now, so I can’t confront him. I will be as soon as he gets home.
I put that behind me and head down to Rion.
He’s smiling when I reach the bottom and flick the light on. Griffyn and Felix know about my trips down here and only asked me to make sure one of them is home. Griffyn has softened towards Rion just enough to be okay with it.
I have to wait until Aksel is out of the house or he’ll freak out. I can picture him locking me out somehow and I’ve grown to like talking to Rion too much to let that happen.
“Hey,” I say.
He keeps looking worse every time I see him. His skin is almost translucent. Aksel said he was feeding him, but it was clearly not enough.
“You look concerned,” Rion says.
I move closer until I’m sitting a foot in front of him. He can’t reach me with his chains on. I trust him, but Killian’s influence is still in him and I know firsthand how out of control that can make someone.
“You look starving.”
“I’m fine. Tell me about your day.”
He keeps asking me simple questions like he just wants to know what my life is like. It’s so obvious he wants to know me and it makes me feel so special. I want to know him too. When I can’t come down here to see him, I miss him.
“It was boring. We are getting somewhere with the weaver search though. I can’t wait until we can let you out of here,” I tell him.
“Me too. Do you think when that happens, you’ll let me stick around?”
He looks so young with his sheepish expression. It shouldn’t be possible with someone so old.
“Yeah, if you want to, I want you to,” I confess.
We never talk about the future, only about what’s going on in my life. He refuses to share much of his and I don’t know if that’s him or the magic at work.
I don’t want him to go away until I have a chance to sort through the tangled web of our relationship.
“I’ll be here as long as you want me,” he whispers, making me smile. “Tell me more about your day. Start with what you had for breakfast and go from there.”
“Toast with butter and orange juice. It was a slow morning. I’m missing work as I’m just sitting around doing nothing all day. I understand why I can’t be there, but I’m still not happy about it.”
“That makes sense. Can I ask what happened to being an editor? You were studying English back… before.” He sounds awkward talking about the past.
