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Cillian is right, the fucker is smart, too smart to be this airheaded. “Stop,” I instruct. “It isn’t him.”
“How do you know?” Cil pants, his knuckles split as the man groans at his feet.
“It’s another dead end, a lead, nothing more. He knew we would follow it. He wanted us to. He’s taunting us,” I muse. “It’s what I would do, watch you run around and laugh.”
Crouching before him, I dig my fingers into his broken nose. “The package, who gave it to you?”
“The box?” he cries, and I release his nose as I nod. “Some weirdo. He gave me two hundred bucks to drop it off so I did. Why? What did the freak do? Fuck, I should have known. It was in the eyes, you know?”
“Describe him,” Cillian demands. “The freak. Where did he meet you? Give us the money he gave you.”
“I spent it,” he says. I stab my finger into his broken nose again and he yells, “But I can tell you what he looks like!”
“You have exactly sixty seconds,” I warn him.
“Glasses, brown eyes. Short, probably like six feet. Uh, brown—no, black hair, cut short. Dude looked like a professor or some shit, was in a suit with a waistcoat and a fucking pocket watch.”
“We need more. Tattoos? Did you see a car? A name? Anything.” That could describe hundreds of people in this city. We need something, anything.
“No, I’m sorry. He approached me outside of the bar I got kicked out of for trying to um, well, steal money. Offered me some bills to deliver a package. I knew I should have said n—”
“Which bar?” I demand.
“O’Donnell’s over on Ridgemont.”
Standing, I look down at him in disgust. “If he comes back to you again, call this number.”
“Of course.”
Cillian peels off some bills and drops them on him as we walk away.
I send a text to Raff to get into the cameras—that is, if there are any around there.
Raff: Will do.
Raff: Reign is waking up and asking where you both are.
“She’s awake and asking for us,” I tell Cil.
“Time to go home.” I hate going empty-handed, but she’s more important.
She has to be.
FIFTY-ONE
Imanaged to get some sleep, but now my head pounds from a mix of alcohol, lack of sleep, and shock, so Astro convinces me to stay in bed. I curl into his side as Raff works on his laptop. Eventually, Dal and Cillian come back. I don’t comment on the blood on Cillian’s knuckles, and I don’t ask.
I know where they were, and I can’t even say I’m sorry—not when they join us and I feel whole and safe since the first time I woke up.
Cuddled into Dal’s chest, with Raff Jr. draped across me, I watch the subtitles of the news report.“Police were called in the early morning to rock star Reign Harrow’s house once more. You might have remembered a week or so ago that there was a break-in. Well, it seems there has been another incident. Could this be a coincidence, or does Reign Harrow have an obsessed fan? So far, there have been no comments from her management or Reign herself, but we hope everyone is okay.”
Turning it off, I push up. “I need a bath to wash the feeling off,” I mumble.
“Beck called this morning to check on you. I told her you would call her back,” Raff says softly.
“Thank you.” I kiss his head as I pad into his bathroom, adding salt and bubbles to the water that he’s started to keep for me. As the tap runs, I lean back into Cillian who follows me in, and he wraps his arms around me.
“Are you okay?” we ask at the same time, making us laugh.
