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A different side of her comes out when she’s with her mother. Her voice is lower, and her gaze softer. She moves slowly as though her mother might get scared. But above all else, Savannah seeps love and care when around Pheobe.
Unlike Savannah, Pheobe’s eyes are a dark, ugly shade of brown, veering on the edge of being black. They pierce through me every time they land on me – like right now. Hatred lives in her for me, no matter how hard I try to convince her otherwise.
“It’s a death sentence,” she calmly states. “You will have to kill me before you hurt my daughter.”
My fingers twitch in my trouser pocket. She has no idea I would happily kill her before the cancer does. Her mother is the only potential hazard to my relationship with Savannah.
I know better than to voice any of this, though. I smile at her the very same way I did to Caitlyn’s family. “I assure you, Ms Hayes, I have no intention of hurting her.”
It doesn’t work.
Her eyebrows lift in surprise before she lets out a breathy laugh. “Men only know how to hurt. You are selfish creatures who only care for yourselves.”
“Mum…” Savannah pleads. She gently forces her mum to look away from me to her. “How’s treatment going?”
Neither women looks or speaks to me for the next thirty minutes. I stand in the corner of the room as they discuss her treatment plan andmydaughter. Elise sits on Savannah’s lap, too occupied with her fingers to care about anything else. As she gets fussy, I step forward to take her, but Savannah rocks her, and she settles.
This whole situation fuels my irritation.
I lead Ray into the living room. I pour us some whiskey before taking a seat. “I wasn’t expecting you. Is everything okay?”
He sips his drink and looks around the room. “Where’s Savannah?”
Out.She’s always out. Out with her friends. Out for a walk. Out to run errands. She’s always everywhere buthere.
“She likes to take Elise for a walk in the park.”
Ray slowly nods before shrugging his shoulders. Before I can ask to share his thoughts, he speaks. “I found Mr Hunter.”
I would be surprised if he couldn’t. It had to be easy to find the fake Elliot stationed in Bali. The real Elliot Hunter was too stupid to know how to go underground.
I sip my drink. “Good.”
He nods. “Yeah. It was easy,” he gloats. “Makes me wonder if it was too easy.”
“The man isn’t on the run,” I remind him bluntly. “Why would he need to hide?”
Ray runs his thumb around the ring of his glass. “So why couldn’t you find him? Didn’t Savannah ask you to contact him when he first left?”
Fucking Savannah and her loose lips.
“I didn’t look for him,” I admit. “I didn’t want him back in her life. The last time she spoke to him, he threatened her safety, and I wasn’t about to have that happen again, especially while she was pregnant with my baby.”
He holds the sip of whiskey in his mouth as he contemplates my argument. He nods as he swallows. “What would you like me to do?”
I stare at the wall ahead as I pretend to think. I already know how this move ends – with my fake Elliot refusing to return. “Make contact with him. Tell him the contract has been nulled. He can return to the country and resume his relationship with Savannah.”
Ray looks surprised at my offer. “You’re going to let her go?”
I smile at my friend. “She’s not my prisoner. And perhaps, he can help her in ways we can’t.”
He places his glass down on the table. “What makes you say that?”
I sigh. “She’s not the same girl I met in the coffee shop. Maybe that girl was just a front for who lives inside. She’s paranoid and obsessive.”
Ray frowns. “Those are heavy words to throw around, Zav.”
I cross my leg over my knee. “She asked Eddie from our tech team how to hide her electronic footprints.”
