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Hayat: I’m gonna puke.
Hayat: I need you.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
vaughn
Fucking Daria.
She thought she was untouchable. That she could have Polina sneak into my systems without my noticing. She kept forgetting that she was the one who taught me all the fucked-up shit I knew. Daria’s twisted mind that had been warped by her jealous rage toward Anya was what had tempered me into steel.
Walking Abi to her room, I kissed her quickly before hurrying back to my rental. Leaving her was the last thing I wanted to do, but while my surrogate mothers were trying to peek around my security, I needed Abi where she would be safe. That wasn’t my house. There were too many traps that she could unknowingly trigger that would hurt her.
It took most of the night, but I was able to turn Daria around enough that it should take her weeks to realize that the intel she was looking at was false. By then, she’d have my bullet in her skull. She would be dealt with before Abi even knew if she was carrying my child. I wouldn’t risk my woman or our child where that suka was concerned.
Unless she’d just been fucking around to distract me.
To reassure myself, I checked all of Abi’s cameras. But even as I loaded the feeds on to my laptop, I found something that brought a hint of a smile to my lips.
Samara was placing a camera outside Abi’s dorm room door. Mine was right in front of her, but she didn’t notice it. I’d designed the little device myself. It wasn’t on the market yet, but I owned the patent under one of my aliases. Cybersecurity was a lucrative business, one Polina had taught me the ins and outs of. She’d been a decent hacker until she took the bullet in the back that cost her the mobility of her legs. Afterward, she became one of the best in the world. Untraceable by anyone. Except me.
There was a very short list of people who were as good as I was. Mieke Carmichael was number two on the list. Something that was oddly ironic since Mieke did side work for a member of Abi’s honorary family, Emmie Armstrong and, more recently, a brother in the Angel’s Halo MC, Jack Hannigan.
My sister was not the average person when it came to anything. If I only had one choice of who to be back-to-back with in a war, it would be Samara. But she needed to work on certain skills.
I’d have to teach her a few things. If nothing else, it would make Abi happy if the two of us got along. That I wanted to spend time with my sister had little to do with it.
Seeing the time, I frowned and zoomed in on the camera over Abi’s bed. It was past the time she would have left for her run, but she was still curled up in bed, her covers pulled up to her shoulders.
With Daria’s bullshit distracting me all night, I hadn’t watched Abi like I normally would have when I was at the rental. None of her alarms had been triggered, so I’d assumed she’d gone to bed. I’d missed her all night. Even as I was locking things down, sending Daria and Polina down different rabbit holes, the ache inside me had only gotten worse without her near.
Hitting rewind on the feed over Abi’s bed, I kept the other cameras live to ensure she remained safe. When I got to the moment she’d walked into her room after I left her, I hit play.
For a few moments, Abi did nothing but stand by the door. From this angle, I couldn’t see her face very well, but something about the set of her shoulders unsettled me.
She finally moved to the bed. Kicking off the yoga pants she’d put back on before leaving the house, she slid beneath the covers and turned over so her back was to the camera. For a little while, she texted her friend Hayat—at least, that was my guess. I couldn’t read the screen. I had her phone mirrored on one of my own, but I was too focused on watching her to read through the conversation she seemed to be having.
She texted the curly-haired hellion, who was called Havoc by her millions of followers on social media, at unusual times of the day. Hellion. Havoc. Hayat. Whatever she was called, she got most of Abi’s attention. They talked more than any other person in my sweet girl’s life, including her parents. I wasn’t sure if I was happy with their closeness or not. Hayat made her smile in ways I was determined to replicate.
Hayat encouraged Abi’s own obsession with me, so I shouldn’t have been so jealous of the girl. But I was.
Eventually, I could tell she fell asleep from the way her breathing evened out. But she didn’t switch positions. Not once. It was as if, even in sleep, she was unable to let go of what was bothering her.
Switching back to the live feed over her bed, I picked up my phone. Her screen lit up on the bed beside her, the alert waking her. Abi huffed, picked up the phone, then dropped it onto what would have been my pillow, without answering.
What the fuck?
Fingers slightly unsteady, I texted her.
Me: Good morning, wildfire.
She turned over for the first time in over eight hours. Away from her phone.
Was she upset with me? My stomach protested at the thought.
Me: What’s wrong, my sweet girl?
I could hear the text alert through the camera. She flinched at the sound.
