At the sound of Nathan’s voice, Marabella and I turn to see him standing at the top of the landing, looking every bit the Canadian preppy doctor that he is, in black dress pants and a light blue shirt rolled to his elbows, his brown hair neatly trimmed. Even his chin is stubble-free despite the late hour.
“Tell him what’s going on,” Marabella urges.
“What’s going on, Ella?” Nathan asks, his brown eyes sharp.
Marabella gives my arm a quick squeeze. “I’ll let you talk to him and I’ll check on you tomorrow. Kayden ordered me to my tower before this meeting—and you know he likes to be obeyed.”
I blanch at the statement that fits nothing I know of their relationship, almost thinking there’s a sexual innuendo to those words, but this is Marabella and— Wait. She winks. There is a sexual innuendo.
“Of course, he’s met his match in you,” she says, her lips curving. She walks past me and I run my hands through my hair, blushing at whatever just happened. Maybe I don’t know Marabella. Or maybe she’s just more comfortable with me now.
“I didn’t catch all of that,” Nathan says as I close the space between us, “but a little color in your cheeks makes your doctor happy. What was Marabella worried about?”
“It’s nothing,” I say, certain I didn’t take those pages myself, but if I did, life would be better right now. “Actually . . . when I’m having a flashback, I go very deep into the memory. Could I walk, talk, or write notes, and not realize it at the time?”
“Depending on the type of event, it’s feasible to think you might,” he confirms. “But are we talking the blackouts you were having before, or some different event?”
“The same blackouts,” I confirm, and when he uses that word blackout again, as I have in the past myself, suddenly the idea that I pulled out the pages myself gets a little more possible. “Only now I tend to think of them as flashbacks. I guess that’s a good sign.”
“That depends on the reason. Are you accustomed to them now, so they are less traumatic, or have they improved and lessened in intensity?”
“Until today, they’ve been less frequent and easier to tolerate. But I’m not worried; I had some triggers, which is good. I’m really filling in the holes now.”
“The private investigator,” he says, “but that’s another topic. Remembering is good, since we had no guarantees you would. But how do you feel? Did the increased flashbacks today trigger headaches of any kind?”
“No headaches,” I say. “I just don’t like that I lose time when they occur.”
“Your brain is resetting, Ella,” he says. “I think all in all, you’ve done very well. But I do want to do another full checkup soon.”
Male voices sound behind us and I turn to see Adriel exiting the store. Matteo is by his side, his longish curly dark hair slicked back, his black tee imprinted with I’m an Italian Stallion. Which is kind of funny, since Carlo’s the one who gives off that vibe, not Matteo.
As they cross toward us, Matteo is fully focused on me. “I hear you’re joining us in the War Room. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
There is a hint of something in his eyes and voice that I can’t decide if I like, and can’t quite name. “I’m with Kayden,” I say. “That means I’m with The Underground, and I don’t like to let Annie get rusty.”
“Annie?” Matteo asks.
“My gun,” I say, moving on. “Any update on Chris Merit or Blake Walker?”
“I’m still digging,” Matteo says, “but so far nothing overly concerning.”
“What does that mean?”
“Blake Walker has a reputation for being a wild card while in the ATF, but a good man,” he says. “Chris Merit is a star in the art world who seems to keep his nose clean. He was raised in Paris, he moved in some of the same circles as Neuville, but I have no reason to believe that’s intentional.”
“I don’t like the Paris connection,” I say. “How are we checking that out?”
“Let’s move this to the War Room,” Adriel interrupts, flexing that second-in-command muscle with ease, a presence I am certain Kayden’s been missing. “Ella will join us with Kayden,” he adds, looking at me. “He’s in the store.”
I nod and as the three men start to walk away, I snag Matteo’s arm. He stops walking and faces me while the other two men head down the hallway. “Just a quick question,” I say. “Is there any way our security system could be hacked?”
“Here at the castle?”
“Yes. Here at the castle.”
“You obviously don’t know me well yet,” he says, his tone irritated, when I’ve always known him to be far more easygoing. “I don’t get hacked. I do the hacking. It cannot be breached.”
“But anything you can create or hack, someone else, if good enough, could hack, right?”