“I thought you might have been having second thoughts again,” she admitted as she stopped in front of me.
“No more second thoughts, baby,” I told her, taking far too much pride in the way her eyes were already heavy-lidded, unfocused, the way her lips were parting.
My hand raised, slid down her jaw, slipping into the hair at the back of her neck.
It was right fucking then that the beep of the keypad broke the spell.
And there was Bellamy, charging in, talking a mile a minute, stealing away Gemma’s attention.
If he ever decided to stop working in his current professional, he would make a great fucking professional cock-block.
The day was a bit of a blur from there.
We ate.
Kai stopped in to do a little big brother talking to her.
Eventually, Jules and Quin came back with Gemma’s stuff, Quin pulling me aside to tell me what he found at the apartment. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t much since the super hadn’t realized the security system hadn’t been working for several days. There was broken glass, there was blood in the parking lot, and there was a police report. Because, apparently, Gemma had run screaming down the halls and slamming on doors as she fled the man chasing her.
Though, luckily enough for our purposes, no one had actually known it was Gemma who had been screaming. The report was vague, just stating that a woman was heard screaming.
The last thing we needed was her being questioned, the police coming in to try to talk to Phillip and David. Because, let’s be honest, everyone knew that there was no way a company like Blairtown Chem was going to be brought down on the suspicion that they had hired a man to kidnap or kill one of their employees.
It was better that she remain anonymous, that we handle the situation from here. That was what we did. We fixed the shit that the police sometimes couldn’t.
“Has Nia found anything out yet?”
“Whoever it is that she stabbed, he hasn’t gone to any of the local hospitals about it. Unfortunately. Though it’s not exactly surprising if they are professionals.”
Like us.
We didn’t end up in the hospital over much, not wanting to have to deal with the questions, only going if something needed to be sewn back on or put together with metal rods. A couple puncture wounds to the cheek could be stitched up reasonably easily at home.
“So we’re nowhere.”
“It’s only been a couple hours,” he reminded me. “And if you had brought us in on it earlier, maybe we would be further along.”
“I get it. I won’t keep shit from you again.”
“Know you feel like shit over her eye. Think that is punishment enough. I won’t keep harping. But we need to fix this.”
I agreed whole-heartedly.
Sure, we would probably have some time alone even if we were staying above the office. But it wasn’t the same.
I wanted to give this a real shot.
To do that, we needed to be back to our old lives, not secluded from everything.
“Where are you going?” Quin asked as Bellamy squeezed past us.
“Oh, it’s a beautiful day. Flowers need smelling. People need killing. The usual…”
“Nope,” Quin said to my furrowed brows, “not work related. Must be a passion project.”
Only Quin would refer to murder as a ‘passion project.’ But, then again, Bellamy only took out people who had it coming. So none of us could really even fault him for it. Least of all Quin who paid to utilize that particular skill of his.
“Alright. I am heading back in. Keep me posted if you guys find out anything.”
“Will do. Keep an eye on her.”
Oh, I planned to do more than that.
Much more.
But that was our little secret for the time being.
I had been lectured enough for one day.
I walked in expecting to find Gemma on the couch where I’d left her, binging the show Bell had put on the night before, drinking her tea.
But I found the TV paused instead, her tea cooling on the coffee table, and the room vacant.
That wasn’t what had me pausing, though.
No.
That was the unmistakable sound of whispering down the hall.
I wasn’t an eavesdropper. At least not in my personal life. People had a right to their private thoughts and words.
Something about this, though, had me on edge, had my heart starting to thud, my spine stiffening.
Carefully inching down the hallway as to not squeak any floorboards, I flattened myself against the wall next to Gemma’s door, hearing her voice clearly as she paced the room.
“You should be getting the package today. Yes, the drive and the papers. No. I… I think I got everything. You don’t need to yell at me. I did the best I could. I know. Yes, of course I understand how important this was to you. I could have died last night over this. I could have gone to jail half a dozen times before this. I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t believe in this.”