Demand - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,35
purse, opening it to a random page. I find one of the many butterfly drawings there, and while I now know they represent the necklace, for some reason, it still feels like it means something else. Or maybe the butterfly is a part of a memory I can’t quite reach. Desperate to fill the black holes of my mind, I decide that stimuli trigger memories, and since I won’t get that alone in this room, I’ll head to the store early. I shut the journal and replace it in my purse.
I quickly make my way to the main castle foyer, and as I head up the central tower steps toward the store, I hear, “Ella!”
I turn to find Giada rushing up the stairs toward me. While her all-black jeans, boots, and sweater would strike me as stylish another time, today I have a feeling she’s trying to stay low-key. “Thank God you’re early. I’m suffocating in that tower. Marabella and Adriel have been watching over me like a hawk.”
A Hawk. Kayden. He is The Hawk and right now, I am an extension of him. “Because last night was bad, Giada. I need to know what you said to Gallo.”
“I told him there were men here with guns. Nothing more.”
“Giada—”
“I didn’t tell him anything more.” She tears up. “I had just seen Enzo lying in his own blood. I was supposed to go on a date with him, Ella, and he was dying. He did die. I didn’t really know him, but I might have, and I hate The Underground.”
Stunned by this revelation, which doesn’t justify her actions but helps explain them, I pull her into a hug. “I know that hurt. I know it scared you.”
She sobs and I hold her for several seconds, before she makes a low, frustrated sound and pulls away from me. “This is why I hate Kayden.”
Protectiveness flares in me hard and fast, forcing me to tamp down on it just as quickly. “I know why you’re connecting this to The Underground, to the many tragedies in your life—but Kayden gave Enzo specific orders that he ignored.”
“Kayden tells those men when to pee.”
“Kayden gave him an order that he ignored,” I repeat. “And we all make choices, and we live or die with them.”
“Kayden gave him the job he was on, knowing it was dangerous,” she argues.
“Kayden tried to talk him out of the job. And when he finally let him take it, he told him to observe and report. Instead, Enzo charged after his prize—and he knew the risks.”
She glares at me and then storms past me to the store.
I follow. “Giada,” I say, but she ignores me, keying in the code to open the heavy wooden door arched in front of us, then staring forward. “Giada, damn it,” I growl. “Look at me.”
She faces me. “You’re fucking Kayden. You’re not objective.”
“Kayden is much more than a fuck to me,” I snap, irritated at her crassness, which matches Gallo’s a little too closely. “Do you think I’m not terrified that when he walks out of the door, he won’t come back?”
“Then get out while you can. Because mark my words: one day, he won’t come back.”
“Yes, he will. I have to believe that. And even if he doesn’t, I’m not giving up days of my life that could be spent with him, just because there might not be one more. This is who they are. They are The Underground, Adriel included. Like my father was in the Army. He was a risk taker. Kayden and Adriel are risk takers. Loving them means accepting them.” She tries to duck under the door, and I grab her arm, forcing her to look at me. “Loving them means accepting them,” I repeat. “Keeping them safe means accepting them—not distracting them, which could get them killed. If you can’t do that, I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here. You have to leave.”
“You can’t say that. Adriel says that.”
“This is Kayden’s home. Unless you’re able to do a one-eighty, you’re gone. And even then, it might be too late.”
“In other words, he’s going to kick me out. I should have known it.”
“You’re right. You should have. He’s The Hawk, and he carries every loss of life he’s experienced as a hole in his heart. He won’t let you be one of them. Or Adriel. And you’re going to get Adriel killed.”
“Now I’m the one putting him in danger?”
“Sweetie. He is part of The Underground—”
“He’s not.”
“He is. And every moment