shrug at him. “I’m not sure there’s much more to say.”
He pulls me into him, ignoring his people around us shifting away from the display. “There’s always more, Avery. Between us, there will always be more.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I spend the day in the rooms Atticus has put aside for me planning out my next moves.
The first thing I do is call Lips and try not to lose my mind at her about what we’re going to do.
“Stop worrying about Ash, he’s distracted with trying to convince Harley to sneak off into the night and murdering Grimm Graves while we’re here just to be for-fucking-sure he never comes after us… he’s taken a very anti-fathers stance on the tour. Blaise’s dickhead father is on borrowed time.”
I roll my eyes at her but I’m also secretly hoping Harley caves and they kill the biker asshole. “Have you heard from Illi? Aodhan just keeps telling me they’ve found someone and are taking care of it but that tells me exactly nothing, Mounty.”
She scoffs down the line at me and I can hear the murmuring of voices outside of the tiny bathroom she’s locked herself in for this conversation. “Illi has been keeping me up-to-date. Look, you probably don’t wanna hear what they found down there until we have more details because… well, it looks like someone is trying to set Atticus up. Everything just keeps pointing to the photos and the drugs being him.”
What?
That makes no sense to me and when I say exactly that to Lips she agrees with me. “Men don’t look at women the way he looks at you if they’re not fucking stupid about them. Now, sending death threats to Aodhan I understand but to you? No way. We know enough about him to know that he’s not that guy.”
I hum under my breath. “Well, who would be setting him up? We’re looking into the wrong person because if this is about him then why are we trying to sift through my past for answers?”
Lips groans softly, an echo of my own frustration with the whole situation. “I fucking hate politics. All of these veiled threats and shit… if I want someone dead, I fucking kill them. Other people should do the same.”
I chuckle at her, stretching out on the very nice bed Atticus has given me for the night. “If they did that then I’d probably be dead by now. We’re lucky they’re giving us time to find them and kill them.”
She sighs at me. “You have a gun and a knife and I know I’ve taught you how to kill any asshole that tries to touch you. Illi is your backup. Aodhan too now, I guess. You’re not some weak damsel in distress, I wouldn’t have left you if I didn’t think you could hold your own. If Atticus starts making you feel weak then stab him, I’m fucking done with him making you feel this way.”
I smile through the ache in my chest. “I love you, Mounty. Hurry up and finish that tour so we can plot our global domination and grow old together.”
She giggles back at me, always sounding her age when she does. Her throaty chuckles are all the streetwise kid older than her years but when I manage to get the giddy laughs out of her, she sounds like the fifteen-year-old girl she should have been when we met.
If her father wasn’t biker trash and her mother wasn’t a junkie bitch.
“I love you too, Aves. I’ll be back before you know it.”
She hangs up and I try to rest but my mind is too busy processing information and connecting dots to switch off. The information my hacker has for me on the Graves siblings is infuriatingly sparse and no matter how many times I read it, the eighth sibling’s name doesn’t magically appear.
I’ll have to seek other sources for help, as much as I don’t want to.
A maid interrupts me around midday to ask if I want to go down to lunch but I’m too engrossed in my work and she brings me a tray of foods to eat at the small table in my room. The salad is good, the dressing is clearly made fresh and lifts the whole meal, but it’s served with fresh bread and a platter of meats that are to die for. If I ever consider getting a live-in chef I think I’ll steal whoever it is that Atticus employs.
I’m poring over the Chaos Demons’ clubhouse blueprints, finding the