wants to help.”
“Help, my ass!” Georgia said. “What can she do to help?”
“She can give us complete access to the house,” Camden said. “The property.”
“We could have had complete access to that property ourselves if you’d have let us do whatever it took to get rid of her.”
“God, Georgie, listen to you,” Camden said, his voice a low growl of frustration. “Do whatever it took to get rid of her? You sound like Ms. Wykes.”
Georgia let out a gasp. “How dare you? Until five minutes ago, you were just as on board with this plan as we were.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well, things changed.” My priorities changed.
“Yeah, because Scarlett Lattimore opened her legs for you. What a good guild member you are.”
“For the love of God, stop this, you two,” Mason said, standing up and lacing his hands behind his head as he paced. “This is ridiculous. Georgia,” he said, turning to her. “I’m sorry, but I’m with Camden. Our plan . . . it needs to be adjusted. We can still seek answers, justice. That’s not going to change, okay? That part is bigger than just us. But I don’t want to be ruled by vengeance either. I want . . . more.” He looked at her so adoringly that Camden glanced away. He sometimes wondered if Mason ever admitted his longing for Georgia, even in his own head. What he did know was that Mason was inspired by the work he was doing on Lilith House. It’d become a passion project for him, not only because he was good at what he did, but because it was filling something inside him to be given reign over the structure that had imprisoned him for most of his life. He was turning Lilith House into something different than she’d been, inspired by the vision he had for her. Camden could see that it provided a cleansing for Mason, one long past due, one taking the place of what they had previously planned. This one feeding the good wolf inside, he could see it in Mason’s eyes. “Don’t you want more, Georgie?” Mason asked softly.
She glowered at him. “You want more than us?” she asked. “Suddenly we’re not enough for you anymore?”
“You’ve always been enough for me, Georgia,” he said softly. “But I also want to be happy.” He looked at Cam. “I’ve never seen Cam happy . . . until now. And I want that for you too. I want that for me,” he finished. “We deserve to have a life, Georgia, things that bring us joy and satisfaction. Things that don’t only revolve around Lilith House and the damage done to us.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she choked, her face still turned away from them. Camden’s chest gave a hard knock. He glanced at Mason and they exchanged a look of empathy. Yes, she’d had it harder than both of them, not just at Lilith House, but after that when she went to live with the head of the guild, Clarence Dreschel. That man had paid for her surgery, and then promptly exacted payment in the form of another slice of her innocence, which she’d only divulged to him and Mason when they’d begun setting their plan in motion. He would give anything to change it, to change all of it. He’d give anything to have had the power then to rescue her. But he’d been a kid too. Traumatized. Confused. And God, he admitted it, so desperately relieved to have been swept away from Farrow.
“I still hear his cane on the floor,” she said, her gaze faraway. “Coming toward my room.”
He went to sit back down next to her. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Nothing like that will ever happen to you again. You’ll always have us, Georgia. We’re family. We will never ever desert you. But, look at me.” For a moment she ignored him, but then her face turned his way. She had tears in her eyes. “We—all three of us—have to make it our end goal to build lives that are bigger than what happened at Lilith House and even after that. We have to, Georgie, or we’ll turn into the very people we’re trying to punish. The people who hurt us so badly.”
“It’s always been us. Just us,” she whispered miserably.
A tear slipped down her cheek and Camden wiped it away. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe that’s not healthy, Georgie. There are others out there who will