watching the two of you,” Cass interjected, waggling his eyebrows at us. Fucker.
Winter groaned, clearly uncomfortable, her cheeks flaming at the attention. “Please, Cass.”
Best to ignore them.
I removed my arm from around Winter’s waist. “Sit back down, Snowflake.” She moved off my lap, leaning forwards and propping her chin on her elbows, which rested on her thighs. Before she had a chance to protest, I dropped a light kiss on her hair, then placed the severed finger down and quickly changed the subject. “Anyone else want to look at the finger?” No takers. “Z? You done with that ring yet?”
“Yeah.” He indicated towards the magnifying glass, which Winter passed to him, and he studied the ring in silence for a moment, then wordlessly handed both the ring and the magnifying glass to me.
“Fuck,” I breathed. “I think this is the same ring Petr was wearing that day at the hotel.” It was a tarnished gold, sovereign-style ring. In the centre of the sovereign was a cloaked man with arms outstretched, one holding what looked like a lightning rod, and the other resting on top of what was either a number eight or an infinity symbol.
I passed both items to Winter, who studied them intently. “You’re right. I’m sure of it. Do we have any photos of his hand wearing the ring?”
“Yeah, we do.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled through my picture gallery as Winter passed the ring over to Cass. “Here.” I zoomed in on the photo. It was clear that it was the same ring.
“This is great. I’m gonna send photos to Mercury and see what he can pull up.” West stood, stretching. “Speaking of Mercury, he found something. It’s not much, but it might be everything. He found record of Petr working at the docks last year. And, get this, he’s also employed as a server at AMC. Right now. He’s only had the position for a few months—looks like he works both there and at the Crown and Anchor. Dunno which days he works at AMC, but we need to check this out.”
“This is great news.” Winter smiled at Weston. “I finally feel like we’re getting somewhere. Now we know there’s most likely a connection between Petr and the dead guy. I mean, it’s kind of clear to me at this point that the dead guy is the one who attacked me, since he was the one keeping me captive, and now he’s dead, and whoever got me out of the docks took me to a hospital.”
“I agree.” Cass nodded. “Makes sense, and that was my feeling when we found the body. We have a probable connection between dead fingerless guy, Littlefinger, and the docks, so I’d say the odds are high.”
“I’ll send this stuff to Mercury now. Unless we need to discuss anything else?” West glanced at me, and I shook my head.
“I’m heading back to campus now.” Kinslee stood.
“Do you have to go?” Winter pulled a sad face.
“Don’t go guilt-tripping me, bitch. I’ve got shit to do.” Kinslee gave Winter a stern look, and they both dissolved into laughter. Zayde raised a brow at me, and I shrugged, mouthing “women” to him.
“I’ll drive you back. You wanna come?” Cassius turned to Winter, and she jumped to her feet.
“Yes, please. Can we stop at the shop on the way back? I’ve got a craving for Doritos, and you ate the last bag.”
“Deal. As long as we can get chocolate.”
“Goes without saying. Anyone else want anything?” Me and Z both shook our heads, and they left the room. We fell into silence as Zayde started packing away all his tools and whatever other shit he’d brought in.
“Z.” I hadn’t even meant to speak, but his sharp gaze shot to mine at my tone. Fuck it. May as well say what was on my mind. “I saw you and Winter earlier, when you got back from meeting Creed. You looked…” I trailed off, shrugging helplessly. “I don’t know, comfortable with each other.”
He remained silent, reading me as well as he always did, and I continued, asking him the one question I needed to hear the answer to. “Do you trust her?”
When he finally replied, after a long silence, he spoke the words simply, with no hesitation. “You know what? Yeah. I do.”
“Why can’t I have that with her?” I scrubbed my hand across my face, frustrated.
“You feel too much for her. Mate, I know you. You’re not allowing yourself to trust her completely because