Page 73 of The Thief
I went to say yes, but I heard the door creak open behind me and Tyler said, “I’m here, princess. Don’t be scared. No one is gonna get you. You’re safe. You’re always safe. I’d never let anything happen to you.”
She smiled, thrilled to see him still here. And then, settling into her bed, she pulled her duvet up to rest under her chin.
She closed her eyes and said, “That’s good. I like having you here. Night night, Mummy. Night night, Tyler.” And withina few minutes of us standing watching her, she fell back to sleep.
I put my finger to my lips and crept out into the hallway. Then led the way back downstairs, taking each step slowly.
When we were standing by the door, I turned and said, “I would ask you to stay, but I...”
“It’s okay,” Tyler interjected. “Small steps, Jess. There’s nothing wrong with that.” And he leaned forward to kiss me. This time, it was slow and gentle, a loving kiss. A kiss to remind me that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, and don’t forget”—he winked—“we still have Saturday.”
“Saturday,” I said, smiling to myself. “I’m looking forward it.”
I let Tyler out, promising him that I’d set the house alarm and double check all the locks. Then I strolled into the living room, glancing at the sofa where we’d just made out like a couple of teenagers, and I laughed.
“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath. “He made me squirt.” And then I sat down in a daze as I relived every delicious moment of what he’d just done to me.
Saturday night could not come soon enough.
Chapter Twenty-Six
TYLER
“We need to find them,” I snarled as I stalked into the living area of The Sanctuary, Numbers One and Three emblazoned on my mind like fucking leeches. “Fucking find them before they find us.”
Adam and Liv were sitting on the sofas with Devon and his girlfriend, Leah May.
“It’s already being taken care of,” Adam replied, his eyes tracking me as I went to the fridge to take out a beer. “I have people watching, waiting. The minute Con Hinds so much as breaths near here or his home, we’ll get him. And when we do, we’ll get the other one, too.”
“We didn’t get him when he went back and found Rory and Anton in his living room though, did we? We missed a fucking golden opportunity.” I pulled the cap off my beer, threw theopener on the counter behind me, and took a long swig.
“I know this is personal, but try to see the bigger picture,” Devon interjected, and I exploded.
“Personal?” I narrowed my eyes in disdain. “Of course it’s fucking personal. He killed innocent people. He held a gun to my head. And he fucking threatened to hurt Jess. They were gonna rape her. It doesn’t get more personal than that.”
Devon knew when to quit, and he nodded, choosing to stay silent.
“And bigger picture?” I went on, sitting next to Liv as I tried to keep a lid on my anger. “I don’t think it gets much bigger than this.”
“We know that,” Adam stated. “And we’ve all been where you are now, at one point in our lives. And you know what got us through? Being there for each other. Devon didn’t mean any harm with what he said. He just knows this Ghost, Number One, whoever he is, he’s the one we need to get to. He’s the catalyst for everything that happened, regardless of how things turned out when he shot Leon Quaid. We need to shut their operation down. He’s the key to all of this.”
I put my beer bottle on the table and ran my hands over my face in exasperation. “But this guy, Con Hinds, he’s an immediate threat. That email...” I blew out a breath of frustration. “I can’t have him on the streets. Not with Jess and Ava being so vulnerable.”
“They’re both a threat. We know that. But like I said,” Adam stated, sitting forward and glancing to the side to look at me. “They’ll be dealt with. You don’t need to worry.”
I couldn’t be bothered to argue, and short of setting up camp outside the fucker, Con Hind’s house and waiting for him, therewas nothing I could do at this point in time. It was all already being done. We had surveillance and intel; we had it all covered. But at the back of my mind, I couldn’t shake the niggly feeling that nothing and no one was safe. Least of all Jess and Ava.
Adam stood up, along with Devon, and announced they were heading back downstairs to work the rest of their shift. Colton and Will were already on the club floor. But I stayed where I was and took my phone out of my pocket. Anxiety and anxiousness swirled inside me, and I knew the only cure was a click away.
I tapped the screen, uploading the security feed for Jess’s house. When I saw her curled up on her sofa, watching TV with a huge smile on her face, I felt my shoulders dip as the tension in me eased a little.
“What’s up?” Liv asked, and reluctantly, I closed the link and sat back, giving her a nonchalant shrug. “I know you went through some shit, and you’re tense, I get that. You want these men to pay for what they’ve done. But I think there might be more to this. I’ve never seen you look so agitated, so... lost. You can talk to us, you know.”
Leah May nodded in agreement, and I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth as I thought about what Liv had said.
“I’m not lost,” I replied. “It’s the opposite.”
