Midnight Lies by Naomi West

Author:Naomi West [West, Naomi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-05-31T23:00:00+00:00

26

EMERY

“It’s officially dark. Time to go.” I stand up for the third time in the last fifteen minutes.

Stefan glances through the front window. "It's barely dusk. Sit back down. We aren't going anywhere."

We agreed that when full dark set in, we’d go look for Adrik. More specifically, Stefan said he would send out a search party. But I plan to be part of it. No matter what he says.

"You can't keep me here."

Stefan arches a brow and says nothing else. He doesn't need to. We both know he is more than capable of keeping me here against my will. He learned how to do it from the best, after all.

"How can you just sit here and twiddle your thumbs?" I snap. "He's your best friend! You should care that he might be… that he might be…"

I trail off. I can't bring myself to even speak the possibility.

Adrik can't be dead. It would be like the sun burning out. Everything else would die with it. If Adrik was dead, I'd know. I'd feel it in my bones.

Stefan sighs. "He's also my boss. And my boss ordered me to watch after his stubborn wife and his daughter. To keep you from doing anything stupid. So that is what I'm going to do."

“Are you really—” I grimace in frustration. “Come on, Stefan.”

“What?”

“You’re really going to just sit here and wait?”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.” His eyes remain fixed out the window.

Isabella has been dozing in her chair in front of the television for the last twenty minutes. Usually, I would have moved her to her bed by now, but I don’t want to settle in here. I don’t want to stay here. I want to be out there, looking for Adrik.

“Goddammit,” I growl. “What is with all of you Bratva men and your stubborn, head-up-your-ass refusal to change plans? I mean, sure, Adrik told you to stay here with Isabella. Then he sent me here. But don’t you think sometime between then and the compound blowing up that he might have changed his mind?”

“He would have called,” Stefan says, stone-faced. I guess my speech didn’t move him.

“He could be dead!” I screech.

The words flop like dying fish between us. Stefan stares at me in disgust. Like, if Adrik is dead, it will be all my fault. I’m the one who said it first, ergo the blame is on me.

My chin wobbles and I cross my arms. “I’m just speaking the truth. He might be dead, you know? We might be sitting here waiting for a man who is currently flat as a pancake under a mountain of cinder blocks from his own damn house. Or a man who has two dozen bullet holes in him courtesy of the friendly boys in blue. He. Might. Be. Dead," I say, enunciating every word.

Stefan opens his mouth to respond. But the next voice I hear isn’t his.

“Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated.”

I whip around and look towards the kitchen. It takes my eyes a second to understand what the rest of my body already knows.

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