Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Something was bothering Julian. Lilith could tell. He probably didn’t realize that when he was worried or pondering something, he would rub his left thumb over this right one.

Should she tell him about it? She didn’t think it was something he’d done while he’d been at Freedom and Love. Then again, he could’ve, because it wasn’t like she was living with him twenty-four-seven then, like she was now.

“Are you okay, J?” The moniker tripped off her tongue as if she’d been saying it for years and not for the first time.

He looked up with surprise and a flicker of happiness in his eyes, as though he liked what she’d called him. “Yeah, why?”

“You look worried. Is there something you need to tell me? Is it about Micah?” A shudder of revulsion tracked down her spine as she said the name she’d been trying to forget since she swore she saw him at the restaurant a few nights ago.

But it had been so fleeting. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. As if her mind had conjured him up, and he hadn’t really been there at all.

“No, but I did find out something about him.”

Fear threatened to engulf her, but she pushed it aside. She wasn’t going to cower every time a reference to her past was brought up, even if, only seconds ago, she’d been repulsed by simply saying his name. “What?”

Julian got up and came over to where she was sitting, dropping on the couch next to her. She welcomed the warmth of his solid body beside her. Since their date, they’d made out a lot, but Julian hadn’t taken it any further. She wanted to, though. How she wanted to feel his hands all over her body. Run her hands over him.

Maybe tonight .

But that thought was for later. Julian had said nothing since he’d sat, and it was setting her worry meter into overdrive. “Talk to me, Julian. What’s going on?” she asked when he still had said nothing.

“After the other night when you saw him, I pulled the files on the takedown of The Hopeful Sunshine. Micah gave the agents investigating sufficient information for them to believe that he wasn’t involved as much as his position in the leadership group would suggest. They concluded he didn’t really know the inner workings and that he was as much a victim as the others were.”

“That’s rubbish! Micah was always in Staunton’s office. Always walking with him. Always sitting beside him and talking to him. Micah lied. He fooled those agents into letting him go.”

The very idea that he was walking the streets filled her with anger and panic. He had always been one of the meaner men in the group. Always looked for a reason to yell at the women. She didn’t want to think about how he treated his “wives,” as he had a few. And it wouldn’t surprise her if he had also forced his way into the beds of some of the single women.

“What else do you know about him?” Julian asked.

“Just what I told you. He can’t be trusted, that’s for sure.” Panic threatened to drown Lilith, and she concentrated on her breathing to keep the attack at bay. “You need to tell whoever you work with that they need to watch him.”

With what Julian had told her, Lilith was convinced that Micah had been at the restaurant.

Julian’s warm hand clasped hers, and some of her panic receded. “I will. I’ll make sure they locate him and bring him in for further questioning.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. Now that Micah has his freedom, he will not want to go back. He’ll likely convince whoever questions him that whatever they’ve heard about him are all lies. I doubt he’ll be easy to find as well.”

“You forget we also have a secret weapon in Cass.” Julian brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “She’ll be able to locate him if the Feds can’t.”

“I hope so.” She recalled what Julian had said when she initially asked about Micah. “You said that Micah wasn’t what was worrying you. What is? Can you tell me? Or is it part of one of the cases you’re working on?”

Julian didn’t talk much about his job, and she respected that, as she was aware it was imperative that what he did, and what he was working on, was kept under lock and key. “You’re right, I can’t go into specifics but . . .” He squeezed the hand he was still holding. “I’m going to have to go away for a few days. We’ve got the go ahead to take down a person of interest we’d been watching. It’s a complex case, and the guys from Alliez will be joining us.”

The panic that she thought she’d conquered fluttered to life again at the prospect of being by herself. Alone in this house with Micah roaming the streets of LA. If he’d found her once, he could find her again. “Oh” was all she managed to get out.

“I know this is probably freaking you out, so I wanted to suggest that maybe, while I’m away, you go stay with Cass. Irish is going to be on the trip as well, so she’s also going to be by herself.”

The idea wasn’t a bad one, and she did like Cass, but maybe she needed to be by herself. Learn to be independent. It wasn’t as though Julian was keeping her under lock and key, but she hadn’t ventured far from his house since she’d moved in.

Wasn’t she supposed to be taking command of her life? Make decisions about the direction her life was going to go in?

“Do you know how long you’ll be gone?” she asked instead of saying she’d go to Cass’s place.

“Hard to say. I would like to say that I’ll only be gone a couple of days, but things happen and sometimes we have to pivot.”

Something struck Lilith. Something that he’d said to her not long after they’d rescued her. “You said you don’t normally go on the missions. That you come in after everyone has been taken away. Why are you going this time?”

“This one is more complex than usual. I’ll still be carrying out my typical duties, but my boss wants me to be on the ground with this one.”

As far as answers went, it said a bit without saying a lot, and she appreciated what Julian had given her. “Can you at least tell me where you’re going?”

Julian smiled sympathetically at her, and she had her answer even before he said the words. “I can’t.”

“It was worth asking.”

He leaned forward and pressed his lips softly against hers. A mere fleeting touch. Over before it began, but there was so much emotion in it. “I’m sorry. But if you stay with Cass, you might get a little more information about things.”

“What?” There was a hidden message there, Lilith was sure of it.

“When Alliez is involved in these types of missions, Cass is always involved.”

“You’re saying Cass will break protocol and tell me things I shouldn’t know?” Lilith couldn’t see her friend doing something that unethical. She may not have known Cass for long, but what she’d seen of the computer genius, she was loyal and didn’t seem the type to say things she shouldn’t say.

“No, Cass won’t give anything away, but she’ll give you enough information to know that we’re safe. And when we’re likely to be heading home.”

As much as she’d like to know what was going on and where Julian would be, she didn’t want Cass to be put in an uncomfortable situation where she felt like she had to do something that went against everything she believed in. “No, I won’t do that to her. I think me being in the dark, even if it’s going to be really difficult, is the best thing. I’ll stay home.”

A flash of frustration flitted across Julian’s face before disappearing. “I fucked that up,” he said tiredly. “I want to keep you safe, and so before I fully thought it through, I suggested staying with Cass, knowing full well that she’s always involved, because the team’s safety is important to her. But I do know that she would be okay with you staying with her.”

“I appreciate you wanting to keep me safe. I do. Particularly since my decision making can be sketchy.” She chuckled at her own joke, but when Julian didn’t, she continued. “But I also don’t like that Cass could be put into an uncomfortable situation. I know you meant well, but maybe being on my own is what I need to do. To prove that I have made progress in my life.”

“I can see there’s no point arguing with you. But promise me if things get too overwhelming, that you’ll call Cass.”

Lilith could give Julian this. It was important to him, and even though she said she wanted to be by herself, the very idea freaked her out a little. “I promise. But I won’t expect her to tell me anything. Even if I want to know all about what’s going on.”

Julian laughed. “Deal.”

He closed the gap between them and kissed her. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, and her hands landed on his chest. She loved the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her fingers. It grounded. Gave her the belief that everything would be okay. That she’d be fine when he left her. That nothing would happen to her.

Such fanciful thoughts from a single touch, but for her, it was her truth.

His lips trailed down her neck, and Lilith let her head fall back. Her whole body was alight from the feel of his lips against her flesh. Her body came alive beneath his touch, and she moved closer so she was practically in his lap.

She needed more.

Wanted more.

Wanted to have the freedom to touch Julian all over. To have him touch her all over. She wanted to feel his weight pressed against her body.

She. Wanted. Him.

A buzzing sound filled the air, and she groaned against his mouth. Taking it to the next level would not happen.

“I’m sorry, Lil. I probably need to get this.”

“I know.” She sighed and moved off him so he could get to his phone. She’d lived with him long enough to know that whenever his phone rang, he answered. He may have left the office, but he was never truly off, because that was who Julian had become. He’d become someone who put others' needs in front of his own.

“It doesn’t make me any happier that we had to stop,” he said, while still holding his buzzing phone.

“I know, and I understand.”

He gave her leg a squeeze as he stood and walked over to the window, answering the phone as he went. “Hey, Rose. What’s up?”

Hearing that it was his sister on the phone, she got up to give him privacy so he could talk to her without worrying about her overhearing. Not that he would ever ask her to leave the room. She just did it because it was the right thing to do.

She walked into the kitchen and put a couple of glasses from the counter into the dishwasher. It hadn’t taken her long to get used to the luxuries of living in a house with running water and electricity—something she planned to never have to do without ever again.

Once the kitchen was tidy, she went over to the small table where the laptop Julian had given her sat. The day he’d turned up with it, she’d stared at him in shock. No one had ever given her something as expensive or wonderful as a laptop. Then again, she’d lived in a cult most of her life where giving gifts wasn’t ever done. She’d attempted to refuse it, saying it was too much, but Julian had convinced her that if she wanted to find a job, she needed it, as most jobs were listed online now.

She was still getting used to it and all that it could do, and she could successfully navigate around the internet in her job-hunting pursuit. Maybe something had been listed since the last time she looked and now.

Lifting the lid, she waited for the machine to wake up. She could hear the low timbre of Julian’s voice as he talked to his sister. She’d discovered that they talked to each other at least once a week, each taking turns on who called whom. During his past calls, he’d usually taken a while. Julian had explained about his past with his sister and all they went through at the hands of their father. It was good that their relationship was getting better.

Would her life had been different if she had a sibling? She would never know, but she liked to think that they would’ve been close after Freedom and Love had been disbanded. Maybe if she had had a sibling, she wouldn’t have ended up at The Hopeful Sunshine.

Lilith shut down those thoughts quickly. There was no point in wishing for something that hadn’t happened. It was just her, and while she’d made missteps, this time, she would not repeat her mistakes.

The job site finished loading, and she scrolled through the recent listings. Ideally, she’d love to get a job working in a garden, but that looked unlikely. No matter how much she willed a job to appear, none did. Perhaps it was time to look at something else. She knew she didn’t want to work in a restaurant, but maybe she could get a job in a clothes shop. Or a handbag shop. Something that would tide her over until her perfect job came along.

A listing caught her attention, and as she skimmed over the words, dread pooled low in her belly. The words were so familiar to her. They were the same words that had sucked her into her second cult.

Are you looking for a career change? Then look no further. At The Petal Lodge, we’re looking for people who are seeking a new adventure. Benefits for working at our lodge are plentiful. Not only will you have your very own first class, high-quality accommodation, but all meals are included. We know you’re perfect for our organization. What are you waiting for? Click Apply Now and start your new future.

The first time she’d been lured in by those words, it hadn’t been via the internet. No, it had been a flyer left on the table at the restaurant where she’d worked. It all sounded wonderful. So much better than how she’d been living.

At the time, she’d been so gullible. This time, though, she wasn’t. Someone was recruiting, and she needed to let Julian know now.