49. Rhaim

49

RHAIM

L ia didn't come in on Monday.

I kept her PI watching her apartment—I might as well make use of the man—but she didn't leave it, either. Her door let me know she'd opened it twice, even though the cameras were still blocked. I assumed she was accepting deliveries.

Tuesday was the same.

People were too frightened to comment on it, but I knew they noticed that it was just me, swimming in the big empty cage by myself.

Wednesday came, and her own father wandered down to look at me, having surely heard of her absence. He didn't say a thing; he just made his disapproving presence known outside the glass.

He would probably give me twenty-four hours before demanding to give me an "I told you so," so I waited until seven that evening, went home, changed, and then drove over to her apartment complex.

I'd decided not to fire the bribable doorman—to instead pay him enough to keep track of anyone else coming into the building for Lia but me—and that served me in good stead, because he waved me on to her elevator and I took it up to her apartment.

After that, I started working on her door—but then it swung open, taking my picks with it, and Lia was standing on the other side. She looked almost as bedraggled as she had when I'd left her at the cemetery, only now she was in a tank-top and sweatpants and holding a phone.

"Were you breaking into my apartment?" Her tone was accusatory, and I noticed she hadn't stepped aside.

"Yeah."

"Do you not understand doorbell technology?" she asked, walking back into her place, tossing her phone on her couch.

I assumed I could come inside. "If you knew someone was breaking in—why were you just standing here, not calling nine-one-one?"

"Because I'm on a lot of Nyquil. For all I knew, you could've been a hallucination." She fell to her couch beside her dropped phone and glared at me.

Her being sick did explain the way she looked right now, and a certain bleariness to her eyes.

I pulled out my phone to send off a message. "You could've called," I complained.

Lia rolled her eyes and shrugged. "You could've texted," she said, then sighed. "Look—I know I'm fucked up?—"

"Shut up." I interrupted her immediately. "There's a lot of men that'd pay good money to be fucked up with you."

She gave me a soft smile and then licked cracked lips. "But you're not one of them."

"I can't, Lia." My phone beeped, and I put it away. "Are you going to come back in when you're through with this?" I asked, gesturing at her current state.

"Do you really want me to?"

She looked incredibly hurt, and I could hear the weakness in her voice.

I had done that to her.

And I wanted to do worse.

"Yeah," I answered truthfully. "But—lemme show you why. Take off your pants."