Wicked and True (Wicked & Devoted 4)

The only thing he did know right now? Compiling this information would either make the case against her fizzle out…or solidify it for good.

His friend held up a hand. “All right. I’ll zip it.”

Zy hung his helmet on his handlebars, not bothering to lock anything up. Trees and all his booby traps would kill anyone way before they got their hands on his brain bucket.

His buddy reached behind his back to open the front door. He looked like he was in need of a distraction.

“Thanks,” Zy called out.

“Always.” Trees’s voice sounded subdued, heavy. Then again, he understood the gravity of the situation.

“Where’s Laila?”

“In her room, waiting for me to fall asleep before she’ll risk getting into bed and closing her eyes.”

Zy frowned as he ambled up the steps to the porch. “She still doesn’t trust you?”

“She doesn’t trust anyone. I’m trying not to take it personally.”

One look at Trees’s craggy face told Zy he still was. “Even if it’s not a knock against you, that’s got to be hard. You’re the dude most people trust with whatever they value—vehicles, pets, girlfriends.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “She’s not most people.”

“Is she making noise about wanting to be with her sister?”

Trees stepped back inside the house and locked the shotgun back in its case. “Some, but Valeria admitted to Laila she’s the reason they’re apart.”

“At least she’s not blaming you. Did she ever let you buy her warmer clothes?” Or anything that covers her tits and ass?

“Negative.” Trees sighed. “No offense, buddy, but could we talk about your misery instead?”

“Why not? Everyone else is.”

Zy locked the door after them. Together, they made their way to Trees’s kitchen. Subconsciously, he slid into the same chair he had occupied on Christmas Eve. And wasn’t the empty chair beside him—the one Tessa had sat in—a brutal metaphor for where he was in life?

“Sorry, man. Tell me what happened?”

He did, leaving out the part where he’d tried to work Tessa’s body over to fuck with her mind…only to lose himself in her instead. But Trees knew him well. He could read between the lines.

“This is killing you, and you still love her.”

“I try to tell myself I don’t. That I’m in love with who I thought she was and I miss what it seemed we had. But I can’t lie to myself. She’s double-crossed me, and she would only do that for some reason she thinks is necessary. And I can’t make myself unlove her.”

“I know.”

“She’s not capable of consciously hurting the people she cares about.”

“The Tessa I know? No.”

That made Zy feel better…and worse. “Which says she could only do this to me because she doesn’t really give a shit about me at all.”

“I don’t believe that. I’ve watched her. I’ve seen the way she looks at you, and I think she loves you. Any chance she doesn’t understand the ramifications of what she was doing?”

“No.”

“Maybe she—”

“Whatever you’re going to say, no. Don’t try to make this better. You can’t. So let’s just get this shit done. The bosses want a timeline of the mole’s activities, so…I guess we’ll start at the beginning. Go through the backups. See what you can find in the electronic records on the EM servers.”

“How long do you have?”

Zy glanced at his phone. “Another five hours, give or take ten minutes.”

Trees barked out a laugh. “They don’t want the fucking world or anything.”

“They never do…”

“I got a spare computer in the office. Would you grab it? I’ll start capturing the data sets and pulling them down. Once I’ve got them, I’ll show you what we’re looking for, then you can search the records, too. This will go twice as fast if we both look.”

“Sure.” It’s wasn’t as if Zy expected to get any sleep tonight anyway, and doing something made him feel better than doing nothing at all. “On it.”

When he headed to that corner of the house, he found Laila kneeling at the side of the guest room bed, wearing one of Trees’s oversized T-shirts. A peaceful instrumental tune played softly from her phone. Was she praying?

He’d barely stepped on a creaky floorboard a good twenty feet behind her when she jumped up and whirled around, suddenly crouched in a fighting stance, gripping a shiny, sharp switchblade.

Zy held up his hands to prove he was unarmed. “Sorry to disturb you. Just grabbing a laptop from the office.”

When he gestured to the room to the left of hers, she relaxed a little. “Hello, Zy. Go ahead. You are not disturbing me.”

Maybe not in the way she meant, but it seemed she found any male presence in her life disturbing. “I’ll be quick. You okay? Need anything? Doing all right with Trees?”

“I need nothing except to be with my sister and her son again.”

In other words, with family, from whom she took solace. With whom she felt safe. “Hopefully, we can make that happen soon. I know being here is out of your comfort zone—”