Aidan watched the slight scrunching of Cassie’s eyes. God, she was beautiful. Even while she slept, she was and always had been the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
It was early morning, but he’d been awake for hours. Listening to every little sound around the cabin. Watching her chest rise and fall as she breathed.
There was this throb inside him. It called him to touch her. Have her. For so long, their separation had torn him apart. Made him feel hollow. But here and now, being with her again, he could almost convince himself that no time had passed. The admission about her and Damien truly just being friends was everything. Just like last night was everything.
After she’d fallen asleep, he’d called his team and passed on what she’d told him. They were already working on a plan on how to move forward. She wasn’t going back alone. He couldn’t let her.
A soft murmur slipped from her lips. Then his name. “Aidan.”
Fuck. That was the second time she’d said his name while she slept, and it had every territorial instinct roaring to life.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. And when their gazes met, a small frown marred her brow. “How long have you been watching me sleep?”
“Not long.” Lie. Big lie. “Hang on.”
He climbed out of bed and moved into the kitchen. A few moments later, he returned with a cupcake and a candle. “Happy thirtieth birthday, Cass.”
With a gasp, her lips parted. “You remembered?”
“Of course. I couldn’t forget.”
Lord knew he’d tried. The last couple years, he’d done everything he could to forget. To distract himself on this day, in order to keep functioning.
She smiled and blew out the candle. When she took the cupcake from his hand, she swiped some icing and put her finger in her mouth.
He hardened. Jesus Christ. The woman was going to be the death of him.
Her eyes closed. “Oh my gosh. Chocolate hazelnut butter cream. I haven’t had this in… Well, a long time.”
It seemed she hadn’t had a lot of her favorite foods in a long time.
She licked more icing off her finger, her gaze on the cupcake, but her brows pulled together like she was deep in thought. “They were throwing me a ball tonight in honor of my thirtieth birthday.”
The heat in his stomach turned to acid at the mention of that damn cult. “Sounds extravagant. Do they do that for all birthdays?”
She shook her head. “Not all. Just some. Usually the big ones.” She lifted a shoulder. “I guess thirty classifies as a big one.”
She was five years younger than he was, though age had never been a factor in their relationship. They’d met at a baseball game. Both of them had gone with friends, each sitting on the outskirts of their respective groups, and had ended up next to each other. He’d barely watched that game. At the end, he didn’t even know who’d won. All he wanted to do was talk to her more. See her smile again.
He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a finger along her shoulder. She shuddered.
“Are you sad you’re missing it?” he asked gently.
She scoffed. “No. I hate being around them. It’s exhausting. I’ll miss seeing Mia, though. And I’m worried about what Olive will think of my absence.” Her gaze rose to his, and a new determination filled them. “I’m still going back, Aidan.”
“No—”
“I am,” she said quickly. “I have to. You can do whatever you need to do to make sure I’m safe. Put a listening device on me. Put your own cameras up in the house. But I need to finish this. I’ve put over two years of my life into getting close to people in Paragons of Hope. Learning what’s really going on. Building relationships. Making plans. Dean risked his life to give me that phone and make contact with Detective Shaw. If Elijah finds out what he’s done…” She paused. “Olive is the solution here. I can’t lose her.”
“And I can’t lose you.”
Her eyes softened. “You won’t.”
“Damien said you’d be dead if I didn’t get you out of there.” Even saying those words out loud made him feel sick to his gut.
Frustration washed over her face. “I don’t know why. But I’m not going back in alone. You can figure out a way to keep me safe, and I’ll find out from Damien what he knew.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Cassie—”
She touched his arm. “Please, Aidan. Trust me.”
“I do trust you. It’s other assholes I don’t trust.”
She swallowed, then her eyes misted. “I can’t not do this. I can’t give up. Mia’s the only family I have left. She’s not safe there. And neither is anyone else. Women are being raped. Innocent people are dying.”
Fuck. He needed to say no. Hell, he should bundle the woman in bubble wrap and drag her back to his house with its state-of-the-art security. But if he said no, and his team couldn’t shut the cult down, if something happened to her sister because he’d forced her to leave, Cassie would never forgive him.
He blew out a long breath. “I’ll call my team today. I’m not making any promises, but we’ll talk options.”
She sighed and leaned her head into his chest. “Thank you.”
“I don’t need to be there for the call.” Cassie tried to slip from the living room, but Aidan was suddenly grabbing her wrist. Damn, he was fast. He’d always been quick, but now… Well, now he could cross from the kitchen to the bedroom in literally the blink of an eye.
He frowned at her. “Why don’t you want to be on the Zoom call with my team?”
Wasn’t that obvious? “Because they’re your best friends.”
When he just kept looking at her with that “explain” expression on his face, she sighed. “Because we were dating. Not casually dating. Not on-and-off dating. In-love-forever dating. Then you disappeared, and six months later I married someone else. You don’t hate me because you love me. But they love you, and they saw how much I hurt you.” She tried to pull away, but his hold was unbreakable.
He pulled her into his chest, and his breath brushed against her ear. “They don’t hate you. They’ve never hated you. In fact, almost every day since we got out, at least one of them has been on my ass about returning to you and getting the full story.”
That had her pausing. She’d just assumed they’d all think the worst of her. “Really?”
He raised his head. “Really.”
This time when he tugged her over, she moved hesitantly along with him. She started to sit on a chair at the table, but he dropped into it first and tugged her onto his lap.
“Aidan.” She pushed up, but the Zoom call came through on the laptop in front of them. Aidan leaned over and pressed a key. Suddenly, five broad-shouldered, well-muscled men appeared on the screen, all of them sitting around a long table. Even though Cassie had never met a single one of them, she knew each by name. When the media frenzy had occurred, she’d squirreled away every newspaper and magazine article she could get her hands on. She’d read and reread everything every chance she got, needing to know as much about Aidan and his life as she could.
“Hey, guys.” Aidan’s voice was as relaxed as she’d ever heard it, and there was real affection there. “This is Cassie. Cassie, this is Blake, Flynn, Tyler, Callum and Liam.”
She received a series of nods and “heys”. None of them seemed to blink an eye at seeing her on Aidan’s lap. And more than that, none of them looked at her with any obvious hostility.
A breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding released from her chest. “Hi.”
“Logan and Jason are currently watching the compound,” Blake said. “How are you both holding up?”
“We’re good,” Aidan answered. “Had a little bit of trouble yesterday morning with a few local hunters.”
Her heart thumped at the mention of the run-in with the campers. Aidan’s fingers slipped beneath the hem of her top, and he gently rubbed her belly with his thumb. Her muscles relaxed.
The guys all seemed to tense. God, they were all replicas of Aidan.
“I handled it,” he said quickly. “They’ve moved on. No sign of anyone else around. Anything on your end?”
“Damien called from his burner phone yesterday and left a message here at Blue Halo.”
Cassie straightened at Flynn’s words. “What did he say?”
“He told us he would call at ten p.m. to talk to us, but he never did.”
Cassie frowned. If there was one thing true about Damien, it was that he was a man of his word. “What do you mean, he didn’t call?”
This time it was Liam who answered. “We were here, waiting for the call, but it never came through.”
“In fact,” Callum added, “Jason had been watching Damien, but he went to the compound yesterday and hasn’t left.”
Unease coiled in her belly. Damien never stayed at the compound, certainly not overnight. He hated that place as much as she did. Probably more.
Feeling her tension, Aidan grazed her bare skin again. “I’m sure he’s okay,” he said quietly to her before looking at the screen. “What are the police doing about Cassie’s disappearance?”
Tyler leaned back in his seat. “There have been no police reports filed.”
Cassie scoffed. “Of course not. Elijah does everything he can to avoid drawing police attention.”
“That’s not to say Elijah isn’t looking for you,” Callum replied, his voice hard. “He’s got guys out roaming the streets. Don’t ask how I know this, but they’ve hacked into street cameras and airline databases. They have guards from the compound searching everywhere.”
Sounded like Elijah. “He sees the members of Paragons of Hope as his property. When Aidan took me, he would have considered that theft, rather than kidnapping. And of course he wants his property back.” God, she hated the man. She’d never hated anyone even half as much.
Aidan sighed. “Cassie wants to go back, temporarily, until after this meeting with Olive and Detective Shaw.”
There was a heavy silence. She wanted to squirm. Hell, she wanted to get off Aidan’s lap and pace. His hand tightened on her hip. The damn mind reader.
“You’re okay with that?”
Blake’s words had her back straightening. “I’m my own person.”
“Never said you weren’t.”
“I have to go back,” she said quickly. “Olive will only go if the meeting is with me, and if she thinks it’s safe.”
The expressions on the guys’ faces barely changed.
“We made contact with this Detective Shaw,” Blake finally said. “He indicated he needs the recorded confession from Olive and whatever evidence she has to be able to arrest the guy and keep him locked up, at least temporarily.”
Exactly what he’d told her.
Finally, Tyler spoke. “We’d need to find a different location to make sure it can’t be traced back to any of us. We have to make it look like Cassie was held there and escaped. Make up a story but keep as close to the truth as possible.”
“Yeah, the asshole running the joint will definitely send people to investigate and back up her story,” Liam added.
“In terms of when she gets home, I can ensure some of the houses around hers are empty so we can stay close,” Callum said, tapping on the laptop in front of him. “At least the houses on either side and opposite. We can also give Cassie a listening device.”
“Under no circumstances would you go into that compound,” Aidan added quickly. “If I even suspect Elijah’s taking you there, I’ll be raiding that place, and to hell with consequences.”
She gave a short nod even as her heart thudded. They were actually letting her do this. She was going to return to her home. To Paragons of Hope. To Elijah.
