Page 13 of Bound by Adoration

I was a planner. A knowledge seeker. A doer. She was in trouble, so let’s fix this shit now.

I’d deal with Liam and his roaming eyes after.

Nyx was flustered, her hands going through her hair and pulling it at the root. Even though her eyes were haunted in a way I’d never seen from her, there was also an electric spark in them. That fighter to which she didn’t give herself enough credit for was shining.

That spark she showed me in the alley. The one that pulled me to her like a moth to a flame.

With the shit she’d already told me, it churned my gut, wanting to go on a fiery rampage and made me want to shelter her. But her strength … it was something like I’d only ever seen in Ravage women. She fit the mold more perfectly than she even knew yet. But she would.

Surprisingly, it was Liam who spoke. “Miles Hamilton is the communications king of Atlanta. He has every official legal branch in his pocket and pays them all off extensively. Or the cunning bastard gets blackmail on those he wants to control, which you don’t want to know how, and extorts people into doing what he wants. Since Ca…” He shook his head like he was getting that name out of his head. Which was good. Cami didn’t fit the Nyx I knew. “Nyx left three and a half years ago. All the Hamiltons have been searching for her ever since. I only know because unofficially the entire police force is supposed to be looking for her too.”

“That includes you?” I barked, my hands balling into fists and spine stiffened. He was already on thin ice. One slight move in the wrong directions, and he’d fall, hard. If he gave her any…

His spine tensed at my words. “Kept my ear to the ground. Listened. Changed different information when I could after learning it. But staying out of prying eyes and never getting close to put a target on either of us. You’ve been a ghost, Nyx.” Liam smiled widely at Nyx with pride and admiration shown all over his face as he relaxed just a touch, which I didn’t fucking like one bit. His feelings for her were becoming clearer and clearer. “Un-fucking-traceable.”

“It’s crazy to just wipe yourself off the face of the earth, yet still live every day. Or, at least, carve a small bit of a life out. I’d worked damn hard to make it happen,” Nyx responded softly. “I’m gathering no one knows our connection.”

Liam shook his head. “No. Not a soul except the people in this room.”

“Okay. Get all that, but how would they know you’re even alive if you’ve stayed hidden?” I asked, trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together and grateful Liam kept his mouth shut about Nyx. Was it true? Fuck, it better be.

Because if she was ghost, none of this mattered, and I’d take care of the problem. Done.

“I asked Screech to do some digging into the men. I know that if I ever want to live a life being me out of the shadows, they’d need to be dealt with,” Nyx said.

So she tried to solve her problem. Good to know.

“We tried hacking their accounts,” Screech started. “Or, I should sayIstarted hacking, trying to get anything. They have very sophisticated security systems that ran me around to tons of dead ends, so gathering information wasn’t easy, and we never got very far because I’d get booted just as I’d get in to actually get inside.”

I took all this in, letting it absorb. “How long have you been working on this info grab?”

“Since she came to Sumner. So a year,” he replied, open and ready to tell us whatever we needed to hear which I appreciated.

This was good because I needed everything in his brain. Either Nyx told me, or he would.

“And you weren’t getting anything because of the intense security, so you decided breaking in and installing cameras was the best idea? But even that doesn’t seem like a big enough clue to direct the connection of the cameras to you,” I added.

Nyx sighed. “True in and of itself, no, but I think they knew it was me because I watched Kryo beat the shit out of a woman, fuck her, and call her ‘Cami’.”

“What the fuck did you say?” I clipped a little harsher, anger bubbling. I leaned forward to make sure my ears weren’t deceiving me.

Nyx ignored me and kept going. “Then I watched as Flynn took his turn with the battered woman, calling out my name as well.”

“That’s fucked up,” Screech responded. “It’s why I had her phone. She was watching through an app I installed which is now deleted and blocked. But I kept access on them, and no one needs to see that shit.”

“Babe, hate to tell you this, but you still don’t know for sure they knew it was you. They could just be sick fucks who weren’t puttin’ on a show.” The confirmation wasn’t there. Or I didn’t see it.”

Nyx’s ass hit the floor and head went back against the wall. “I have to believe it was a scene for me because if it wasn’t, I really can’t stomach that thought.”

That I understood, but we had to have facts here. Therefore, I turned to Liam. “And you? How do youknowthey’re comin’?”

“Work. In the past day, word at the station is these cameras were pulled from the Hamilton places, and they had an identifier on them that put the location of their origin in Tifton.”

“This is fact or just somethin’ you heard?” I asked, because this shit was just hearsay. If there was no proof…

“Confirmed. Looked into it. A fuckin’ barcode on the camera. That gave it away.”

“That fucker,” Screech said, appalled and pissed. “The guy owed me, so he put the cameras in and fucked me. Fucked Nyx. A fucking bar code? I’ll crash everything he has and wipe him clean.”

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