Page 42 of Crave Me

Her eyes brightened as she took it from him and put it back on, running her fingers reverentially over the pendant. “Thanks for taking good care of it.”

“I made you a promise.”

“I hated taking it off, but I couldn’t have Caspian tracking me.” She rolled her eyes. “Now that I know it has a state-of-the-art tracker in it.”

“It’s just his way of expressing his love and care for you.”

He was actually defending Caspian. Completely unheard of. And it was clearly in a bid to make her feel better.

That had her smiling. “Yeah, you’re right. It really is.”

Luke and I both exchanged a look as Damien gently took her hand and urged her, “Let’s get you something to eat. I bet you haven’t eaten since you left.”

He’d certainly taken a liking to her and from what I’d observed, it seemed to be more than just out of respect for Sebastian. Wherever she was in the house, whatever she was doing, he was always there with her. Or when she was occupied, he was watching over her, making sure she was eating, sleeping, and keeping well, in spite of being so incredibly on edge with her men missing and in captivity.

“Soon,” she said, easing away and giving his hand a pat. Then, as we drew closer, she looked out at us. “First, we need to see to this,” she said, pulling a memory stick from her leather jacket.

“He gave up the intel to you?” Luke asked.

“Everything I needed.”

“Just like that?” Luke pushed, his suspicion matching mine.

“I had to make him a deal.” She looked out at me. “And those photos also worked wonders.”

“What deal?” Damien asked her.

She waved her hand at the three of us. “It’s not important. This intel is.” With that, she brushed past us all and called over her shoulder, “This needs uploading to the command center now.”

We all followed after her through the mansion.

“What was the deal?” I asked her.

She blew out a breath, not breaking her stride. “I agreed that Caspian wouldn’t get wind of Scott’s unwitting involvement with this whole fucked-up thing.”

“And?” I pushed, knowing that couldn’t possibly be it, not to obtain this sort of intel.

“And I also agreed to throw a fight with one of his club members, once all this is done.”

“What?” Damien demanded.

“It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal? To throw a fight in those underground fighting circuits, you’ll basically be beaten to a pulp. The spectators won’t buy it any other way. They can tell what’s fake really easily, Bluebell.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s fine.” As we reached the entrance to what she’d termed The Jackals Lair, she looked out at us. “A small price to pay for this intel that could finally be what we’ve been needing in order to get a lock on the guys.”

When Damien went to argue his point some more, I held up my hand. “Let’s focus on the immediate.”

“I agree,” Luke said, as we descended the stairs, Skylar leading the way. “We need to hurry. Input this new intel, then I’ll deploy a team to the respective locations before Caspian gets back. We can’t have another dead-end, so he can’t know about this until we’ve determined it’s viable and truly something to go on.”

“Well, that plan has failed before it’s even begun,” a voice sounded, a moment before Caspian emerged from the far corner of the room—a hidden entrance through a false wall that seemed to lead out to the south side of the property.

He hadn’t emerged alone either.

There, right beside him, was none other than Asher Monroe.

“Jesus Christ,” Luke breathed. “You didn’t.”

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