Page 48 of Smoke and Mirrors

“What the… the Loft assignment?”

He rests his hand on my shoulder and nods his head. “Kace, boss put the kill order out on Lily. She gave it to me as a sole act and didn’t share it with anyone else from the Seven. I’m assuming because I didn’t know about you and Lily, and some of the others on our team did. I don’t know what’s going on, but Kace, you know there’s a reason for it. There always is,” he says as laughter filters down the hallway. We both turn our heads to see Lily and Molly walking toward us.

My muscles clench as I turn back to Noah and open my eyes wide. “Don’t you hurt her,” I murmur as the girls go quiet and walk past us. Lily looks at me, and her chest lifts with quickening breaths, and she offers me a sweet smile that soothes the monster that’s raging inside me.

Molly looks from me to Noah, and her lips creep up in a slight smile as she looks Noah up and down.

“Wow, looks like you’ve been in the wars,” Molly says, looking at Noah’s bite marks on his arm.

Lily looks down, and I tense up as Noah gasps and quickly attempts to cover his arm, but Lily reaches out and grabs onto his arm pulling his sleeve back. Noah doesn’t fight her. She drops his arm and pushes his shoulder, but he doesn’t budge even a millimeter. “Was it you? Were you in my apartment?”

Molly scoffs. “Are you a creeper? You sexy, asshole fucker.” Her voice turns up a notch as she assesses Noah.

“I should go.” Noah looks at Lily as her face contorts with rage, and her nose curls up like she’s ready to attack.

“Yes, you should,” I agree.

“You better move before I put my fist through your perfectly chiseled jawline,” Molly threatens, and I furrow my brows at her strange insult. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was crushing on Noah while attempting to be angry at him.

“What the hell is going on?” Lily grunts placing her hands on her hips as she glares at me, her eyes sparkling with hurt. “Who is this?”

My eyes flick to Molly for a second before I focus in on Lily. “One of my guys,” I tell her, trying not to offer too much information in front of her friend.

Lily takes a step back, and I follow her while reaching out to grab her arm, but she swats my hand away. She’s shaking.

I growl deep in my throat, stalking her as she retreats toward her apartment door. “What happened to trusting me?” I ask, low enough so Molly can’t hear.

She stills for a moment, contemplating my words. “Tell me what’s going on.”

I can feel Molly moving closer to us. She’s protective of Lily, and for that, I’m glad. But Lily is strong. Stronger than she lets people see.

“I can’t talk about it right now, but I’m going to find out.”

She swallows, the movement drawing my attention to her neck. I have to hold myself back from going to her and pressing my lips to what I know to be the softest skin I’ve ever touched. She nods, but I can still feel the wall begin to build up between us again. I need to sort this shit out and stop it before she builds it so high and so thick that I can’t penetrate through.

Even though I want to stay and talk to Lily, make sure she’s okay and find out if we can mend what might be broken between us, I turn grabbing Noah by the scruff of the neck and walk with him to talk to my boss—my mom.

LILY

Kace storms off with the guy who was in my fucking apartment and that Daisy saved me from. The fact that he’s part of Kace’s team doesn’t surprise me, but it does annoy the shit out of me. Turning, I put my keys in the lock and open my door, stomping inside.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You think you can just storm off after that…” she waves her hands around, “… like nothing epic just happened, missy?” Molly asks, following me inside and slamming the door shut behind me. The loudness of the wood hitting the door jamb doesn’t even startle me because the blood pumping through my ears is so loud, the thud seems like nothing more than a muted hum.

“What? What do you want from me?”

She opens her eyes wide and scoffs. “Umm… maybe for you to calm the fuck down and start talking.”

As I pace my living room, I look down at the spot on the carpet where the blood stain is still slightly visible. To the normal eye, you probably wouldn’t even notice, but to me, it’s a reminder of the danger I was in that night and how utterly terrified I was. At this moment, I’m torn, I’m angry, and I’m fucking scared. I want to tell Molly everything, but I don’t want to hurt Kace either.

“Kace, he just… he throws me off. Every time I get close, something seems to push us further apart. End of story,” is all I say instead, and Molly scoffs rolling her eyes.

“Well… you want me to fuck his friend and dump him on his ass for payback? ‘Cause I will do that for you… take one for the team.”

Finally cracking a smile, I slump my shoulders and relax a little. “No, it’s better if we both just stay away and keep our distance from them.”

Molly shrugs and sighs. “Shame.” She smirks, and I shake my head. It’s almost like she actually wants to sleep with that guy—the one who broke into my place and tried to… tried to what? I don’t even know!

Trust her, she always did like the bad boys. “But really, Kace lives next door. There’s only a wall separating the two of you. And I bet he walks around naked in his apartment. And so do you. Aaand… if you’re naked at the same time, weeell… there’s basically just a wall stopping you from having his cock inside you. That’s not keeping your distance. With those muscles, he could punch through the damn wall, grab, and fondle your boobs as you stroll by.”

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