Page 50 of Betrayed Auctioned Mate

Inside, the house is simple. One large common room with big windows overlooks the lake, coupled with a small kitchen off to the side, two bedrooms down a narrow hallway and a tiny loft.

I track down the mains and turn the power on. Lights hum on throughout the house as Ado carries our bags inside, spitting light across the gloomy interior.

We unpack in silence. He makes quick work of checking the perimeter while I stand awkwardly by the bay window, watching the water below. The house is secure, that much I know—the team will have ensured that—but it doesn’t feel safe.Idon’t feel safe.

As rain begins to pour, I can’t shake the feeling that something—or someone—is lurking just beyond the tree line. Every rustle of leaves or creak of the wooden floorboards makes me jump, and I catch myself constantly glancing toward the windows, half-expecting to see shadowy figures moving in the darkness.

Ado returns after making his rounds and starts setting up my gear on the kitchen table. I join him, though my mind is hardly focused on the task.

We continue our individual work from earlier, though neither of us has yet slept since we woke yesterday morning. We map additional intel on the auction ring and their buyers, trying to find holes in the team’s plan. One slip-up could leave one of us dead.

The only thing keeping me grounded is the work. This was how I survived for years.

Hours pass. Eventually, night falls. In the silence, the only sound is the gentle pattering of rain on the roof, the occasional scratch of our pens on paper, or the tapping of my keyboard. Byron bought it for me as a ‘welcome-back-to-the-team’ present when I arrived in Rosecreek all those weeks ago—it’s soft, peppermint green with light-up keys. My favorite color.

Exhaustion catches up to me fast. It seems to hit me all at once, a sucker punch that leaves me winded. I look over at Ado, who’s still hunched over the table, his face illuminated by the soft glow of the laptop screen. As I watch, he rubs at his bloodshot eyes with both hands.

“I think I’m going to turn in,” I murmur.

He looks up. His eyes find me in the darkness. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was waiting for something. “Yeah. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”

I hesitate, unsure what to do next. The house is so small, and even though we’ve been in each other’s space for weeks, the proximity feels suffocating now.

“I’ll… take the smaller room,” I murmur, more to myself than to him. I can’t share a space with him tonight, not after everything.

He nods again, a hint of something—disappointment, maybe—flickering across his face. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Ado.”

I retreat down the hall to the little bedroom, the one with the obscured but distinctive view of Attlefolk, closing the door softly behind me. I lie there for hours, staring at the ceiling, listening to the gentle sounds of the lake lapping against the shore just beyond the walls, imagining Ado close by. Close enough to feel, but still too far to touch.

***

The rain persists all night and into the morning. The sky is commiserating with me, I think.

We work through the following day. Aris and Byron text periodically with updates. There have been no new leads on my pursuers, I’m told. All the cameras around the vandalized building were cut that morning.

Byron says this worries him, but it shouldn’t worry us. He tells me cheerily that it’s not my job to worry—it’s just my job to not die.

He can’t know it, but that sentence makes me feel unwell.

I can see the shape of the raids finally becoming perfect, though. I watch the final pieces fall into place.

Our plan is flawless. There aren’t any holes in it. The only liabilities are… me and Ado. And we both know it, though neither one of us will voice it out loud.

Byron was right. It really is our job not to die.

I cook dinner for us, a casserole I only know how to throw together because one of my aunts used to swear by the recipe. I don’t have much in the way of extended family, and both of my parents have long since moved abroad. I’ve been thinking a lot about family lately. That’s the curse of having pregnant friends. Blaming Liv allows me to keep from blaming myself.

We eat in comfortable silence, both shoveling food into our mouths with our forks and leafing through paperwork with the other hand.

Ado washes up. I watch the rain hammering into the lake outside our windows. We’ve kept all the curtains drawn, but resisting the temptation to stick my head through and peek is difficult.

The dark sky is foreboding tonight. I squint into the distance, to Attlefolk, cocooned by the curve of the lake. No sign of movement.

From up here, I feel suspended. It’s an optical illusion. Lightning flashes, and for an instant, the water beneath the lakehouse looks like the freezing river I fell into as a child.

“Tomorrow’s the day. I’m going to sleep,” Ado tells me, rubbing his hands in a dish towel.

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