Page 65 of His Every Move

My heart skipped a beat for a split second. I assumed it was Eli inviting me back inside to talk things out.

It wasn’t. It was Damon.

Yeah, I can meet. I’m getting off work now.

I had to read the text twice. I hadn’t been expecting Damon to reply to my messages hounding him for a meeting. I’d gotten his number after messaging him on the streaming website. I wasn’t entirely truthful (surprise) about why I wanted to meet with him, but I didn’t want to scare him off, either. I told him I was a scout looking for new talent for a modeling agency.

He took the bait. He fucking took the bait. Now, I just had to reel him in.

Maybe this was how I got back into Eli’s good graces? If I unmasked the real Nomad and showed Eli I had his best interests at heart, then maybe, just maybe, I had a chance of fixing things.

Great! I’m also available now. Where would be a good place to meet?

Good. This was good. This could turn my day around. I just had to click back into investigative mode. My mind was currently being pulled in a hundred different directions—drink, Eli, Nomad, getting drunk, Damon, Eli, Nomad, vodka, tequila, beer, Nomad.

Nomad.

Nomad.

Damon.

Damon.

….

Holy shit.

Damon. His name. Backward.

Nomad.

No… it couldn’t have been right there, right in front of my face the entire time.

I’m just leaving work. I can meet at the High Line. I’ll drop my pin.

The High Line wasn’t exactly the place I expected to meet, but at this point, it didn’t matter. I just had to get to Damon. Question him. Figure out just who the fuck this man was and how I could stop him.

Damon. Nomad.

Fuck.

The weight of this hit me harder the second time. I wanted to laugh at how blatantly obvious it had been. This entire time, his username had been right there, mocking me. Taunting me. The urge to wrap my hands around his throat tightened my fingers into fists.

But I couldn’t let my anger derail me. I had to stay calm. I had to remember why I was here.

Eli.

I needed to fix this—for him.

My heart stung as it beat, the ache growing deeper with every thought of Elijah’s face when he found out the truth. The hurt in his eyes was more painful than most things I’d experienced in my life, and I’d experienced some fucked-up shit.

I opened the pin Damon had sent me. He wasn’t too far.

I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.

I took a shaky breath and walked toward the curb, where I ordered an Uber and rode it through rush-hour traffic. The car smelled as if the driver had been chauffeuring a fucking corpse. I lowered the window and got hit with a blast of exhaust from the truck in front of us. I couldn’t get out of that Uber fast enough.

The late-afternoon sky was painted with shades of darkening lavender and orange. There was a beauty to the city at this time of day that really couldn’t be matched. The tall towers of glass and stone were lit up like torches, reflecting the last dying light of the day. The energy on the streets was also different, with people walking home from work with grocery bags or clicking their heels down the street on the way to happy hour.

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