He snarled. “Then perhaps what you don’t know is how close she is to—”

“Go on,” Adam said as he matched eyes with Michael. “Say it. Finish the rest of that sentence. How close is she to what?”

Michael swept his arm across the table, knocking all the food and dishes in front of us onto the floor. He made a lunge that looked as if he was going to jump across the table and grab me as he threatened to drag me up to Marta’s office on the grounds of expulsion.

But Adam stood up and flipped the table over right in front of him, knocking Michael backward by sheer surprise alone. The look of shock on his face made me think that Adam had never stood up to him like that before. Michael looked a little hurt even, as though he had thought of them as brothers and had been harshly reminded that they weren’t.

The two men stared at each other with tight jaws.

“Come on,” Adam said as he wrapped his arm in mine.

I got up and walked with him out of the dining hall. But, his footsteps were furious and I had to softly jog in order to keep up with him.

“Thanks for standing up for me,” I said as we walked along the campus sidewalk in the cold evening air.

He panted for breath. “Eh, it’s what boyfriends do, right?”

I laughed as I slowed my movements, causing him to slow in return. “You know, for being my boyfriend, I don’t really know all that much about you. Who were you before you came here?”

“You mean, besides the homeless guy that wandered into your mother’s halfway house?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Besides that.”

“To be honest, I don’t really know,” he said.

He stopped just as suddenly as he had flipped that table tilted his head back as if he were breathing in the night sky, and when he exhaled, I could see his breath in a puff of cloud against the winter cold. “I was going to leave Charleston. I’ve never really felt like I’ve fit in here. But then, that night happened, and so I stayed.”

“There was more about that night that kept you here besides just me,” I said. “You can tell me any romantic version of the story that you want to, but I know there was more to it than that.”

“You’re right,” Adam conceded, and I was surprised to hear him admit it. “But that doesn’t mean the romantic part wasn’t true,” he smiled.

We walked further along, not heading back toward the apartment or in any particular direction at all, but just walking and enjoying the feeling of our clasped hands under the breezy stars.

“Lisette,” Adam said as he stopped walking and turned to face me, taking both of my hands in his. “I need to be honest with you.”

This is it. He’s going to tell me who killed my mother.

“Yeah?” I asked softly as I gazed up into his eyes.

“There’s much more going on here at Lineage than you know about. Deeply-rooted stuff that was happening long before your mother got caught up in the middle of it.”

“What is it?” I asked. “Adam, you have to tell me, please. I deserve to know.”

“Yes, you do. But it’s so dangerous. You shouldn’t have come here. I thought it would be better to have you here with me, that I could keep a closer eye on you and protect you from things if you got too close to the center of it. But now I feel like it might have been a mistake to bring you here.”

“Well, it’s a bit too late for that now, isn’t it?” I joked, trying to cover up the fact that I was actually really nervous about it all.

“Yeah,” Adam agreed. “It is.”

“So, tell me,” I pleaded with him again as I took one of my hands and held the side of his face. “Just say it. It’s okay. You might even find it freeing.”

“There’s so much corruption here,” he said. “Nobody blinks an eye when it comes to talking of money and murder. Most everyone here is involved in it in some way or another.”

“Is Michael involved in it?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. But not in the way that you think.”

I wanted to know what he meant by that, but he didn’t give me the chance to ask.

“I’m involved in it too,” he said with a heavy look of remorse. “I’ve done some horribly corrupt things because I didn’t have a choice.”

“But you weren’t at all involved in what happened to my mother?” I needed him to say it again.

“No. I wasn’t. But not only do I know who killed her, I also know who made him kill her. And, I know why she was killed.”

I opened my mouth, ready to beg Adam to tell me what he knew. I would do anything, anything at all, to know what he knew. But, he continued before I found the strength to speak.

“All I can tell you is that the person who killed your mother didn’t want to do it and that the person who ordered her execution did it because your mother knew too much. Your mother uncovered what was happening here, much like you are trying to do now. And it ended in her murder.”

“Why won’t you tell me who it is?” I asked as tears sprang to my eyes.

“If I told you, it would put you in even more danger than you are already in. I may be a force to be reckoned with, but I am not invincible. And right now, I’m your best chance of survival here.”

And when he took my hand to start walking again, all I wanted was to tug him back and force him to speak.

All I wanted was the fucking truth, and I felt like he was taunting me with it.

11

When Adam and I arrived back at the apartment, Michael was already asleep in his room. We laid down quietly on the bed together, and Adam wrapped around me in a way that made me feel almost more at home than when I was with Julian. I rolled onto my side, and Adam matched my movement, curling his body around the back of mine. I rubbed against him as I tried to get into a comfortable position, and I heard him let out a small groan as I backed my hips up against his body.

Then I felt what the groan was about.

“Sorry,” I whispered as I felt his growing presence against the top of my thighs.

“It’s okay,” he said. But, after a minute of quiet, he took in a deep breath. “I want to make love to you, Lisette.”

I slowly turned around to face him and felt him against me.

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “It doesn’t have to be now, but I want to know that it will happen. So, tell me if you don’t want me. I’ll still promise to protect you here, but tell me the truth.”

Hy eyes held his as I turned my body against his and reached down to grab him in my hand. He sucked his breath in at my touch and stared at me as I held him. I opened my thighs enough to lay his heavy cock between my legs and up against the warmest part of my body.

“I do want you,” I said as I laid my head up against his chest and listened to his pounding heart. “And, it will happen.”