“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.”
We were still in the same position when we woke up in the morning. Adam was already awake and was holding his cell phone to his face.
“Julian needs to talk to you,” he said as I opened my eyes.
That woke me up. “What? How do you know that?”
He waved his phone in front of me.
“How come you guys can text each other, but I can’t text Julian?”
“Because no one is going to suspect that I want to talk to the guy,” Adam chuckled. “That’s why he and I exchanged numbers.”
“You and Julian exchanged numbers?”
That simple fact astonished me. They didn’t like each other.
Adam shrugged. “Yeah, we figured it was the best way to keep tabs on what was going on and to keep you safe.”
I was beginning to feel like everyone else in the world knew what was going on besides me. And I didn’t appreciate it one damn bit. Still though, I leapt out of bed and rushed around to get ready. Time was wasting, and I needed to know what Julian needed to speak with me about. It would eat away at me all day if we waited until this evening to meet. And apparently, he felt the same way, because when we got to the tree, Julian was already there.
