Page 40 of Tempest’s Torment

Lilah tells Ghost everything she'd just told me: Evan, Lucy, the cabin, and about escaping. She doesn't rush through it, and she doesn't stop until she's finished. Ghost listens without interrupting, letting her tell it in her own time.

Ghost rubs a hand across his jaw. "You should never have had to carry that on your own." He looks at the envelope. "May I?"

She nods and he picks it up, unfolds it, reads it, then refolds it and sets it back on the table. He looks at Lilah directly. "How long ago did you leave Connecticut?"

"Two and a half years ago."

"And before tonight, nothing? No contact, no sightings?"

"He showed up twice before I left. That's why Omen moved me." She holds his gaze. "I haven't seen him since. Not until the SUV, if that’s even him."

Ghost looks at the envelope for a long second. "He wanted you to know he found you."

Lilah nods. "I know."

"And he wanted you scared."

"I know," she says again quietly.

Ghost looks at me. "Rogue?"

"He's been running everything we have; he doesn't have a name yet."

"He does now." Ghost looks back at Lilah. "Evan Calloway. I'll have Rogue pull everything available, Connecticut records, current location, known associates, financial trail. If he's been in Boston for more than a few days there'll be a trace somewhere." He looks at her, his eyes softer than they had been. "There always is."

Lilah gives him a small smile. "And then what?"

Ghost doesn't look away. "Then we act accordingly."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the honest one," he says. "I won't make you a promise I can't back up with information I don't have yet. What I can tell you is that you're not dealing with this alone from tonight." He holds her gaze. "Lorenzo trusted us with you. That means something to this club."

She's quiet for a moment.

"He never told me it would be you specifically," she says.

"He wouldn't. That's not how Lorenzo operates," Ghost tells her. "He trusted us to figure out what you needed."

She looks at the envelope. "I need him to stop."

"Yes," Ghost says simply. "You do."

He stands and looks at me. "Fire escape window in the back room needs a secondary lock," I tell him. "I'll sort it tomorrow. Sniper should sweep the building entry points, find out how he either got the code or if he got in behind someone."

Ghost nods. "I'll have him here in the morning." He looks at Lilah one more time. "You made the right call, letting him in."

She doesn't say anything to that, but she looks at her mug. Ghost goes into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind him. I hear him on the phone almost immediately, voice low, giving Rogue the name.

The apartment goes quiet. Lilah is looking at the coffee table. I sit in the kitchen chair and think about the fire escape latch and the entry code and the three years of patience it takes to do what Evan Calloway has been doing, and the cold anger in my chest settles in and stays there.

I look at the envelope. He came to Boston; that was his first mistake.

We’re going to find him and this nightmare that Lilah’s in is going to end.

CHAPTER SEVEN

lilah