46 - Suspect

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

― Roald Dahl

. . .

ZAVIER CREED

"What do you want to do?" Ashton asked. "Ask her about Georgia, make her suspicious which will probably end up in her trying to warn Georgia?"

"We can take her phone." I shrugged, not entirely serious.

"She knows the number, so she can call anytime she gets her hand on a phone, and we are not talking her phone away," Xerxes grumbled.

"We don't know how she'd react if we tell her," Ashton said, wiser than ever, as he leaned back into the chair beside Xerxes. We were in my office. Olivia was sleeping in Ashton's room, taking her after class nap on his massage chair she had discovered a few days back and now spent half of her day on.

"Let's just not ask," I said. "I want to spend these two days in peace with her and then we can deal with blondie."

"We have to make sure she won't disclose her location to Georgia," Xerxes said.

"We can just tell her that the location of the Valentinos' safe house is to be kept a secret because the security of many people depends on it," Ashton muttered, taking a sip of his whiskey. He has been beating himself up since what happened. Did I regret punching him? No.

Should I have done it in front of Olivia? Fuck no.

I wanted to keep her away from our different...side, I suppose. I didn't want her to witness what blood of our life. I liked her grinning while sitting on a massage chair and demanding chocolates.

I had started talking to Ashton. I knew why he had acted the way he had acted. We had been betrayed too many times by the people we cared for. Would I have done the same? I didn't know. I was pretty impulsive.

"That'll work," I said, standing up and walking out of the office, eager to see Kitten.

I entered Ashton's room and there she was, curled on the chair, sleeping quietly.

I walked closer and picked her up gently. She stirred, frowning. I pecked her lips and walked out of the room, entering mine and closing the door.

I laid down on the bed with her tucked to my side.

"Zavier?" She mumbled sleepily, snuggling deeper into me and throwing a leg over me.

"Hm?"

"Hurts."

I pulled her on my chest, my hand going down to her lower back to massage it gently. She sighed, body loosening. I pulled a blanket over us.

"Where are Xerxes and Ashton?" She mumbled.

"They have work." They did. Ashton had to make sure the Valentinos's safe house had everything she could possibly need and Xerxes had the harder task - talking to the Valentinos to make sure they knew how to act around Olivia. Fabiano was going to be a bitch about it, Giovanni would probably ignore whatever Xerxes said and Dante would try and fail to act appropriately.

It was hard, letting her go. Now that I had her, I wanted her in my arms all the time. Sometimes it didn't feel real. It felt as if she would just walk out one day and never come back.

"When will they be back?"

"Soon," I muttered. "You need something?" She shook her head. "Nope."

I hummed, my fingers still working on her lower back. "Are you nervous about leaving?"

"Yes."

I ran my fingers through her hair. "Do you want to go?"

"I don't want to leave you three," she mumbled. "Feels weird in my stomach when I think of leaving."

It felt weird in my stomach, too, when I thought of her leaving. "Then don't."

"Xerxes will get hurt." "Huh?"

"He's next in line," she mumbled. "No more hurt." She fell asleep.

. . .

When she woke up, she was crying because of cramps again.

"Kitten." She sniffled as I sat up, cuddling her into my arms as her body shook. I hated this. Her being in pain and I could do nothing about it.

"I need to change." I hesitantly let her go. She got off the bed, her movement slow, and walked out of the room with me beside her, holding her hand. One thing I had come to know? Picking her up when she was having cramps was not a good idea. Even the lowest pressure on her stomach made her cry.

We entered her room and she walked inside the bathroom closing it.

I sat on her bed, looking at the books on her bed. My brothers and I never graduated high school, we would have if we ever got the chance. Still, Xerxes and Ashton were fucking geniuses. Ashton had his name in various researches and NASA projects and Xerxes was too fucking good in business.

I arranged her books on her desk, knowing she'd throw herself on the bed as soon as she stepped out of the room.

The door opened before long and Olivia threw herself on the bed, looking at me expectedly. I laid down broad ever and she snuggled to my side, again throwing her leg over me and one arm came around my chest.

"Zavier?"

"Yes?"

"Ten people died," she mumbled. "I-It was my fault." She burst into tears.

This was a pattern, too. She cried because Ashton and I got hurt and then she cried because of the ten people who had died and then she cried because Cassandra's cafe got shut down. It was an awful cycle that left me feeling powerless because there was nothing I could do to convince her that none of this was her fault. If anything, it was ours.

"Kitten, it wasn't your fault."

But she cried on my chest, little sobs which shook her whole body as she clutched to me as if I was the only thing keeping her grounded.

I held her, that was all I could when she refused to listen to me. "It wasn't your fault," I mumbled to her.

"It was!" She said back and I, for some reason, had a feeling she was referring to more things than I thought.

Olivia was a little mystery box. You could find out her rings size, you could tell what she was thinking, you could tell when she was lying, but sometimes she hid. She was damn good at that. You wouldn't even realize it when she hid like that. It was quick.

She hid like that when she woke up crying in her sleep.

I knew about what had happened to her but I did not know how deeply it was engraved into her. I wanted to know. I wanted her to tell me everything.

Because her father was a suspect, too.

Why?

He had run away from his prison a few months back. That was when it all had started.

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