Grievous (Scarlet Scars #2)(4)

“Ugh, yeah.” I scratch my head, my hair a knotted mess. “Guess I was really tired.”

I can’t remember the last time I slept twelve hours.

“Is Lorenzo still in bed?” Leo asks. “If so, you might want to check his pulse. He never sleeps more than two or three hours. Might be dead.”

I blink a few times. “He’s not down here?”

“Haven’t seen him,” Leo says. “We got home about three hours ago, so he must’ve left before then if he wasn’t upstairs with you.”

“Is his car outside?” I ask, stepping into the living room, walking over to the window to look out. The black BMW is still parked in the driveway. “Guess he walked, or maybe he took the subway...”

“Or someone picked him up,” Leo says.

Weird.

Staring at his car, I try to ignore the strange feeling brewing inside of me. Ugh. Lorenzo is an adult. He’s under no obligation to check in with anyone before he goes out, much less tell me his business.

Frankly, I’m not sure I want to know half of the places the man has been.

But still, a feeling twists my gut, something dangerously close to worry, like I’m concerned about his well-being.

“Can I ask you something, Morgan?”

Leo’s voice draws me from those thoughts before I can dwell on them too much. Turning, I glance at where he sits on the couch. Melody is reading something out of a thick textbook, while he eyes me peculiarly from beside her. “Ask me something?”

“Yeah, something, I don’t know... personal?”

Oh no.

Inwardly, I’m on edge about that, because personal questions never lead anywhere good, but I plaster on a smile. “Sure.”

“What’s up with you and my brother?”

Uh... “What do you mean what’s up with us?”

“I’m just wondering what your plans are,” he says. “Do you see this thing with him actually going somewhere? Do you want it to go somewhere? Or is it just, you know, convenient—”

Melody slams her book closed, interrupting him with a glare. “Leonardo! I know you are not trying to have the ‘what are your intentions?’ talk with her!”

My eyes widen. Is he?

Leo turns to his girlfriend. “What? I’m just asking...”

“You can’t just ask somebody that,” she says. “Don’t you remember when we first started dating and you got the third degree about your intentions? Didn’t like that so much, did you, buddy?”

“That’s different.”

“No, it’s not,” she says, rolling her eyes. “They’re grown ass folk, so mind your beeswax.”

“But—”

She points him in the face, her finger jabbing him in the nose as she makes a screeching noise to cut him off, loud enough to startle even herself.

I step closer, perching on the arm of a chair near the couch, as Leo grabs her finger and playfully pretends to bite it.

“I get it,” I say. “I show up out of nowhere, and here I am, doing all the crap he complains about, like eating his food and breathing his air, yet he tolerates it.”

“Yes!” Leo throws his hands up, shooting Melody a smug look. She scowls, shoving his face away as he laughs. “It’s just not like my brother.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” I say. “Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t really have an answer. I’m just trying to survive, and your brother? Well, I don’t even know what to say about Lorenzo. He’s an asshole a lot of the time, completely unyielding, but in a refreshing way... I kind of like it. As for why he puts up with me? He’s been bored and the sex is good. Or well, that was his reasoning when I asked.”

Leo doesn’t look disappointed. Quite the opposite, in fact. He grins like a maniac. Melody, on the other hand, opens her book again, muttering, “talk about romantic.”

“Anyway...” I stand back up, holding Buster out. “You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a sewing kit around here anywhere, would you? A needle? Some thread, maybe?”

“Check the kitchen,” Leo says. “Or the library... or the bathroom... or maybe Lorenzo’s room...”

“So check everywhere?”

“Pretty much.”

I go to walk out when Melody glances up, her brow furrowing. “Is that a teddy bear?”

“Yep,” I say.

“It’s, uh...” She hesitates. “Nice.”

“It’s falling apart,” I say. “I need to fix it back up.”

“Why do you have a teddy bear?” Leo asks before turning to his girlfriend. “Wait, am I allowed to ask that?”

Melody just rolls her eyes at him.

“Oh, it’s not mine,” I say. “It belongs to my daughter.”

I step out into the hallway just as my words seem to strike Leo. “Your what?” he shouts, but I don’t answer, hearing Melody stop him from following me with another line about ‘beeswax’.

I scour the kitchen, finding a hell of a lot of utensils, enough knives to potentially qualify Lorenzo as a one of those Doomsday preppers, but no sewing kit anywhere. I move on to the library, scanning the shelves, squatting down to search a row of built-in cabinets beneath them, and am about to give up and move on when a loud voice cuts through the room. “What the fuck are you doing?”