The Mercy of Birds

CHAPTER 14: THIEF

CHAPTER 14
THIEF

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Standing in the desolate part of the county, the northern wind blew over the eaves and made the house quiver from the biting cold. The sibilation of the breeze and the rattle of the woodwork composition became prominent among the quiet in the house, but she more than believed the place would remain robust and indefatigable even in the face of the harshest snowstorm. Nova didn't have to worry about any external force that would wreck it, she only feared what transpired from within, the one where she would spur on herself.

Somehow, she agonized over the thought of loss she would experience if she failed to do what was injudiciously demanded of her, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that made her feel so bereaved. Perhaps it was the loss of income that she would suffer from if Cameron decided to kick her to the curb and take issue with her company about her impudent snooping, but she could still make do with the amount of money Nicholas had promised her until she could find a job again.

Perhaps it was the sex. She didn't have a problem admitting that he was an upper echelon in the department. Blessed with the full package of a prepossessing face and sturdy body, she would surely long for the feeling of him from time to time, but even she knew he couldn't have been the lover that she desired.

Perhaps it was the idea of him. He never allowed any personal talking, but his eyes always betrayed him. He lived in the line of problematic, fatalistic story, one that she couldn't interpret but nonetheless able to read. There was no fixing for him except when he wanted it for himself. It made her want to linger just to be the witness of it, but she shouldn't have regarded him like that. She was supposed to be callous, strictly business. So it must be wise to desert him before she plunged herself into a deeper predicament like making a reserved place for him in her heart.

Yet as she stared at the ridge of muscle that rippled on his back, a tattoo of a pair of wings overarching his spine, she realized he was nothing to her, just another one of her clientele, but why did it feel so hard?

She couldn't face him anymore even if the chance worked in her favor and he didn't catch her in the act because she felt like she just couldn't stand letting him trust her to touch his body when she had been dishonest.

Perhaps she searched too far, that the answer for her uneasiness simply came down to the delicate human nature of guilt.

What even was this business that Nicholas wanted her to find out so bad? What if it was just nothing? All of her worry would be in vain then. The seemingly hefty cost of loss would be for nothing and she would feel like the stupidest person on earth. Cameron could've just wanted to move away from everything or he could've just had a quarter-life crisis, but Nicholas' concern was profound. There was a sense of alarm in his air as if he knew something wicked in South Dakota and he was trying to assure that Cameron didn't tangle himself with it.

She had delayed the inevitable long enough and the deadline was imminent for the day Nicholas would hound her down. She didn't want to do it but she had no choice because she believed that the business magnate was perfectly capable of materializing his threat, so she made a plan anyway, and it spoke of the best place to start her investigation was his office.

She watched the rise and fall of his breathing for another minute and held her own breath when she unwrapped the sheets from her body. The cold air assailed her senses as soon as her naked figure was exposed and she reached out for her clothes and overcoat, putting it on in an effective motion while she kept her eyes locked on Cameron's sleeping form. She wondered what happened to him when he soundly resigned to his lethargy. It wasn't very often that he would do it, at least when she was around, because after they fucked, sometimes he didn't sleep at all, other times he would groan between tormented slumber, and mostly he would leave her and lock himself somewhere in another room.