Adam nodded. “Makes sense. I can have my people deep dive into his internet history, bank statements, background?”
Noah gave him a flat stare. “You have people?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t everybody?” he asked, tone teasing.
Noah still didn’t quite understand who Adam worked for. It had taken years just to identify Adam in the first place. If his father hadn’t been so paranoid, he might not have even had a place to start. He hadn’t known about Adam working for a group of people until the night he confronted him and he’d made the phone call that had shattered Noah’s fragile existence. Would Adam tell him the truth?
“What is this group you work for?” He dropped his voice. “Who hires a—what?—sixteen year old to kill people? That’s how old you were when you did my dad, right?”
Adam nodded, looking impressed, Noah wasn’t sure why. “I wasn’t hired. I don’t get paid. Community service, remember? I’m a mandatory volunteer.”
Noah scoffed. “You can’t make it mandatory for somebody to volunteer their time.”
“Tell that to my father,” Adam muttered.
The pieces began falling into place for Noah. In the trailer, Adam had said ‘we were raised for this.’ It had sounded like some Batman level vigilante bullshit last night when he was half asleep and fully high. But maybe Adam was serious.
“Wait…your dad? Thomas Mulvaney is a…murderer?” Noah whispered.
Adam snorted a laugh; then took a long drink of his coffee before saying, “Please, my father would never get his hands dirty like that. No, my father trained us to be murderers.”
Noah sat on that sentence for a minute. “Us? Like…your brothers?”
Adam shrugged, seemingly unbothered by the conversation, like they were discussing traffic. “I mean, you can’t fault his logic. My brothers and I are uniquely qualified to do what we do. And honestly, we turned out better than the doctors could have hoped, given our initial diagnoses.”
A finger of unease ran along his spine. “Which was what?”
Adam smiled softly, shaking his head. “I told you, I’m a psychopath.”
Noah choked on the bite of pancake he’d just forked into his mouth, sparking a coughing fit that drew far more attention than he wanted.
When it was over and the others went back to their eggs and toast, Noah managed, “Yeah, but when people say that, it's a joke or exaggeration.”
Adam raised his hand to get Cindi’s attention before pointing to his cup with a sweet smile Noah found laughable considering the conversation.
When he looked at Noah again, he shrugged. “When I say it, I mean I had a team of board certified psychiatrists who determined I lacked the emotional capacity to feel love, regret, guilt, remorse. Psychopath or sociopath is relative, I suppose. They don’t know if I was born this way or if my trauma created my eternally broken psyche. The outcome is similar either way.”
Noah’s brain snagged on the unable to love part, trying to ignore the stabbing pain that shot through him. It figured Noah would be attracted to a man who couldn’t love him by design. He really was hopeless. He tried to push the thought away. “So, are all your brothers like you?”
“Psychopaths, you mean?” Adam asked. “Yeah, that’s why he chose us.”
A thought suddenly occurred to Noah. “Am I going to get merced for knowing this information?”
Adam’s face grew serious. “I would never let anybody hurt you.” The rawness in his declaration almost made Noah teary despite its absurdity. Nobody had ever protected him. Ever. He’d always told himself he didn’t need it. But now, here was this dangerous stranger swearing to protect him from his family. Adam threaded their fingers together on the table. “Besides, are you planning on telling anybody?”
Noah gave a humorless laugh. “And proclaim that a group of billionaire vigilantes killed my pedophile father? They’d either think I was certifiable or they’d throw you a fucking parade and build a statue in your father’s honor.”
Adam nodded. “You’re probably right. But you don’t have to worry about my family. Like I said, I’ll keep you safe.”
Noah’s heart did a little dance behind his ribcage. Adam was so fucking intense. He was like one of those characters in a teen romance novel where the naive girl ignores every instinct with catastrophic consequences. Except, in this scenario, Noah was the naive girl. He liked the attention. For better or worse. The catastrophic consequences were likely to follow but it was so hard to care. Was it wrong that he wanted somebody to love him and look at him with movie level fuck me eyes?
Except, Adam didn’t have the capacity to love anybody. He’d said so himself.
So, what the fuck were they doing?
Before he could formulate a response, a shadow descended over the table and a teen girl stood gazing at Adam like he was Beyoncé. “I’m sorry,” she said, face bright red. “But are you Adam Mulvaney?”
Adam grinned, and the girl looked like she might faint. “Yeah. Hi.”
Noah tried to untangle their fingers, but Adam tightened his grip, his gaze never leaving the girl in her white shorts and crop top.
She glanced back over her shoulder at a group of girls gawking at them before telling Adam, “I’m such a huge fan. Can I get a picture with you?”
Adam glanced at Noah. Was he asking his permission? Only after Noah shrugged did Adam say, “Sure.”
The girl slid into the booth, pressing her cheek to Adam’s, snapping a selfie before extricating herself quickly. Adam never once let go of Noah’s hand. When she spotted this, she giggled. “Oh, my God. Is this your boyfriend?”
Adam looked at him. “Yeah. This is Noah.”
Was Adam his boyfriend? After two days? Why wasn’t Noah more alarmed by that? Instead, his whole body flushed hot until he was sure he was redder than Adam’s biggest fan. She looked between the two of them, then said to Adam, “He’s so cute,” as if Noah wasn’t actually sitting there.
Adam gave Noah a knowing smirk. “The cutest.”