Damaged Grump (Bad Chicago Bosses)

I bite my lip, glancing at the clock.

What about your parents? Don’t they expect you to stay home?

Easterly Ribbon: My parents are asleep...

I wait, my breath stalled in my chest until her next message comes.

Easterly Ribbon: They’re...kinda used to me spending the night with him.

Ick.

I don’t know what I’m feeling right now.

It really hits me how Easterly won’t say his name anymore.

It also hits me how careful she is about hiding our meeting—and it makes me think about how much he must be controlling her every move.

But I also can’t help wondering just what the screaming hell her parents are doing.

Letting their teenage, barely legal daughter stay with Vance Haydn. I want to gag at the thought that they might be enabling this abuse.

Sure, they wouldn’t be the first starstruck parents to make the wrong decisions for their rising young star. But there’s no excuse that justifies turning a blind eye to a wolf when he drags their daughter into his den.

I inhale shakily and strike up a text.

I can be at the office in forty-five minutes. An hour, tops. I don’t want you waiting outside alone.

Easterly Ribbon: Okay!

I fling my phone down in the sheets and go tumbling out of bed to drag on the work clothes I’d tossed on the bench. I shimmy back into my slim grey sheath dress and cardigan before stuffing my feet into the cheap flats I typically wear from the bus to the office.

I don’t think Easterly will judge me for not wearing heels tonight.

As I shoulder my purse and dash out the door, locking it behind me and well aware I won’t be able to get back in until Roland’s home, I try calling him.

I get a busy signal back.

It doesn’t even go to voicemail, which means he’s probably got one call going and another on hold.

Well, crap.

I guess I’m not surprised. He’s a certified workaholic to the end.

Like I have any room to talk.

I tumble out of Roland’s house, so impatient that I meet my ride on the corner down the street, flagging it down while it’s on the way to his place.

I’m at Just Vibing in a record-breaking thirty minutes flat.

The building feels haunting with the lights low and no one there but a single front desk security guard in the first-floor lobby.

I flash my badge and murmur something about leaving a thumb drive I needed for a project due by morning. I also mention I’ll be expecting an intern.

“You’ll know her by the blue hair,” I say, then smile and escape to the elevator.

In my office, I fidget like I’m waiting for a loved one in a hospital—checking my notes on Easterly and Vance Haydn, fiddling with the little digital recorder I use, wondering if she’ll even let me record the conversation or take notes.

I don’t want to push her. But it feels more important to get everything down in ways that can’t be shredded in court.

This entire thing with Easterly has been so delicate.

That’s what most people don’t get with victims still trapped by their abusers, especially when everything relies on their testimony. And especially when they’re as young and fragile as Easterly Ribbon.

You can’t push them.

Pressure just makes them afraid that even the safe people will punish them if they don’t behave in the desired way.

You have to take things at their pace.

Easterly’s pace has been glacially slow, but I have a feeling that’s about to change.

My desk phone nearly scares me out of my skin with a call from the front desk.

It’s the security guard on the line.

“Miss Landry? There’s someone here for you. Blue hair. Says her name’s Natalia. She the one you’re waiting for?”

“Yes, Randolph, thank you.”

My palms are sweating. I set the phone down in its cradle and listen for the elevator.

When I hear a deafening ping, I hold out my hands to the metallic double doors, a greeting on my lips.

Only for a young, shaking girl to come bolting into my arms.

Easterly whips herself at me and buries her face in my chest.

Not what I expected.

I go stiff for a second with shock before wrapping my arms around Easterly and holding her.

“Hey, baby,” I say. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just you and me here. You’re fine. Did something happen?”

“H-he called me, Callie. While I was in the Uber.” Her voice is thick, clotted with unshed tears, muffled against my shoulder. “He said he’s on his way home and wants to know when I’d be there. I said I...I couldn’t because I was studying so I could catch up on credits for college and Jeebus, he was so mad.”

“Oh, honey.” I squeeze her tighter. “You don’t have to be afraid of him.”

“But I do.” Her trembling doubles. “I don’t know what I’m doing...my parents can’t help ’cause they don’t know anything about this whole music thing. The only friend I have is Milah.”