“Why?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“You have a reason for everything, or you wouldn’t do it.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, but he didn’t elaborate on his earlier answer.
He’d said twenty minutes, but someone knocked on the door less than ten minutes later.
That someone turned out to be a mountain of a man, all muscles and tattoos and good-looking in a way that must be irresistible to women with a weakness for bad boys.
Kage, I assumed.
Christian briefed him on the situation, but they were so quiet I couldn’t make out what they said. Whatever it was, it brought a frown to Kage’s face that softened when he finally turned to me.
“Don’t worry, darlin’.” His soft Southern accent eased the knots in my shoulders like magic. Next to him, Christian’s jaw flexed, but it happened so quickly I might’ve imagined it. “I’ll be right here the whole night. No one’s gettin’ past me. They didn’t call me The Mountain in the military for nothin’.”
I mustered a small smile. “Here I thought it was because you’re as big as a mountain.”
The corners of Kage’s eyes crinkled. “That, too.”
“Kage is one of my best. Like he said, no one will get past him.” Christian’s face remained impassive, but when he rested his gaze on Kage, the other man’s smile disappeared.
Kage stepped back from me like I’d suddenly caught fire.
I yawned again, too tired to think much of their strange interaction.
Sleep tugged at the edges of my consciousness, and I didn’t resist when Christian lifted me from the couch with firm but surprisingly gentle hands.
“Don’t pass out on the couch. Mr. Unicorn doesn’t like to share sleeping space.”
“Funny. If the security thing doesn’t work out, you should be a…” Another yawn split my face as we walked toward my bedroom. “A comedian.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Christian’s dry response overpowered Kage’s chuckle from behind us.
When we reached my room, I fell into bed more than I climbed into it. I was a lead weight, and gravity was an anchor dragging me toward my mattress.
“Good night,” I mumbled. My eyes were already closed, but I felt Christian’s presence in the room like a warm security blanket. “And thank you. For….”
I never finished my sentence.
The last thing I remembered was a warm hand smoothing my hair out of my face before darkness pulled me under.
* * *
CHRISTIAN
After Stella fell asleep, I returned to the living room to find Kage examining the note.
“Whoever put this in her bag knew how to cover their tracks,” he said. “It’s generic as hell. The paper, the type, the ink…unless he was careless enough to leave fingerprints on it, there’s no way of tracking him down with this alone.”
He echoed everything I’d already deduced.
If it’d been a digital message, I could’ve hunted the sender down in no time. Physical evidence was much harder to trace.
Whoever sent the note was smart, but they’d slip up eventually. Everyone did.
My hand flexed as the memory of Stella’s wide-eyed terror surfaced. Fury crackled through me, its cold burn searing me from the inside out.
I’d tamped it down earlier so I could focus on Stella, but now, it came rushing back like a tidal wave.
I was going to find the fucker who wrote her that note.
And I was going to make them pay.
Not with a bullet—that was too good for them. They deserved something more painful. More prolonged.
But until then, I needed to keep Stella safe.
“I want you and Brock shadowing her until we find this fucker,” I told Kage. “Don’t let her see you.”
After Kage, Brock was one of my best guards, and he’d recently returned from a three-month job in Tokyo.
Skepticism crossed Kage’s face. “She’s gonna be okay with that?”
“She won’t find out.”
If I asked Stella, she’d say no. She’d already pushed back on moving; I wasn’t giving her another chance to compromise her safety. The only reason I’d acquiesced on the moving issue was because she was traumatized enough without me arguing with her right after her panic attack.
Where would she have moved to, anyway? Like she said, the Mirage is the most secure building in the city, a voice in my head taunted.
There was an obvious answer, but since she wasn’t moving, the point was moot.
“Fine. You’re the boss.” Kage glanced at the closed door to Stella’s bedroom. “Surprised you’re not staying with her. She’s your girlfriend, and you live right upstairs.”
My jaw tightened.
I was tempted. So fucking tempted. That was the problem.
I didn’t trust myself around Stella. I’d already broken too many rules for her, and staying with her overnight would cross the invisible line I’d drawn for myself.
It was always a dance for me, staying close enough to sate the beast inside me and staying far enough so I was never out of control. A constant war between want and preservation.
However, I’d come down to…not apologize, necessarily, since I didn’t do apologies…but to set things right between us.
When she didn’t answer, I thought she was in the shower, but the longer I waited with no response, the more my mind conjured all sorts of scenarios—of Stella injuring herself, of an intruder who somehow made it past the Mirage’s airtight security and into her house.
I’d never felt the sort of panic that’d consumed me when I thought something had happened to her, and that was not fucking okay.
She was already a weak spot for me; I couldn’t afford for that spot to grow.
“I separate my business and personal lives. This is business.” I responded to Kage in a clipped tone. My stare burned the air between us. “Touch her for any reason other than to save her life, and you die.”
I didn’t care how long Kage and I had been friends.