“There you go.” She slid the cup my way.
“Thanks, Sara.” I moved over to the counter so I could add some cream and sugar and a dose of that cocoa powder that Gage used to think was pixie dust.
I smiled some more as I sat at a small round table by the window and sipped at my coffee as I watched people meander by in the frosty day, loved that right now Aster was with some of the people who meant the most to me.
Eden, Salem, and Tessa were like sisters. A real kind of family that we’d been lucky to find. How desperately I wanted Aster to be a part of that, too.
I finished off my coffee and stood, tossed the cup into the recycle bin, and stepped out into the flurries that had started to fall. I headed back in the direction of my office, feeling so damned right that I didn’t believe a thing could go wrong.
I slid my key into the lock at the front door of my office. My office manager was off today since her son had a half day at school, so I let myself into the empty waiting area.
I walked through it to my office at the back, and I pushed open the door to the darkened room.
The second I did, I felt it. A foul presence that hovered like a sickness. My pulse spiked, and I was wishing I hadn’t left my gun in its locked case underneath the seat in my car.
I pushed my back up against the wall next to the door and inhaled a steeling breath, my brain calculating the best way to handle this. My hands twisted into fists as I prepared for a fight.
I reached in and flicked on the light, peeked into my office, then stumbled into the doorway as I took in the sight.
Rage crashed against the confines of my chest.
The place was trashed.
My desk was upturned, tossed on its side with all the drawers ripped open and dumped on the floor. Every chair in the room had been thrown in a heap on top of it.
The file cabinets had been ransacked. Papers strewn across the floor.
Three framed pictures had been torn from the walls and smashed on the ground.
My laptop was gone.
But none of that even mattered.
Only one thing did.
Aster.
Blood pounded through my veins. Sloshed and chugged and screamed for vengeance.
I swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise, and I dug my phone from my pocket and dialed Aster’s number, flying back through the front door and out to where I’d parked my car in my reserved spot at the curb.
The whole time, I made that same promise all over again.
I took good care of what was mine.
My precious, perfect star.
And I would never let someone hurt her.
Not ever again.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ASTER
“Oh my god, tell me.”Tessa waved wildly at herself as she tipped her head back and drained the rest of the mimosa from her champagne flute.
They were bottomless.