“With all due respect,” Jett says, grinding his teeth for a moment before I give him a behave look.
“With all due respect,” he goes on, making an effort to be calm, “I don’t care one way or the other if you go into the safe room. I just want to make sure that Juliana and Rebel stay safe until I return.”
“So I can leave?”
“If you want to risk it with the Bratva,” Jett grunts. “But I wouldn’t advise it.”
“Patricia,” I say. “We can trust Jett. I promise. He’s saved my life. Hell, he saved yours. He won’t abandon us.”
“I’d never abandon you,” he says passionately, reaching across the table and taking my hand in his giant paw.
He squeezes it and I feel shivers moving through me, dancing up and down my body and then swirling around my face, making my smile as firework-flooded as the rest of me.
Patricia looks between us, some of her usual spark returning to her eyes.
“Okay, if Julia trusts you, I trust you. Let’s go to the safe room.”
I pick up Rebel from the floor – she’s finished her improvised breakfast of canned meat, which she seemed to love – and cradle her to my chest as Jett leads us through the empty house. He takes us down to the basement, an ultra-clean room apart from the layer of dust over everything.
Again, my mind fills in the blank spaces, a washer-dryer here, maybe a workout area for Jett, maybe a little nook for painting and drawing if that’s what one of our children wants to pursue.
My body aches for that life.
Jett walks across the bare basement to the rear, to what looks like a wooden wall. But then he slides his hand down toward the floor.
He must trigger something, because a moment later there’s a mechanical click noise and the wooden wall slides to the left, revealing a shiny silver metal door.
It looks exactly how I’ve always imagined a safe room, thick, and imposing.
He turns to us.
“There’s a toilet and some canned food in there, so you’ll be okay until I get back. I shouldn’t be more than an hour. But the reason I mention the food is that I’m going to set the release to twelve hours. That means if I’m not back by then, the door will open and you’ll be on your own. Listen to me.”
He’s staring at me now, his eyes burning into me like hot blue flames.
“I will not let that happen. I will not leave you here.”
“Why set it to twelve hours?” Patricia says, her voice catching.
“Because if something does happen – if they find out where you are – I need time to deal with it and get back here before it opens up for them.”
“We should go to the police,” Patricia says.
Jett grinds his teeth again, glancing at me, his impatience written across his tight square jaw. I give him an imploring look, and he nods, understanding.
Patricia means a lot to me so he’ll make the effort.
She doesn’t have the same connection he and I do.
She doesn’t understand.
“The man who tried to kill Juliana in her apartment – the man who held you hostage, Patricia – his name was Markus. Remember?”
“Yes,” I say when Patricia shakes her head.
“That’s Markus Vitrel. He’s been a detective in the city’s precinct for the past sixteen years. And he’s been working as a goon for hire for just as long. We can’t go to the police. The phrase criminal underworld is a damn lie. It’s everywhere. We’re on our own. The Russians have paid off the entire network. Every hired gun in a fifty-mile radius is going to be looking for us. And that includes a lot that are on the side of law enforcement.”
“Unless you can get the Bratva to call them off,” I whisper.
He nods grimly. “Exactly.”
I stride forward, Rebel giving a yap as though she agrees with my decision.
“I’m with you, Jett,” I say.
Patricia walks up beside me, nodding as though hyping herself up. “I’m with you if Julia is.”
Jett presses a few buttons on the keypad and then swipes his thumb. The door cranks loudly, the way I imagine a bank vault does, and then with a screech of metal, it opens inward.
Lights automatic flutter on, illuming a simple room with bunkbeds lining one wall and shelves of canned goods lining the opposite room, with two doors at the end for what I assume is the bathroom and storage.
Jett turns, walking right up to me, leaning down to bring his lips to mine in a brief searing contact of affection.
“I’ll never stop coming back for you,” he whispers.
I peck him at the edge of the mouth, loving the way he growls, like a beast that can barely hold himself back.
My man, my beast, who can’t hold himself back from me.