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“I already don’t like it. What’s going on?”
“I just need you to stay here for a while,” I explain haltingly. “Stay here and stay… safe.”
Alarm sucks all the color out of her face. “What? Why? Reese?—”
“What do you mean, ‘why’?” I explode. “You’ve got some crazy fucking stalker running around someone who was very willing to vandalize the house! If you stay here, they can’t find you. They can’t find either of you.”
Realization dawns on Olivia’s face. She pulls back from me. I know what she’s feeling. Hurt. Anger. Betrayal.
What comes out, though, is fury.
“You fucking tricked me out here like we were going on some romantic excursion, only to… to kidnap me? To lock me up like some fucking… exile?!”
“It’s more like bringing you to a safehouse whose location you can’t tell anyone, especially creepy stalkers, about, because you yourself don’t actually know where you are. But otherwise… yeah, that’s the gist of it.” I fold my arms, knowing that I’m doing the right thing even if she hates it. This is the hardest part. Suffer now, just to know she’s safe. “I have everything you need stocked up in here and your stuff packed. You’ll be protected. You’ll be comfortable.”
She turns up her nose. “I’m not staying here.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
There’s a hard glint in her eyes. Then, out of nowhere, she tries to make a break for it. I grab her around her waist before she’s even able to make it halfway to the door and set her back down on her feet.
“Come on. Don’t be like this. It won’t be long?—”
“That doesn’t matter! You brought me here, you didn’t even ask me, and I’m just supposed to obey? What about Violet? What about my blog? I’m supposed to be getting everything set up?—”
“I brought your notebooks.”
She glares. “But not my laptop, I bet?”
I shake my head. “Nope. I know you. Your phone is also cut off.”
Olivia’s nostrils flare. Then her sights lock on the bodyguard. “You can’t seriously be okay with getting paid for this shit?” she fumes at him.
The man shrugs and says nothing.
I tip her chin up to look at me. “You gotta trust me, princess. This is for the best.”
She slaps my hand away. “Oh, fuck off, Reese. You can’t keep me here forever.”
“No, you’re right,” I agree mournfully. “Not forever. Just until I can make the world safe for our family.”
31
OLIVIA
I stand with my arms folded stubbornly over my chest and watch as Reese brings in my bags. The bodyguards remain not far away. I can’t tell what they think about the situation. Their faces are impassive, unmoving, and they don’t even bother to look me in the eye while they oversee and make sure I don’t spring for another jailbreak. As if they’re so unconcerned it’d be a successful second attempt that sparing a glance in my direction would just be wasted effort.
It pisses me off even more that Reese seems to agree.
“Don’t look like that, Olivia.” Reese brings in the last of my bags, setting them near the door.
I scowl. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.”
“I told you: this is just a precaution until things cool down and we get the situation under control.”
“‘We’? There is no ‘we.’ Because if there was a ‘we,’ you would have at least given me the choice to do this or not.”
He nods. “You’re right. I made the decision myself because I knew that you would have a problem with it. You’re stubborn, Olivia?—”
