“Yes,” Cas answers before I can. “I’ll go back and confirm tomorrow, though, to be sure.”
“Trainor would have had time if I was already inside one bathroom and, obviously, he had motive,” I answer, and smile when I see all three men watch me with questions in their eyes and surprise tilting their brows. “What? I think he gave himself away when he insisted I meet Cas via the back exit. He got pushy real fast. Dragging me by the wrist was the decider, though. I wonder what they paid him?”
“Or blackmailed him with, more likely,” Aiden adds, only to be cut off by Dax, who rockets forward in his chair with his fists clenched.
“Wait, he laid his hands on you?”
I nod. “He grabbed my wrist when I told him I’d still rather go out the front door. Ben’s interruption helped…until it didn’t.” I can still see Trainor’s twisted pout as he dragged me to the back exit. He wasn’t just determined; he was afraid. If I had to guess, I’d say he was more afraid of what would happen if he failed to show up with me in tow than he was about getting caught.
The nerve at Dax’s jaw twitches. “Ben should have mentioned that he touched you.”
I ignore the statement and finally ask about Ben. “Did you find Trainor? Did Ben get away okay? I mean, I didn’t get much chance to talk to him at the bakery, but he saved me twice today. If it wasn’t for him…” I let the sentence trail off rather than say what we all know to be true; if it wasn’t for Ben, I’d already be in Franz’s hands and half-dead.
Dax stiffens again. “Ben is fine. Trainor has been detained for questioning. I’m more worried about you.”
“Why? All I had to do was run away and hide.” Sure, the day had been unexpected, difficult, and fucking scary as hell, but not that much of a hardship given what could have happened. I’m extremely lucky and without Ben, things could have turned out differently, but surely Dax knew I was unharmed? Ben would have told him. So why worry?
“You were almost kidnapped at a meeting I arranged for you, Jules!” he snaps, reading my confusion. “Anything could have happened. If it weren’t for Ben’s favourite new obsession…ugh!” Dax throws himself back in his seat. “I’m sorry, Jules. I’m sorry I put you in that situation. I should have—”
“What? What could you have done differently? None of that was your fault. Mr Trainor is a legitimate professor at VCC and the guy in charge of my course. You weren’t to know he’d hand me over to Franz’s people.”
“I should have vetted him more thoroughly,” he argues. I hear it—the desperation, the self-loathing, the blame he’s oh so willing to pin on his own chest, the doubt I left him with after everything I said in his office.
“Trainor sold out. Franz took the opportunity. It could have been anyone dragging me outside today; the barista, another customer, Franz himself could have walked in and yanked me out by my hair, and I bet no one would have interfered.”
Cas coughs.
“Okay, maybe Cas would have dick-kicked the toad. My point is you can’t investigate every single stranger I come into contact with.”
“I could just restrict you from meeting anyone…” he grumbles.
“And make me a prisoner?” Why is he being so irrational?
“Fuuuuck,” Dax groans. “Stop talking sense.”
“Then tell me why you’re being so unreasonable!?”
“Because…”
Aiden, silent until now, inclines his head. Cas quickly returns downstairs.
Dax stands up and stomps around. Prickling tension builds around him, like traversing the rug is generating all the energy he needs to open his mouth and say the words, but Aiden halts us both.
“Not here. We can’t have this conversation on cameras…not even in front of my personal team,” Aiden warns.
Only, I’m not willing to give up, not when I’m close to getting Dax to explain this strange hot and cold shit he pulls. “I want answers. I’m sick of secrets and being confused all the time and having to fill in the blanks for myself.”
“Upstairs,” Dax relents. “My room. Now.”
Aiden stands and holds out his hand for me. I take it and let him pull me up from my seat. There’s a weariness in my bones, but the atmosphere is just electric enough to spark energy within me. Excitement.
And fear.
Dax follows us, his footsteps resound on the wooden stairs. I shoot a glance down the hallway to Sylvie’s room, but Aidencatches my concern and dismisses it.
“She’s still at the hospital.”
Part of me is relieved; another part is nervous.
