Page 24 of Ballrooms & Blackmail

“Her lock’s broken?” he asks, his voice filled with deadly concern.

“No,” I mutter. “She uses those too.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then he curses quietly. “I can’t get anyone over there until tomorrow.”

“Fine,” I bite out. “But can you send someone to keep watch?”

“I’m beyond stretched thin with this shit with the Lyons. Everyone extra I have has already been called in.”

Fuck.

“Do you have any concerns about direct threats?” he asks.

I grind my teeth together. “Aside from the fact that the Lyons are fucking psychopaths and she has a connection to Brooks?”

And me, I want to say.

But I don’t.

He seems to hear it all the same. “Get her to Brooks’s place. It’s locked down. Maybe see if Briar and her will hang out overnight. Some of this shit should clear up after the op tonight and I’ll get the team to upgrade her place as soon as possible.”

“And you’ll station someone here too?”

He agrees and we work out a few more details, including how many cameras and where to place them, along with getting her a new door with reinforced hinges.

“Glad to see you’re finally getting your head out of your ass about River.”

I want to tell him to leave it the fuck alone.

But I don’t.

Mostly because River is walking down the flight of stairs, a carafe of coffee in one hand, a paperback tucked beneath her arm. Fantasy. No. Fantasy romance. Given her past, I wouldn’t have expected that. But as we sat on opposite sides of her couch after dinner and she put on a movie, I started to understand.

The fantasy is safe.

It’s the real world that’s scary.

In the present, she walks along the path, hurrying to her car, checking over her shoulder twice before unlocking the driver’s side door.

I want to help her break those habits.

To make her world safe so she doesn’t need them. Not ever again.

Dangerous thoughts.

Very dangerous thoughts.

Especially when?—

“She deserves something better than me,” I say, almost forgetting I haven’t hung up the phone.

Pascal sighs into my ear. “You haven’t been that man for a long time, you know that, right?”

Except the man I was still exists. In me. No matter how deeply I bury it.

“Just sort out her security, yeah?” I mutter.

A long pause during which River turns on her car, backs out of the spot, and drives away.