Page 14 of Juan

She let go of his hand and spread three notes out on the table. He leaned forward as his brothers crowded around.

She didn’t die

She’s in danger. He knows we have her

Don’t you want to see her?

All included the same phone number.

“What are these?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer.

“There were four total, but I tossed the first away. It just said, ‘Call me,’ and had this same number.” She pointed to one of the messages. “I found it tucked under my windshield after dinner at the Boom. I figured it was a mistake, meant for someone else, so I threw it away,” Amber said. Then setting her finger on the first, she continued. “I found this one under my windshield the day of the Youth Day Parade. The third two days after that. And this last one”—she set her finger on the one that posed a question—“appeared today. Just before I came home.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” he demanded. Mantis cleared his throat. “Or anyone?” he added, realizing that the note he’d seen her holding in the lemonade stand was the same as the one now on the table. Ass that he was, he’d assumed it had been another phone number. If he hadn’t been so spun up about the thought of her dating, he would have recognized the startled look she’d given him for what it was—confusion, maybe even a little fear. At the very least, concern.

Her brows dropped. “I admit they’re weird, but they aren’t threatening. And I have no idea what they mean. I ran into Leo today, though, and asked him if he could trace the number. He agreed and said he’d get back to me this afternoon.”

“You don’t have any idea what these are about?” Scipio asked.

She hesitated, then shook her head. “I have no idea who ‘she’ is or who ‘he’ might be.” She paused, then added, “When I saw the reference to ‘he,’ I did think of Anthony, but who’s ‘her’? And why would I want to see her?”

Her gaze lingered on the notes, a shadow of something lurking in her eyes. She set her hand on her belly, as if staving off nausea, then took a deep breath and leaned back.

He reached over and twined their fingers together again. His brothers had already noticed his first protective gesture. What was one more?

“Can we keep these?” Scipio asked.

She blinked and looked up. A beat passed, then she nodded. “What now?” she asked on an exhale.

“We have feelers out in the network to gather more information. HICC is looking into Adrian and double-checking Anthony, and you’ve got Leo working on the number,” Mantis recited. “I think for now, we hang tight. You stay on-site at the clubhouse or, if you need to go out, take one of us. Once we know more, we can make a plan.”

She nodded again, then rose. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go check on Dottie in the kitchen?”

The request didn’t surprise him. The kitchen was her go-to place when stressed. She loved cooking and meal planning and was damn good at it. But it was also where she went to hide from the world. A relatively healthy place, though. Especially because Dottie kept an eye on her.

Mantis nodded, and she turned and held Juan’s gaze. A conversation flowed between them in that brief moment. He’d find her later, and they’d talk privately.

He rose as she left and when the door closed behind her, he faced his brothers for the reckoning he knew would come the moment he stepped in front of Amber and took her hand.

Mantis raised an eyebrow. Scipio, Lovell, Marley, and Hawkeye crossed their arms. The rest—Philly, Dulcie, Viper, and Wesson—watched him with either narrowed eyes or amusement. He got it. No one wanted Amber hurt. Least of all him. And while it wasn’t the first time one or the other of them had…engaged in intimate acts with women they helped, he wasn’t stupid. Amber was different. She’d lived with them for over a year. She was like a sister to every one of the men standing in front of him, waiting to hold him accountable.

“She approached me,” he said. “She deserves to have intimacy in her life if she wants it.”

Silence.

“I’m not going to hurt her.” He was certain of that. In fact, he’d felt a twinge in the last few days that if anything, it would be the other way around. She’d go off and start her new life in Napa—a life she deserved and one he’d never consider asking her to diverge from—and he’d remain in Mystery Lake. Him and his memories of her touch, of her sighs, of her soft laughs, of the conversations they had in the deepest part of the night.

What had started as something not quite transactional had morphed into more over the span of four days. Which made him think the “more” had been bubbling under the surface—at least on his part—for longer than that. He’d had an inkling of it, of course. Over the past year, it had become second nature for his gaze to seek her out every time he walked into a room. And a visceral need to make things better coursed through his body when something didn’t go right for her. The first time he saw the look of disappointment on her face when one of her dishes didn’t turn out the way she hoped, he vowed he wouldn’t let it happen again. Not surprisingly, life didn’t work that way; disappointments happened. But he could be—and was—there to remind her that while everything might not be perfect, imperfection wasn’t a reflection of her worth or skill.

And then, of course, his reaction to the possibility of her dating other men hadn’t been exactly that of a platonic friend.

“She does deserve that. And I know you won’t hurt her. But what about you?” Mantis asked. The perceptive bastard. The only way to slip something by Mantis was to avoid him altogether.

His stomach pitched as he lifted a shoulder. Not quite nonchalantly, but hopefully with some inkling of the resignation he felt. “If that happens, I’ve lived through worse.” Mantis, Lovell, Philly, and Viper all raised their eyebrows. He didn’t want to give their doubt any real estate in his head, but it was hard to ignore given they were all either married or living with their partners. They, more than the others, more than he, knew how hard it might be to let her go.

“I won’t hold her back from the life she wants,” he said.

His brothers shared a look, then Philly stepped forward. “We know you won’t. But have you thought about what you’d do if she decides she wants you?”