Page 39 of Crimson Love

I hurry to get my things. I can put up with Jett annoyed with me if it means having a bodyguard to make a trip to the library.

If they located my cell number, that means they located me. I’m not about to walk into the dark library by myself.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ANDREI. FUCKING ANDREI.

Lennon

“I s the library dungeon so bad that you’d rather sleep in your office and get ready in the locker room everyday than accept help from me?” Jett asks.

“Maybe,” I mutter. I think about my time at the library. Most people wouldn’t like sleeping in the basement of an ancient building, but I didn’t mind. There were creaks and noises, and it was even a bit drafty from the one small window that lines the ceiling, but I wasn’t scared.

I was alone. That’s all that mattered. I’m going to miss that little room. It gave me safety and the ability to breathe when I needed it. It felt like a gift.

That was before.

My palms sweat, and my heart speeds as Jett pulls into the parking spot in front of the three-story building that stands proudly at one side of the town square. He throws it in park and goes for his door.

I can’t move.

He walks around the front of his truck to open my door, but I’m frozen in my seat.

“If you insist on doing things the hard way, let’s get this done, so we can move onto more important things—like food and conversation.”

I ignore that and stare through the windshield at the steep steps that lead to double doors.

“Did you change your mind and decide to take me up on my offer to taxi you everywhere you want to go?”

I force myself to move and dig my keys from the bottom of my purse. “No, sorry. Let’s get this done.”

I hop down from his truck on my heels and move up the steps of the library slower than normal. There’s no pep in my step today like there normally is coming to the first place I’ve made on my own.

Jett takes the steps two at a time next to me. The library holds strange hours. I think today they were only open over lunchtime, so it’s not unusual for me to have the whole big building to myself.

“Can I just say, it’s weird as fuck that you live in a library,” Jett mutters as he follows me inside.

I flip on a light so I can lock the door behind us. “Good luck finding a place in Winslet. I’m not sure why you want to move if you have a never-ending reservation at the manor.”

“My newfound family is a lot to get used to. I’m adjusting to my new kidney better than the free ride.”

I hurry through the lobby to the office. The smell of books and decades of dust have become a welcome scent in the last few weeks. Familiar and safe. So much so, I don’t even mind the creaky stairs leading to the dungeon.

But there’s nothing welcoming about it tonight. The urge to return to the manor where I’m never alone nags at me.

Jett clomps down the old wooden stairs behind me. When I open the door to my makeshift apartment and turn on the light, I stutter to a stop.

This isn’t unlike the first time we met, but this time it’s him crashing into me. I almost fall forward, but he wraps an arm around my middle and holds me vertical against his muscled chest.

“What the hell happened here?” he demands.

Shit.

I’d ask the same thing, but I don’t need to. I know what happened. And it confirms what I was afraid of.

I’ve been found.

The small dresser that stood across from the double bed is turned on its side. The drawers have been dumped upside down and my clothes are flung across the floor. The mattress and boxspring have been flipped and ripped open. Even the single clothes rod that stood against the wall and acted as a closet is toppled on the floor. What few possessions I have collected since I got to Winslet are either broken or in such disorder, I’m not sure they can be salvaged.