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“That’s okay.” He nodded to the chair beside him, a scrawny man easing out of it and moving around the table, a dour look on his face. Probably Joe, the loser. Looking at the puny chip stack he cradled, Laurent would probably be next. He patted the seat. “Sit. Just eye us for a bit.”
I squeezed around the edge of the table and caught a few glances from the men around the table. They all looked like the sort that spent their days doing manual labor, their clothes faded, beards long, faces tan. A couple of them smiled in greeting, but most looked down at their cards as if they contained nuclear launch codes.
I sat down next to Laurent, who grabbed the bottom of my folding chair and dragged it across the concrete until it was flush with his. He lifted up the edge of his hand and showed me the five cards.
I glanced over them, the values meaning nothing to me. From inside, my phone rang, and I straightened at the sound of it. I suffered two bumped knees and a stubbed toe by the time I made it to the living room. Grabbing my phone from the couch, I caught a glimpse of a Vegas number and answered it.
“Hey.” Dario sounded exhausted, the simple word coated in weight and dragging along the bottom of the phone line.
“Hey.” The word came out a little too breathless, something I blamed entirely on my sprint through the house, and not due to my heart, which was presently soaring through my ribcage. I’d missed him. His voice, his strength, his reassurance, and his kiss.
Dario stole the words from me, his voice gruff. “I’ve missed you.”
I blinked back tears. “Are you okay? I saw on the news that you were arrested.”
He sighed. “I’m fine. Don’t believe everything you see on the news. I’m doing my best to get this psychopath behind bars.”
“Did you?”
“Not yet.” He cleared his throat. “Where are you?”
I glanced back at the carport, and moved farther away from the group, opening the front door and easing out of it. “Same place I’ve been for two days. Laurent’s house. There are a bunch of his friends over, playing some card game.”
“Bourré, probably.” He pronounced it “boo-ray,” and I recognized the name.
“Yeah, that’s it.” I pulled the door shut and stepped onto the small front porch, one covered in a healthy layer of dirt. “I thought you couldn’t make phone calls from jail.”
His voice dropped a little, and I strained to hear the background on his call. “I’m not exactly a prisoner. The arrest was a show, one to lull Gwen’s father into a false sense of security. We’re hoping he’ll make a mistake. In the meantime, I’ve been handed over to the feds and out of the hands of the local cops—half of who are on Hawk’s payroll.”
My anxiety about his situation rose, and I felt helplessly out of touch. I leaned against the porch post and stared out into the woods.
“Any of Laurent’s friends hit on you?” The protective jealousy in his voice was so adolescent, so utterly normal, that I laughed, a bit of my tension releasing.
“No. Honestly, they seem a little afraid of me.”
“Good. I know every one of those assholes. They better be.” His voice changed, softening. “I called your parents.”
“You did?” I straightened, hating the fact that I couldn’t call them myself and let them know I was okay.
“Yes. I let them know you were safe and that you’d call them soon. I need you to last a few more days, Bell. No phone calls. No contact with anyone.”
I nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see me, tears pricking at the edges of my eyes. He sounded so strong, so in control, so calm. It was such a different picture than the man who had fallen apart over Gwen’s body, his emotions fraying, composure gone. “How were they? Did they sound okay?”
“They were fine. And I have men next door, and they’ve created a security perimeter of cameras and motion sensors around their home. They’re safe.”
They’re safe. It was meant to be a reassuring comment, but did the exact opposite. My chest tightened, a wave of nausea moving through me, and I found my way to the step and sat down. I hadn’t even thought about my parent’s safety, the possibility of Hawk finding and hurting them in an effort to get to me. They were at risk, and all because I couldn’t keep my hands to myself and my heart focused on a normal guy. I should have ignored my lack of feelings and kept seeing Ian. He had been safe. No wife. No empire. No crazy father-in-law who may or may not torture cocktail waitresses on the weekend.
But Ian… Ian had never had a chance, not against the hold that Dario had had on me, from the very beginning. And that reality had brought on all of this. Gwen’s death. My own risk. And now… my parents were in danger. Were Rick and Lance, also? What about Meredith? My roommates?
