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“What are you doing?” Mateo asked.
My breath was a little labored as well, but I swallowed it back. “I’m walking home.”
He turned to Adam. “Seriously, man?”
Adam shrugged, his arms slung lazily on the car door. “She wanted to walk.”
“And you let her?” Mateo exclaimed.
Adam tilted his head. “Have you met her?”
Mateo’s head dropped, and he rubbed at his eyes before turning back to me and signaling to both of us to walk to him.
I took a few steps.
He focused on me first, his gaze dropping to Lance. “You have a dog?”
“It was—” I gestured in the air. “Yes. I have a dog.”
“Well, you can’t go home right now. Your place isn’t—”
“I know,” I said. “I can—” My mind ticked off the options. “I can stay at Nanny Rae’s.”
He looked off toward the swampland that my grandmother’s old house was nestled into. “Too remote, Faith,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I talked to Grace, and we think you need to stay with us for now.”
I held up my free hand. “No. No, no, no, Mateo.”
“Just hear me out—”
I stepped closer and put a hand on his arm. “No, you have enough with the baby coming, and if I really do have a target on my back, I don’t want to bring that to Grace and Olivia.”
That stopped him cold. As much as he wanted to protect me, his primal need to shield his family reared up first. And I loved him for that. For loving my sister like that.
“Well, you can’t stay alone,” he pushed.
“She can stay at my place.”
All eyes landed on Adam.
Still standing with his arms over the open door of the Bel Air. Shades covering his eyes. Looking like a lickable cover model for Criminal Weekly.
“What?” Mateo and I said together.
His face remained stony. “You heard me.”
