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Her arms came up, her hands rubbing her upper arms. “I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” she snapped.
“Did you think that was him?” he pressed.
She frowned. “What? No. Crash, just drop it!”
Oh, he had no intention of dropping it. “Then what freaked you, babe? You were shaking like a leaf.”
“I just don’t like parking garages, I guess. I don’t really know what made me react like that. Now, can you just drop it, goddamn it?”
He stared at her. It was more than the parking garage. Yes, he’d picked up that she didn’t like parking garages, but she was dealing with it when they’d walked out. She was ok—until she’d seen that van. He was also picking up that every time she was afraid or cornered, the bitch in her came out. It was her defense mechanism, the wall she threw up to protect herself. Those walls had to go. He was going to have to work on tearing them down. “Shannon--”
She looked up at the elevator shaft. “Can we get out of here? Please? I’m not too fond of freight elevators either.”
He nodded, but stepped toward her. She took a step back. He moved closer and took her chin in his hand, tilting her face up to his. “All right, Princess. You don’t want to talk about it, I’ll give you that. But I’m here to protect you, and to do that, I need to know what the hell I’m dealing with. Understand?”
She nodded, her eyes big.
“Shannon, I’ll keep you safe. I promise. No one is going to hurt you. You need to believe that.”
Those big blue eyes looked up at him. Looking at him like she wanted to believe him, but she didn’t know if she could trust him.
“See you don’t trust me. But you will, Shannon. You will. I’ll see to it.” He let her go and moved to throw the lever again.
When the elevator stopped, and he threw the gate open, she hustled across the loft and into the bathroom, shutting the door. Crash paused at the island, his palms spread on the cold granite, and he dropped his head. Shit, what had he gotten himself into with her?
His cell went off. Pulling it out, he flipped it open and put it to his ear. “Yeah?”
“That little shit’s goin’ after his girls.” Cole’s voice came across the line. “One of the girls that quit and went to work for Sonny was beaten last night.”
“Motherfucker,” Crash breathed into the phone.
“Mack’s calling us in. When can you be here?”
“Ah,” he glanced toward the bathroom. “I can be there in about twenty.”
“See ya then, brother.”
“Yeah.” Crash disconnected. Walking over to the bathroom, he leaned his palms on the frame and bent his head to the door. “Shannon, something’s come up. I need to go out.”
“Fine,” came the sniffled response from the other side of the door. Shit, was she crying?
“You okay, babe?”
“Yes.”
“Can you come out here, please?”
“Just a minute.”
He heard water running in the sink. He waited. A moment later, the door opened, and he stepped back. If she’d been crying, she’d fixed her face because there were no traces. She looked up at him. “I…ah…have to go out. Club business. You gonna be okay here alone?”
“Yes. I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
