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“How can you say that? If I would have left these women alone, maybe they—”
“Maybe they what?” I cut in, doing my best to keep my temper in check. How in the fuck could she think these women being murdered, or the ones now having to run for their lives as her fault? “Listen to me, if you hadn’t helped them get away from their abusers, there’s no telling how large my caseload would be. Maybe we aren’t sitting here telling these women to run for their lives, but we could’ve been making death notifications to their families. You are giving these women a fighting chance at life. Granted, I would have felt better if you would have come to me for help, but I’m here now. I will help you get these women to safety, and I swear to you…” I gripped her by the back of her neck and brought her closer until our foreheads touched. “…that those responsible for hurting these women will be brought to justice. I will make them pay for what they’ve done. Every fucking last one of them.”
I brought her lips to mine and kissed her gently, wanting to dive into her mouth, but I knew I couldn’t. We had work to do.
But later, I plan to get lost in this woman, to ease her fears, to do everything I could to show her just how extraordinary she is.
I pulled back so I could gaze into her soft brown eyes. She gifted me her beautiful smile that damn near caused me to explode with love…fuck, this woman.
“Thanks, Lock,” she whispered.
“Anytime, Kitten. I’ve got your back.” I declared, my voice taking on a tone I couldn’t describe, but my heart was beating like crazy, dying to break free just to be closer to her.
When I finally released her and turned to get back to work, I found that all eyes were on us. Shock covered the faces of my men. I ignored them knowing what was running through their minds. Garrett Tyler gave me this hard look of disapproval. I ignored his ass too. But there was one I couldn’t ignore. Ayana. Her face was full of joy and happiness, and unicorns, sunshine and rainbows. She also had unshed tears in her eyes.
Yeah, I couldn’t handle this shit. I grumbled loudly. “Alright the fucking show is over. Get back to work.”
That broke everyone out of their trances and focused on their phones and computers. Ayana was the last to look away. She smiled at me, nodded her approval before glancing down at the paper in front of her.
I knew why my guys looked at me as if I had grown a second head, and why Ayana looked as if she was about to cry. They all knew me, knew I wasn’t the one that showed emotion of any kind in public except anger and frustration, or triumph if we arrested a scumbag, but that was it. I wasn’t a fan of PDA. I would cringe every time I saw Ayana and my brother show the world how much they were in love. I didn’t look away, but it still made my stomach churn and not in a good way.
However, being around Phoebe brought something out of me. I longed to touch her, to be near her, to kiss her, and claim her and I didn’t care who was around. I’ve never had that feeling before, ever. Not even with my wife.
I never held her hand in public unless we were in a crowd, and I wanted her close. But just to hold her hand for no reason but to touch her, yeah no. Don’t get me wrong, I did it when we were home. I held her, kissed on her, but we were alone. I never showed the world how I felt about her except for when we got married.
Kissing Phoebe in front of my men told me I was changing. And I had to say, I kinda enjoyed it.
I blew out a breath but couldn’t stop the smile that spread along my face. Phoebe clasped my fingers with hers and squeezed. I glanced over at her and, as if she knew exactly what I was feeling, she smiled too.
Yeah, this was way too much to handle. I needed to get back to work.
About an hour or so later,everyone practically fell back into chairs and couches, exhausted. Danny and Tyler were still on the hunt for the person responsible for the hacks into their system.
Phoebe had just ended a call with a woman she called Soph. She blew out a breath and leaned back in her chair.
“Sophia is good to go. She said that her neighbor had told her she saw a strange man lurking around the building, specifically her apartment.”
Tyler glanced from his laptop to give Phoebe his undivided attention.
“What did she do?”
“She didn’t take any chances. She played it off, though, for the sake of her neighbor. She placed a few outfits in each of her babies’ bags that night. The next morning, she went about her day, dropping the kids off, staying with routine. However, fifteen minutes after she left, Tish, the shadow warrior that helped her settle, walked into the school and gathered up her kids. Sophie left instructions in her eldest’s backpack where the ‘go bag’ was located and the key to get it. All the while, she went to work and carried on with her day.
“Except, when she went to take her break, Tish picked her up, and they were gone. She couldn’t see anyone following her, but she felt eyes on her. Anyway, Tish got them out of the city and she’s driving them to another shadow warrior’s place, a farm out in Oklahoma. It’s off the beaten path and they’re going to stay there until we figure out what in the hell is going on.”
Tyler smiled.
“Wow, I’m impressed. She didn’t take any chances.”
Phoebe smiled too. “I know she said she paid attention when we stressed to always be prepared.”
Tyler snorted and went back to his laptop. “Too bad she didn’t follow the same rules when we went to pick her up.”
“Yeah, I know,” was Phoebe’s only reply, but I caught a sly smile creep along her features. There was a story there, I felt it.
Apparently, so did Ayana, because she asked, “What happened when you picked her up?”
“Nothing,” Phoebe replied, a little too fast.
