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25
Mare
The night passed without any more incidents, and while it had been quiet and tense, Jensen traced little figure eights on my back until I eventually fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When day broke, though, I felt as if I had been run over by a truck. My eyes were bleary as I struggled out of bed and got ready for a day of training that Jensen insisted on before I headed to work. Even though we didn’t go all the way across town to the gym we’d visited before, Jensen’s home training was bad enough, and it left me even more sore and exhausted than when I’d first woken up.
Hours later, I trudged into work, dreading the lunch rush and praying that someone wanted the extra hours because, at this point, I didn’t fucking care about the money. I’d pay someone to take my goddamn shift. Unfortunately, that dream was popped as soon as I entered the kitchen of Brutello’s.
“Well, if she calls, you can fucking tell her she’s fired!” I heard Donny shout from the office, his grating voice filling the empty dining room. My brows shot up, glancing at the bartender.
“Charlotte still hasn’t shown up yet?” I asked.
Brandon shook his head, frowning as he continued to make sure he had everything ready for the place to open. As I worked, straightening crooked chairs and checking the tables’ condiments, the phone in the office rang.
It wasn’t until Donny came storming out, red-faced and agitated towards the front door, that I realized something odd was going on. My heart galloped when I saw the police officer on the other side. It was only when he held up a photo of Charlotte did my body calm. I was on edge, and while I was worried about Charlotte, I couldn’t quell the relief of knowing the cop didn’t have anything to do with my father. Yet, as he started talking, my suspicions grew, an inkling of something bad growing in the pit of my stomach. I had to strain to hear what was being said over Brandon clinking the glasses so I walked back over to the bar.
“Hey,” I whispered to catch his attention, tilting my head to the door. He understood my signal and stopped what he was doing so he could listen too.
“She hasn’t come to work for her last few shifts. At first, I thought she’d slept through her alarm since it was an opening shift, but the next two times I didn’t hear anything from her either,” Donny explained.
“We’ve been by her residence to do a welfare check, and it doesn’t look as if she’s been there in a few days. It didn’t look as if there were any signs of forced entry, but the place was torn apart. So, if you have any information or hear from Miss Matthews, please call this number.” The officer held out a card for Donny to take.
Holy shit, Charlotte wasmissingmissing. I felt my face pale, worry growing. I hoped she was just off somewhere partying too hard to realize how much time had passed. Shoving the thoughts away when Donny unlocked the door and flipped the sign to open, I focused on mentally preparing for the day ahead.
The hours passed, crowded and fast paced, and even with Charlotte missing, Donny refused to call in another person to help with the onslaught—the cheap ass. I was left running around, with Brandon and the hostess, Roxy, trying to keep the entire restaurant from revolting because I could only move so fast to get all of the copious amounts of side items and condiments and napkins and all the other shit the customers asked for.
As I worked, I began to feel a strange sense of awareness creep up the back of my neck. Every time it hit me, I would glance around the space trying to figure out why my internal alarm bells were ringing, but nothing seemed out of place. Some of the customers were polite, while others were assholes. Roxy and Brandon did what they could to help, and the day went on. The only people who I knew were watching me were the guys, and they were there, seated in an out of the way booth that gave them the visual lines they needed to keep me locked in their sights while I was in the open dining room. Shaking away the worry, knowing it wouldn’t do me any good, I continued working, chalking it up to the residual tension and nerves from the night before.
My shift came to an uneventful close, and I felt as if the constant pressure had worn down to my very bones. Every nerve was electrified, my adrenaline seeping into my body at the sensation that there was a threat nearby. I damn near jumped through the ceiling when Roxy dropped an empty tray, and it clattered to the ground with a loud bang.
I’d never admit it to the guys but knowing about my father now only made sure that I was constantly on edge … more so than before. Even if he wasn’t physically present, he was there. Like the fucking shadow of a reaper, waiting in the shadows for me to be at my weakest. The jumpiness, the restlessness, the worry, the fear. The anxiety was a fucking pit in my stomach, and as I punched in my employee number to clock out, I realized … none of it would go away.
The only way I could be truly safe again was if my father was dead.
* * *
The insideof the car was quiet as Archer drove me back to my apartment. I was still reeling with anger, but it had mostly subsided over the course of the day. I felt like I was ping-ponging between wanting to jump the guys’ bones and being so pissed off at them that I wanted to wring their necks. No wonder men called women crazy, but then again, wasn’t it crazy that they’d deliberately tracked me down even knowing that I was the target of a seriously deranged mobster with a vendetta? So really, which of us was crazier?
“You’re quiet,” Archer said, glancing over at me.
I shrugged. “I don’t have anything to say.”
He sighed. “We weren’t trying to hurt you, Mare. We were trying to keep you safe.”
I huffed out a breath, shifting in my seat to cut a look his way. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
Silence fell once more. It wasn’t that long of a drive, but damn, when I was stuck in the car with someone I was pissed at—it felt like the short two miles or so from Brutello’s to my apartment was ages long. “I know about what you did with Ian and Jensen,” Archer said after a moment had passed. I stiffened. “I’m not mad,” he admitted. “In fact, I’m glad. Though I am a bit jealous. I feel like we haven’t gotten many chances to be alone together since…” He trailed off, but I knew what he meant. I would say since they came back, but they’d been back for a while, just hidden in the shadows. So, a more accurate statement would be since they’d revealed themselves again.
“The driver training doesn’t count?” I asked, finding my lips curving at the memory.
Archer shot me a rueful grin. “That was just a taste, sweetheart. Just a taste.”
“Hmmmm.”
Archer wasn’t done yet, though. “I missed it,” he said. “I missedyou.”
“We weren’t together for very long before I left,” I couldn’t help but point out. “In the grand scheme of things, a few months … it wasn’t even half a year. It wasn’t a lot of time.”
Archer turned onto my street, and as he did, his eyes sliced my way. “It was a lifetime,” he said, impassioned. I blinked at the startling severity of his voice, turning and giving him my full attention as he continued. “Before you, we’d shared women, but they meant nothing. It was a night or two at most, but you…” He shook his head as he pulled to a stop in front of the crumbling Victorian house that I’d called home for the past few years. “You were always different. I knew from the first night with you that we wouldn’t be able to let you go.”
