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I’d started up the walk to my front door telling myself, “I am a fucking fool.”
I punched in the seven-digit code for the security system I’d insisted on, thinking it would make it harder for the bad guys to get to me. Turns out, it was a targeted assault. Hell, they all were.
Before I could open the door, I heard behind me, “Don’t be alarmed.”
The voice of an unfamiliar man startled me. I gasped and reached in my bag for the five-inch knife Hulu had given me as a welcome to the family gift.
My hand wrapped around the cool metal handle as I quickly turned around.
“What the fuck do you want?” I said.
My heart raced at the man’s nearness, and I took in the sight of his half-burned face and brown eyes, the arrogant smirk on his face. “Well?” I insisted over my throbbing pulse.
The man lifted his palms up in the air and took half a step back, out of fear or caution, I didn’t know.
“I just want to talk.”
“I don’t know you, so I don’t know what we could possibly have to talk about.”
After the attack by those two thugs and what I knew about Fiona, I had to fight the urge to simply flee into the safety of my home. But I needed answers.
“I just want something simple. One little thing that will cost you nothing to get for me, and a lot if you don’t.”
Shit. I was so fucking pissed about all of this, I couldn’t even think straight.
Whatever he wanted had to do with the Ashbys, I knew that much. I didn’t have anything to offer other than money and information. I figured he wanted the latter.
I turned to him sharply. “And what is that one little thing?”
“Names. The men and women who attend those games you work.” He gave me a smile that turned gruesome because of his disfigured face. “That’s all I want.”
My grip tightened on the knife handle, and I nodded at the request, not because I planned to give him anything, but because I couldn’t.
“Sorry to tell you that I only know first names and I’m not even sure those names are real.”
Every trace of a smile left him, and he said, “That is the wrong fucking answer, Vanessa.” The unmarred side of his face tightened in anger, turning the burned side a scary shade of pink. “I was really hoping you’d be more cooperative than your predecessor.”
He shook his head and took a step forward, and I pulled out what was supposed to be a knife, instead it was pepper spray. Fucking pepper spray.
It’ll have to do. I pressed the tab and a wide red cloud formed between us, giving me enough time to unlock the door and rush inside. I made sure every lock on the front door was engaged, along with the alarm as Provo’s words played on a loop inside my head.
Be careful or you might end up like Fiona.
Fuck that. I found the knife and aimed it at the door for a full minute before my hands stopped shaking and my heart slowed to normal. When I was able to think again, to form complete thoughts, I pulled out my phone and hesitated. My first instinct was to call Emmett, but my emotions were still raw, too raw to talk to him when he wasn’t the man I needed.
Not now.
I dialed the number of the one person I knew who would want to know about my visitor.
“Jasper, it’s Vanessa. A man with a burned face showed up at my house right now asking for names of the players in the card games. I pepper-sprayed him.”
The line was silent for a moment, but when he finally spoke, his voice was ice cold and low.
“Sit tight. I’ll be right there.”
The call ended before I could give him my address so I assumed there was some employee file for Lance.
I did what Jasper said and sat on my sofa with a glass of wine on the coffee table and the knife gripped tight in my right hand. I was prepared for a fight because there was no way I’d battled grief to die now.
I said the words out loud. “No fucking way am I gonna die now.” Maybe I felt more courage. Hard to know. I took another swallow of the wine.
What felt like just a few minutes later, a loud pounding on the door had the knife clattering to the floor and sliding beneath the sofa.
“Vanessa, it’s Jasper. Open up.”
Deciding to err on the side of caution, I flattened myself on the floor to grab the knife before I raced to answer the door to Jasper, Terry and Provo. All looking intimidating as hell.
“Hey. Thanks for coming.”
Jasper nodded and stepped inside, a move that forced me to back up.
