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“We have guys out looking for him. You don’t need to worry about this,” Kyle tells me.
I help Lauren when she struggles to get up, and she wraps her hand around my arm.
“Let them deal with Ronnie, okay?” she says. “Please don’t go after him.”
“I’ll never stop stressing over someone hurting my family.”
He will pay, and he will pay at my hands.
She sighs and nods. It’s not an agreement. It’s a promise that we’ll be having this conversation in private at a later time.
I kiss her cheek when my dad walks in, and I march across the room to pull him into a hug.
“Thank you,” I say before doing the same inspection I did with Lauren.
As with Lauren, I can tell he’s been roughed up, but he’s okay. Physically at least.
We stayed in contact when I was in Chicago but haven’t broached his admission that he was the one to ask Lauren to break up with me. That conversation won’t be held tonight either. It will happen, but causing more chaos than we have going on isn’t smart, and as pissed as I am, I can’t get angry with him.
Who knows how much time we’ll have to work out our problems?
We’ll talk, but there will be no grudges held.
We stay at Lauren’s until it grows dark, and Kyle drives us home. We don’t go to the loft. It’s part of an open investigation. Plus, I might snap if I see the evidence of the destruction Ronnie caused. I pace in the kitchen, and Lauren makes herself and my dad each a bowl of ice cream before they walk me through what happened with Ronnie.
Later, I do another inspection of her while we shower. My nails bite into my knuckles as I eye the bruises on the backs of her thighs and back. I help her dry off, and we sleep in my old bedroom.
Ronnie will go down for this.
* * *
“You sureyou don’t want to stay home?”
I’m spread out on the floor next to Lauren in my childhood bedroom. The twin-size bed we started the night in proved not to be big enough for the both of us. After I rolled off twice, I moved to the floor. Lauren joined me after waking up to an empty bed. We ended up snuggling in a build-a-fort made of blankets and pillows.
“I’m positive I don’t,” she answers. “You know we’re short-staffed.”
“They’ll understand if you explain to them that you were assaulted.”
Not that she would tell them.
I know I’ve lost when she gets up and starts to rummage through the overnight bag she packed from her parents. “They’d absolutely understand, but sitting around, thinking about the suit-wearing creep putting his hands on me, isn’t what I want to do today. Work will rid my thoughts of him.”
We both shudder at the thought of Ronnie.
I lift myself up onto my elbows. “Then, let me take you.”
She shakes her head and leans down to kiss my lips. “I’ll be fine, babe.”
I grab her elbow and pull her back down next to me. “The lunatic who assaulted you is on the loose.”
I already feel like a piece-of-shit boyfriend for not being there to protect her the first time. It can’t happen again.
The final decision is made during breakfast. News to me, Lauren arranged for my father to volunteer at the hospital when she worked. He’ll assist people with directions and be with her if she needs anything.
My goal today is tracking Ronnie down.
* * *
