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“How the fuck did this happen?” he asked, and as if on cue, Mackey came moseying in, nails click click clicking away as he moved to sit beside Fenway.
“Oh yeah, I let him in. He was playing guard dog outside of your car,” Fenway explained, making me once again feel like the shittiest of dog owners. His whole life with me had been dealing with my trauma and constant fear. If dogs could truly smell that, as the saying went, then I must have positively reeked to him all the time.
Gunner’s gaze went to the dog, making him rake a hand through his hair. “Fuck. I should have dragged him back up to the door before I left.”
“It’s not your fault my dog hates me,” I said, shrugging.
“Did you see any women when you were out there?” Quin asked.
“Women?” Gunner asked, brows drawn together. “This was a woman?” he asked, crossing over to me, pace full of purpose as he got close, tilting my head up.
“With help from a wall,” I explained.
Gunner exhaled, letting me go, and moving away to stand near the side of Quin’s desk. “I didn’t see anyone. It was a ghost town over there. But that maybe explains some hair I found hanging from a branch. Too long to be a man’s.”
“Let me guess, brown and gray hair?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you catch anything else about her, babe?” Quin asked, jotting something down on a pad in front of him.
“She was tall and sturdy. And had on a brown almost ankle-length coat. That’s really about it. She was running away when I stopped throwing up to get a look.”
“The fuck did you do to her to make her take a wall to your face?” Fenway asked, prompting a growl from Quin, and a lunge from Gunner, who grabbed the man by the back of his suit jacket and started pulling him toward the door.
“Time for you to be somewhere else until someone wants to deal with you again,” he told the man, tossing him out into the hall, then slamming, and locking the door. “Anything else? What did she say?”
“She called me a cunt, and asked me where he is.”
“And?” Gunner pressed.
“And then Mackey got a taste of her leg.”
There wasn’t even a pause before Gunner was next to the dog, reaching for his jowls, prying his mouth open, completely unconcerned about the growling noise coming from somewhere deep in the dog’s chest. “Got some blood in his teeth. I’m gonna go see if I can get a sample.”
With that, he led my dog out of the room, and Quin and I were alone.
“I should have followed you home,” he said into the silence of the room.
I looked over to find him getting out of his chair, moving around his desk, then lowering into the chair Fenway vacated, scooting it closer.
“Gunner had been there, Quin. That wasn’t enough to deter her.”
“Then I should have told Fenway to take his problems somewhere else this time, and done what I really wanted to do in the first place.”
My stomach fluttered at that, at the depth I heard in it. “What’s that?” I asked, needing to hear the answer.
“Followed you home,” he answered immediately. “Then walked you to your door. Then came in. And stayed the night.”
My gaze dropped, not wanting to give away how much I had wanted that as well, regardless of how silly that was, how unlike me. I wasn’t the girl who screwed around casually. I wasn’t really even the girl who was other-level attracted to a man she wasn’t seeing.
Hell, maybe it was the trauma.
Maybe he was the knight in shining armor.
Ugh.
That made me the damsel in distress.
How cliche.
How beneath me.
“Then no one would have been outside,” I said, lifting my head, meeting his gaze. “Since he comes when men demand things of him.”
“I think we’re at the point now where you can’t go back to your house, babe. I wanted to keep your life as normal as possible. But this chick will be back. Actually, I think it is time you take a vacation from work.”
“I can’t take a vacation from work,” I objected immediately, even knowing how messed up my face was, and the endless questions I was sure to be pestered with.
“Bills will be the last of your concerns if you end up dead, Aven.”
That was a phrase easier said than accepted. I wasn’t someone like him. I didn’t have a full bank account. I didn’t even have a small buffer in case of emergencies.
God, why hadn’t I put more money away when I worked at a better job?
“Aven, you know this is what has to happen. I get that it sucks, and you’re worried. But you’re not getting hurt again, or killed, on my watch. No fucking way. I will go with you.”
“What am I supposed to say about this?” I asked, gesturing toward my face.
