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Obsessed. That was the word that came to mind when I tore apart each piece of information he’d laid out. He was obsessed with me, and I was drunk on the rush of power that gave me.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
REAPER
As far asfirst dates went, I’d hit this one out of the park. Not that I had anything to compare it to, but I could tell by how relaxed Peyton was now that I had done everything right.
“Tell me about your friends.” It came out as a demand rather than a request. I wanted to know everything about her. If she cared about it, I wanted to know about it.
“What do you want to know about them?” she countered.
“Anything you want to tell me.” Anything to get her to open up. The women she spent the majority of her time with seemed like a good place to start.
Peyton sipped her wine, and satisfaction filled me knowing that I ordered right.
“Fine. They’re all crazy.” I waited for more, but that was all she gave me.
I chuckled. “Yeah. I know that. Everyone knows that.” She narrowed her eyes at me. Shit. That sounded insulting. “Um, I mean like are they all from around here? Did you meet them at school?”
She shook her head. “Tyler’s from everywhere. Her dad was in the military, and they moved around a lot. Izzy and Adrienne are from New York City. Jessen grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and Chris is from Texas.” Peyton’s face softened, and a small smile formed on her mouth. “We met at work.”
“Are they all as smart as you?”
That smile widened. “In their own way. We’ve been trained to do it all, but we each have our own area of expertise.” She stared at me expectantly, as though waiting for my next question. Jesus. You’d think I was trying to pry her teeth from her mouth with a pair of rusty pliers. What would it take to get her to talk to me?
“Come on, Peyton,” I prodded. “I want to know everything. Where did you go when you were gone? What else can you do? How did you get into this line of work? What’s your favorite part of your job?” She looked at me like I’d grown a second head, and I sighed. “Fine. Start simple. Tell me something about each one of your teammates.”
“You could always ask them.” I gave her ayou’re kidding me, right?Look, and she chuckled. I’d be more likely to get a knee to the nuts than answers from them. Which was fine, I didn’t need to be their best friend. But they were the most important people in Peyton’s life, and she was the most important person in mine. It mattered, learning about the people she loved and understanding why she loved them.
“It was just a suggestion.” She sighed like the conversation was boring her, but I hung onto every word. “Izzy’s a fighter. She never backs down and pushes all of us to fight just as hard.” Her lips curved. “Jessen’s basically our mom. Or maybe our big sister. We go to her any time we need to talk. Adrienne, well, she’s the drama queen of our group. But she basically taught all of us how to be confident.” Eyes wide, she shook her head. “I swear, she could stroll into a meeting with the president and walk out with the keys to the white house just because she believes she can.”
Pausing, she sips her wine and eyes me. “You sure you’re interested in hearing all this?”
Honestly, now that she’d gotten started, I was more interested than I thought I’d be. Watching her face while she spoke of them was like watching art in motion. Knowing she’d probably think I was screwing with her if I said that, I simply nodded for her to continue.
“Tyler is the most unhinged person I’ve ever known.” I snorted in agreement. Tyler was the only woman who’d ever genuinely terrified me with nothing but a smile. Like she could read my mind, Peyton’s eyes danced with amusement. “But she’s also probably the most loyal person on the planet. The few people she lets into her life are blessed with the knowledge that she would do literally anything for them.” I could see that. In fact, Tyler did kind of remind me of Spade. As dangerous as he could be, I always knew he had my back.
“And Chris is our heart. She brings the sunshine when any of us get lost in the dark. I don’t think any of us would have survived what we went through without her.”
Speaking of… “Your brother has a thing for Chris.”
Peyton sat up straight. “I know! He drove past Buddy’s garage the other day while she was working on a car.”
“Yeah, that’s his car.” I wasn’t into gossip, but I’d do anything to keep that light in her eyes. Plus, it was the truth. The guy had it bad. I could empathize. “He bought some beater, then took it straight to Buddy’s. Guy’s paying top dollar for her to rebuild it from the ground up.”
“Does she know it’s his car?”
I shrugged. “You’d have to ask her.”
Plates came and went while we stuffed ourselves, and the conversation flowed seamlessly. Peyton answered every question I threw at her. Sometimes she answered vaguely, which was fine by me. We weren’t at the point where I could press for deeper answers. And I knew there were things she might not be able to tell me.
This was the first step. We had the rest of our lives. Dinner was almost over, but the night wasn’t. I was going to romance my woman all the way to bed, and we would finally be together without the world pressing in on us, without being fueled by adrenaline or rage. A night where I showed her how we could be together.
On my way back to our table from the bathroom, I stopped just outside the patio doors at the sight of a middle-aged bald man sitting in my chair across from Peyton. He was a big guy, that weird mix of fat and muscle some men got when they stopped hitting the gym as hard. I didn’t recognize him from the pictures Peyton had sent us with the dossiers on the rescued women, but my gut told me the guy had something to do with all that. Maybe it was the suit, or maybe I was paranoid from waiting for someone to make a move after falling into that trap a few nights ago.
I tried to read her expression, but she gave nothing away. She sat relaxed in her chair like she was listening to him tell a story. I slipped my phone from my pocket and dialed without looking.
The prospect I had waiting outside the restaurant answered, and I got right to the point. “About to throw a guy out of the restaurant. I want him picked up and brought to the warehouse,” I instructed. “Wait to snatch him until nobody’s around.” Through the years, I’d learned to give that extra bit of direction to prospects. They were eager to prove themselves and didn’t always think.
