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Glancing around the room, I realized that each one of these men had been in situations where the women they loved found themselves in danger. All of us felt this overwhelming desire to protect innocent people. When it came to the ones we loved, that urge was amplified. So, I knew that they’d understand where I was coming from with my current predicament.
“I just got her back,” I told them.
“You’ll keep her safe, Jesse. You’ve got to know you’re doing everything you can to make that happen,” Brixton insisted.
Nodding, I returned, “Yeah, I do. But I’m concerned about this for another reason. I don’t want to keep her in the dark about the call I received from Eric, because I know that it’s not wise. I’d rather her be more vigilant. But there’s a part of me that wants to keep this to myself, because I’m worried it might send her packing.”
“You think she’ll leave?” Jagger questioned me.
I shot him a look that I hoped indicated I didn’t know the answer to that question. “I don’t want to think that she will. I mean, she’s just now setting down roots again and getting all of the things back in her life that she should have had all along.”
“So, why are you worried?” Damon asked.
I thought the answer to that question was obvious, but based on the fact that each of the three men in front of me seemed to be waiting for a response, I answered, “I don’t want her to run if she thinks someone knows she came here.”
“But she didn’t have all that she has now when she left Maryland,” Brixton noted.
“Okay. What does that have to do with anything?” I countered.
“Jesse, she came to you when you two hadn’t even spoken for years,” Jagger explained. “She trusted you to keep her safe back then. Now that she has all that she does and things are good between you, why would she leave?”
He was right.
They all were.
When she realized the danger she was in, Sawyer didn’t hesitate to come to me. It took a lot of courage—something that was never in short supply with her—to do that when she genuinely believed I hated her.
So, I had to look at it from their perspective. Sawyer knew what she had here in Steel Ridge. And she was a brave woman. I never wanted her to have to live in fear, but I had to believe that she trusted me enough to keep her safe to know she wouldn’t have to.
“I’ll talk to her tonight about it,” I finally said. “She needs to know.”
“I think it’s a good idea, and I don’t think she’s going to pack up her things as a result,” Jagger returned.
Just then, my phone rang.
I pulled it out of my pocket, saw the name on the display, and looked up at the guys with confusion written all over my face. “Why is Avalon calling me?”
Damon cocked an eyebrow.
I answered the call, held the phone to my ear, and said, “Hello?”
“Oh my God, Jesse, where are you?” she shouted.
Damon immediately rose to his feet. His body was tense, and I couldn’t say I didn’t understand it. After what Avalon had gone through just a few months ago, it was safe to say that Damon had every reason to be worried about her. And judging by the fact that I had to pull the phone away from my ear because she was yelling so loudly, I didn’t doubt he heard the same terror in her voice that I did.
“I’m at Harper Security,” I answered. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Liv’s fine. But we’re chasing this guy,” she shared.
At that declaration, Brixton had a similar reaction to Damon. Liv was his, and he’d known her since they were kids. The idea that she was chasing someone wasn’t sitting well with him.
“What?” I replied.
Avalon let out a groan of frustration. “Sawyer’s in trouble. Liv and I are following this guy who took her, but you need to get here. We just pulled out of the pub’s parking lot and are heading east.”
Suddenly, the notion of being paralyzed by fear made sense to me. I’d always been able to react quickly in a tense situation, but the confirmation that Sawyer was in trouble, that the guy who’d just taken her was likely the man who’d been hired to kill her, left me feeling nothing but dread.
No sooner had Avalon gotten those words out when I heard Liv’s voice. “I think he’s going to get on the highway and head north.”
