by J. H. Croix
I was pretty sure shouldering it all by myself again would be crushing. Breathing got more difficult just thinking about it.
For the rest of my shift, I was distracted by thoughts of Evan. I went about my work, smiling and serving the customers. Inside, however, I was at war. A part of me wanted to trust him enough to let him into my bubble of self-reliance and preservation, while the part already in the bubble argued vehemently against it.
Mr. Ray remained docile. He even thanked Ava and me for our hard work when our shift was over. She winked at me on our way into the parking lot and asked me again to thank Evan for her. Dan, the cook, was waiting by her car.
She gave him a ride home when they were on shift together. Dan tended to be on the sour side, but even he flashed me a smile when I walked past him. “Evan’s a damn hero in my book. Tell him I said so, would ya?”
I nodded, feeling slightly dazed. None of my coworkers seemed concerned about what he’d done. Yet I was still struggling with accepting it now that I knew it wasn’t quite as simple of a chat he’d had with Mr. Ray as he’d made it sound on Sunday.
After arriving at my cleaning job, I changed into my uniform and fetched my cart. As usual, the building was nearly deserted. There were a couple of people working late tonight, though. I knew as soon as I saw them that I wasn’t going to be getting any snooping done.
Those who were still there seemed to have settled in for the long haul. Office doors were closed, ties loosened, and jackets off. Everyone kept to themselves. There were no meetings in progress, and no one was roaming the halls.
Pulling my cart from office to office, I emptied dustbins, wiped down surfaces, and used my small, handheld vacuum where needed. The routine lulled me and cleared my mind of my worries about Evan. Even though this second job was sometimes exhausting, in a way, the work was soothing. I didn’t have to think, and it was usually peaceful.
Some of the people who were around when I got there left while I was busy. Darkness fell outside, and the main lights dimmed.
Unfazed, I kept going about my business. I skipped the offices still occupied, deciding to check back later. The farther down the corridor I went, the bigger the offices became. There was no one working in this part of the building.
I presumed the men who sat in these offices were the head honchos. It was also where I usually got the best information, but I couldn’t risk it tonight.
When I heard a door creak, I jumped and spun around. “You scared me.”
Ken Lyons stepped into the office I was busy cleaning, his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “Ms. Hammel. My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
My heartbeat sped up, my palms becoming clammy. Ken was looking at me in an entirely different way now than he had before. Somehow, this felt more dangerous. He stood in front of the door, his eyes narrowed on mine as he blocked the only exit out of the room.
“How’s your boyfriend, Ms. Hammel?” he asked. It registered then that he knew my name now. “I’m assuming he’s the reason you turned down my proposal.”
My mind raced. Did he know Evan and I were together? Did he know I was gathering information from the firm to pass along to Evan and the Lovetts? What is going on?
Ken didn’t wait for me to answer him. “You seem like a nice girl, so I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice.”
He paused, seemingly waiting for a response. I took a shaky breath and swallowed through the tightness in my throat. “Okay.”
“Relationships at your age are such fickle things. You’re too young to know the warning signs and see them for what they are.” His smooth voice was low and edged. The words he was saying didn’t sound dangerous, not yet anyway. The way he was saying them, though, that scared me.
There were threats layered into his tone, and his vagueness made me realize he at least suspected the possibility that I might be recording him. He wasn’t about to say anything outright threatening toward me.
“Some people are simply bad seeds, my dear,” he continued. “They come from bad stock, and no matter what they tell us or promise us, there’s no changing that.”
Reading between the lines, I understood what he was saying perfectly. He thought Evan had charmed me because I worked here. That he’d promised me things to make me believe he was the good guy when he wasn’t.
At least, that’s what I thought Ken was saying. My brain was shutting down as nerves flooded my body. The only exit out of the office was still blocked, and Ken didn’t look like he planned on moving anytime soon.
We were alone in this part of the building. The thick carpets wouldn’t carry sound very well if I called for help, and the people who were still around had their doors closed. They also all worked for Ken. Even if they came running, it wouldn’t be my side they were running to.
A prickle of fear raced up my spine, and a cold sweat broke out over my chest. I shivered, but either Ken didn’t notice, or he didn’t care.
“A nice girl like you shouldn’t be involved in things you can’t comprehend,” he continued. If I wasn’t on the verge of bursting into tears from being so nervous, I would’ve been offended he thought I couldn’t “comprehend” what was going on. The tiny part of my brain not yet swamped by the nerves took great offense. A huge amount of offense.
“You don’t need trouble in your life, do you, girl?” Ken asked.
When he didn’t carry on talking, I realized he was waiting for another reply. “No, sir.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They remained as they were while he made a poor attempt at a smile.
Smoothing out his tie, he finally stepped aside. I nearly wept with relief when my exit was free and clear again. “That’s what I thought, Ms. Hammel. If you don’t want trouble, do yourself a favor and stay away from it. Don’t go looking for it.”
With that, he left. I couldn’t hear his footsteps retreating because of the carpet, so I rushed to the door to peek out and make sure he really was walking away. I was on eggshells the rest of the night at work. I jumped at the slightest sound, and when I got home, the feeling was still there.
Ken’s words repeated on a loop in my mind when I sank onto my bed, exhausted. For the first time, I was getting anxious about Evan and what it meant to get involved with him. I knew he was a good guy, but given his reputation and that of his family’s, was that enough?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Evan
“Ready to go?” Phoenix asked, sticking his head into my office.
Spinning around in my chair, I switched off my computer and nodded. “Yeah. Tomorrow’s another day.”
“Still working on those spreadsheets for the bean counters?” A sympathetic gleam filled his eyes. “Better you than me, brother.”
A dry chuckle ripped from my throat. “Not a chance. The numbers are going to be the death of me.”
Rubbing my tired eyes, I stood up and grabbed my wallet, keys, and phone. “Let’s get out of here before I stab myself in the eye with a calculator.”
Laughing, he waited for me before we walked out together. “You ever consider hiring someone to take care of all the admin stuff?”
“Yeah.” I was just too much of a control freak at this point in time. The shop’s success was too new. I would have to be able to trust whomever I hired implicitly. Finding a person who was trustworthy wouldn’t be easy. “I’m still okay doing it by myself for now.”
Usually, the admin didn’t take me all day like it did today. I wasn’t a guru with numbers, but I was decent if I put my mind to it. Today, it took longer because I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something wrong with Sadie
Or if there wasn’t something wrong with her, something was wrong with us. I didn’t know what it could be, but my gut insisted something was wrong. When I called her about stopping by last night, she put me off.
It wasn’t the first time, and normally I didn’t think twice about it. Work and Emery kept her busy at night. It was something I’d known from the b
eginning. I accepted it and moved on, no problems and no questions asked.
It was bothering me today because of how she’d put me off. She had been vague and cagey when I called her. Claiming to be tired, she told me she would call me sometime and hung up. I knew what Sadie sounded like when she was tired, and it wasn’t that last night. She sounded nervous, anxious, and maybe even a little scared.
It worried me all day. No matter how much I rationalized it, told myself it was my imagination and that she must’ve been as tired as she said, the feeling lingered that something was off.
“Got any big plans for tonight?” Phoenix asked as we entered the parking lot around the back of the shop. Gravel crunched beneath our shoes, and a few birds chirped in the distance as the sun started its long descent.
“Not really,” I told him.
He smirked. “No world domination planned then?”
I laughed. “Not tonight. You?”
“I only try to take over the world on Saturdays, and even then, it’s only a lady’s world I try to change.” He waggled his brows at me and unlocked his truck. “See you tomorrow.”
Phoenix took off with a roar of his built-up engine. I sat in my truck before starting it, considering where to go from here. I could go home and try to call Sadie again, or I could go to her and look her in the eye when I asked her what was going on.
There wasn’t really a choice. Sliding my eyes to the clock on my dashboard, I saw it was almost time for Sadie’s shift at the diner to end.
When I got there, she was talking to a brunette coworker out by her car. My headlights caught them as I turned into the parking lot. The brunette shielded her eyes for the moment it took for them to pass but then went back to smiling and talking.
Sadie recognized my truck and cemented my suspicion that something was seriously wrong when she stiffened and turned her back to me. What the…?
The two women talked for another minute or so until the brunette gave Sadie a friendly wave and headed off. When her coworker was gone, I saw Sadie’s shoulders lift with a deep sigh as she turned to come to me.
I frowned, wondering what the hell could be going on now. Hopping out of the truck, I met her halfway. Opening my arms to tug her close, I wasn’t surprised when she gave me little more than a quick squeeze with a pat on the back like one might a distant aunt you haven’t seen for years.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
Sadie stepped away from me and kept going in the direction of my truck. When she got to it, she didn’t get in. She leaned against the tailgate as she nodded. “Yeah. Fine.”
Her answer was curt, and her eyes never quite met mine. Hugging her arms around herself, she looked miserable. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean?” I often stopped by to see her after work. It wasn’t anything new. Her reaction to it was new, though. She was usually all smiles when I got there, giving me brief touches and watching every move I made.
She shrugged. “I didn’t know you were stopping by tonight.”
“Neither did I,” I admitted. “Something’s going on with you, though. I felt it last night. What’s wrong?”
“I’m just tired, Evan,” she hedged, biting her lip and looking everywhere but at me.
Walking up to her slowly, watching for any indication from her that I should stop, I tugged her close, sliding my hand along the curve of her shoulder. “Talk to me, Sadie. What happened?”
“Nothing happened, I’ve just been thinking and…”
A fist closed around my heart. It felt like oxygen wasn’t reaching my lungs. Tears glistened in Sadie’s eyes. One fell free, and I swept it away with my finger.
Sadie looked up at me, not finishing her sentence. In the fading light, her eyes were intent on mine. She stared at me for what felt like an eternity before finally, she shook her head. “I lied earlier. Something happened.”
“What?” I asked quietly, without breaking eye contact.
Sighing, she closed her eyes and whispered, “Ken Lyons. He knows about us. I don’t know how, but he came to me at work last night. He insinuated that being with you was dangerous and that I would get myself into trouble if I stayed with you.”
“Motherfucker,” I cursed, releasing Sadie and turning away from her as anger flashed through me. “He’s not going to get away with this. I promise he’s not. I’m going to go confront him. Tonight. He’ll never threaten you again. You have my word. I’ll keep you safe.”
Her tiny hand closed around my wrist, calming me just enough not to tear off after him immediately. “Please don’t confront him.”
I whirled around, anger bubbling right beneath the surface. “Why not?”
Her shoulders sagged. “I need that job, Evan. You know that. If you confront him, he’ll fire me for sure.”
“I’ll find you another job.” It was dangerous working there anyway. I had a lot of contact with smaller business owners in Cypress Creek. I was sure I would be able to find her something new, something better where she wouldn’t have to be afraid of going to work every day.
Narrowing her eyes, she tilted her head and crossed her arms. “I don’t want another job. That’s my job, Evan, and I want to keep it. Besides, me having that job is helping me to help you.”
It was then that I realized she didn’t look afraid. She should’ve been. Ken was a criminal, and she had a target on her back, but she was staring me down like I was the bad guy. “Why aren’t you scared?”
Pressing her lips into a line, she slid her eyes to the darkening sky and then back to mine. “I won’t deny he made me nervous. When it happened, I was terrified.”
“And now?” I pushed. It looked like she was totally over the incident, as calm and nonchalant as they came. It wasn’t right.
Shrugging, she lifted her brows. “I don’t know. I guess I realized he isn’t likely to do much in the office even if he does come to find me again. There are security cameras all over that building, so anything he does is likely to be recorded, and I don’t think he would risk it.”
“You don’t know what he’s capable of,” I told her, the need to protect her slamming into my chest. “The man is brutal. We have no idea what he would or would not risk.”
Sadie gave me a pointed look. “In front of all of those security cameras? I don’t agree with you.”
“It’s his footage,” I argued. “No one would be able to get to it.”
She shook her head. “The security company is one of those big ones. I’m pretty sure their stuff is backed up.”
I rested my hand on the bed of the truck, squeezing it so hard my knuckles went white. “Pretty sure? Pretty sure isn’t good enough when you’re dealing with a guy like this.”
Cocking her head, she stepped closer to me. I could see she wasn’t going to back down. “What would you have me do then? I’m not worried about safety there. I trust the security guards and their cameras. I’m not quitting over this, especially not when there’s still so much information there I could get for the police. If I leave my job now, they’ll never get it. Who knows what damage could be done and to whom if no one stops them?”
“Like the damage that could be done to you if you keep trying to stop them?” I countered, raising a brow. Near paralyzing worry rolled around in my stomach, extending out to make my limbs feel heavy.
Didn’t she understand how dangerous the situation was? How dangerous Ken was? If he knew about us, which he had to know if he threatened Sadie about her relationship with me, the bull’s-eye on her back had grown bigger than the fucking state.
As it was, he was harassing my brothers and me, and he wasn’t going to stop coming after her. Since he’d proven with us that he wasn’t shy about seeking us out wherever we were, he might not contain his efforts to get to her at the office.
That realization sent a bolt of fear through me. He was absolutely capable of going after Sadie at her house or even of going after Emery.
Blood drained from my face as the possible reperc
ussions of the situation she was in now that he knew about us hit home. Sadie couldn’t know how much danger they were possibly in. Hearing about men like Ken and knowing what they were really capable of were two different things.
I’d seen with both Jeremy and Sonny that these guys my dad was involved with didn’t fuck around. Murder wasn’t just a word to them. It was an act they’d proven themselves perfectly okay with performing.
God knew what they would do to Sadie, to Emery. Taking her hands in mine, I let my emotions and the concern driving them rise to the surface. “I want to talk to Sonny about this now that we know Ken has connected the dots between us. In the meantime, I want you and Emery to stay with me.”
Sadie’s jaw dropped. “Are you seriously asking me to move in with you right now?”
“Yes. It’s the only way I’ll know you’re safe and won’t be worried out of my mind about both of you every minute of every day.”
Her eyes grew wide, and she took a tentative step back from me. “It’s too fast for that, Evan. I haven’t pushed you for a commitment, and I won’t try to use this to do it. But I can’t take a step that big until I know for sure what’s going on. It’s the only way I would be able to be sure it’s the right thing to do for Emery. I couldn’t move her in with you only to have to move her out again later.”
Fuck. I should’ve known she wasn’t going to agree. I didn’t have a backup plan. The plan I’d blurted out to her was made up on the fly. Of course, I knew she wouldn’t move in with me without a commitment.
All of that only drove the point home for me. I was crazy about her, and there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to protect her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sadie
The hum of the vacuum cleaner filled the air as I ran it across the thick carpeting in one of the offices at the firm. It was quiet again tonight. Despite what I’d told Evan, I was relieved when I arrived and saw Ken wasn’t in the building.
