Hunter: A Reed Security Romance

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  “What the fuck do you know? I didn’t let her just walk out. I was there every fucking minute for her.”

  “Until she decided she didn’t need you anymore, right?”

  “Well, yeah. When a woman says to fuck off, you leave her the fuck alone.”

  “Except you didn’t do that with Lucy. You followed her around and did everything possible to get her back,” he snapped.

  “Yeah, well she’s the fucking woman I’m going to marry.”

  “And Lola isn’t, so you just left her alone.”

  “Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but what goes on between Lola and me is none of your goddamned business.”

  “It is my goddamned business,” he said, getting in my face. “She’s fucking drowning and you just left her.”

  “I didn’t leave her. She pushed me away.”

  “And you knew that shit wasn’t right with her. You should have stepped in. You should have gotten her help.”

  “What the fuck? You’ve been working here for a fucking year and all the sudden you think you know us?”

  “I’m telling you what you need to hear. You were fucking torn apart when you thought I was dead. How do you think you’ll feel if something happens to Lola?”

  “Don’t even fucking say that. She would never do something to hurt herself.”

  “How do you know? How do you know what’s going on in her head? You walked away from her. You’re supposed to have her back.”

  “I didn’t-” I couldn’t argue with him anymore. He was right. I had been Lola’s support system for years and then when she decided to break away, I had just assumed that she had it under control. I didn’t talk to her about it or see if she needed anything. I had basically washed my hands of her problems and moved on. Maybe the reason she stopped using me was because it just wasn’t fucking working anymore.

  I sat down on the edge of the ring and flopped down on my back, staring up at the ceiling. Knight came and sat next to me.

  “How the fuck do I fix it?”

  “Well, first, you call her and bug her until she talks to you. Then, you need to convince her to come back here. She’s not going to solve her problems by running away.”

  I huffed out a laugh. “I’d have better luck sending you after her.”

  “I’ve already talked to her. She sounds relaxed, but I can tell that this whole situation is eating away at her. She’s not the kind of woman that can just walk away from her life here and be happy.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Call it paying it forward. You saved my life when you broke me out of jail. Then you helped me get a job here. Thanks to you, I’m not running anymore and I’ve got a woman that I would fucking die for. Right now, Lola needs a lifeline and you’ve always been that for her. The rest of us can help her, but you’ve always been the one that she trusted. Don’t let her down.”

  He stood and walked out of the ring, leaving me alone and reeling. He was completely right. I had to make things right with Lola. She was one of my best friends and I couldn’t let her down.

  ✯✯✯✯✯

  “Pappy, before you leave, I have something for you.” Knight walked over to me with a laptop. After his little talk with me earlier, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this.

  “What’s that?”

  “This, my friend, is a little insight into how I kept an eye on Kate.”

  He opened the laptop and handed it to me. There were several small screens filled with images of Lucy’s apartment. It was the live feed from inside.

  “Knight, we’re not supposed to have access to the live feed. This is seriously fucked up.”

  “So is sitting outside her apartment every night. I figure this way you can watch from the comfort of your own home and know that she’s okay.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Just don’t tell Cap. He still doesn’t know how I hacked the live feed from Kate’s place and I’m not telling him how I did Lucy’s either.”

  He walked away and I went home to get some shut eye. Except, when I got there, all I could do was stare at the live feed. I tore myself away from it for a whole ten minutes to take a shower and then I was back to staring at the feed. Lucy had just gotten home and she had already checked the locks at least five times. As the night went on, I could tell she was nervous about being there alone. I had called and talked to her, seeing if she wanted me to come over, but she insisted that she was fine.

  As she got ready for bed, I couldn’t help the uneasy feeling I got every time she got up and looked out her window or walked over to her front door to check the locks. I couldn’t just watch from home. I had to be there. I took the laptop with me and headed over to her apartment. I wasn’t sitting outside her door ten minutes when I heard the screaming. It broke my fucking heart to hear her so terrified and know that she wouldn’t let me help her. I watched her on the monitor as she curled up in a ball on her bed and cried for ten minutes. Then, she got up and got some water. I wished that she would open the door. I wished that she would call me and ask for me. Anything so that I didn’t feel so fucking helpless.

  The door downstairs opened and Knight came walking in, shaking his head when he saw me sitting outside her door. “I figured you’d be here.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I can’t let my old best friend sit outside his woman’s apartment all night long and suffer alone.”

  “But why? She’s not your woman?”

  Knight sighed, “Look, you did a lot for me. I’m just trying to repay that.”

  He pulled out his own laptop and opened it up, showing video feed of his own house with Kate.

  “That’s seriously fucked up. You still watch her on the video feed?”

  “Dude, you’re fucking sitting outside Lucy’s apartment and watching the feed of what’s going on ten feet away. At least my woman is across town.”

  So, Knight and I sat there, night after night, watching our women on video as we sat outside Lucy’s apartment to make sure that she was alright. She refused to spend the night with me and Knight refused to let me sit outside her apartment alone every night. It was a sick and twisted menage a trois that only Knight and I knew about.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lucy

  ANOTHER NIGHT OF no sleep and I was exhausted. My face looked a lot better from the surgery, but now I had bruises under my eyes from not sleeping. I wasn’t sure exactly why I was refusing to let Hunter help me. A big part of me was worried that he would get tired of me and want me to go away. What if it ruined our relationship by spending that much time together? The smaller part of me just wanted to know that I was able to do this on my own. That I didn’t need to rely on a man to save the day, even though I wanted nothing more than for Hunter to come running in and demanding that I stay with him.

  I missed that side of him. He was always so demanding with me, but ever since we got back together, he had this other side to him, the side I always assumed I wanted, but now wasn’t so sure about. Why had I pushed him away so much? I would give anything for him to burst into my apartment right now and demand that I go back to his house with him. He would tell me that he didn’t give a shit what I wanted. That I was his woman and he was going to take me home and make sure that I was taken care of.

  I sighed and drank down my coffee before getting in the shower. I had to go back to school today and I really didn’t want to. I didn’t know how I would feel about being in the school after everything I had gone through. Could I really be in the same room that I had seen a student shot? And what about Graham? Knowing that he wasn’t the man I thought he was and he hadn’t told me about his relationship with a student made me feel like a complete idiot. I didn’t know how I was going to deal with him.

  I flung the door open as I grabbed my purse and tripped over something outside my door, falling face first on the ground. Arms hauled me up by the armpits and I spun around to see Knight standing there grinning. I looked at the ground and
saw Hunter shuffling something around and then he stood up.

  “Hunter, what are you doing here?”

  “Uh…” He glanced down at my messenger bag and then back up at me. “I wanted to wish you a happy first day back to work.”

  “Why were you on the ground?”

  “I was tying my shoe. Sorry, I just noticed it as I got here and I wanted to tie it before I knocked on your door.”

  I cocked my head to the side, not sure why, but I didn’t believe him. I turned to Knight. “And you came along to wish me luck?”

  “Yep.” He slapped his hands together and then turned for the stairs. “Well, now that that’s done, have a good day. See you at work, Pappy.”

  He walked down the stairs and it didn’t escape my notice that he didn’t actually wish me luck. That was the weirdest encounter ever, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it as Hunter pulled me into his arms and kissed me like we hadn’t seen each other in years. I couldn’t help but notice that he tasted like he had morning breath, which was odd because Hunter always brushed his teeth before he left the house. It was part of his routine and he never strayed.

  “Well, thank you for stopping by, but I really do have to get going.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going back there after everything that happened.”

  We walked down the stairs and he held my hand the whole way. “I can’t believe I am either, but I need a job and nobody hires in the middle of the year.”

  “You know, I hope you realize how fucked up that school is. They should have fired Graham for having a relationship with a student.”

  “They couldn’t. He didn’t technically break any rules, but I agree. He should have been fired.”

  “Have you heard how Seth is doing?”

  I talked to the dean yesterday. He said that Seth is recovering, but he most likely won’t play football again. Being out the rest of the year will really damage his chances of playing professionally.”

  “Well, at least he finally knows what happened to his sister. I can’t imagine something like that happening and never knowing.”

  “I didn’t hear what happened exactly. All I know was that Coach Boots killed her.”

  He nodded as he walked me to my car. “I guess he hit on her as she was stepping outside and she refused him. Things got a little out of hand and he freaked out. His plan had been to take her, but when she struggled, he accidentally killed her. He stuffed her in his trunk and dumped her in a lake. They found her body a few days after he confessed.”

  “That’s so sad.” I couldn’t imagine having to tell her parents that their daughter had been found dead. At least as long as she was missing, they could still think that she was alive somewhere, but then again, not knowing had to be worse.

  “Well, you know what would make me happy?”

  “What?”

  “If you looked for a different job. I just don’t like you working there, knowing that all that happened and it’s so far away.”

  “Believe me, I’m already ahead of you. I’m finishing out the year and then I’m done.”

  “Good. Now kiss me.”

  He pulled me in for a deep kiss and smacked my ass before helping me into my car. I stopped him from shutting the door. We had one last thing to discuss.

  “Hunter, I know what you did for me with my apartment.” A strange look came over his face. Something that resembled panic. “How you paid to have it fixed up? Claire spilled the beans. Our insurance payment will be coming through from the fire and I’ll be paying you back every penny.”

  He shook his head and sighed. “I can’t slip anything past you.”

  “No, you can’t. But I appreciate all you did for me. I just don’t want to owe you anything.”

  “Lucy, I just wanted to try to fix the mess that I was a part of.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled at him and shut the door. I waved goodbye and watched in my rearview mirror as he stood staring at me.

  ✯✯✯✯✯

  I walked into the school with my head held high, but the more people that stared at me, the more my shoulders slumped. I wasn’t used to being the talk of the campus. I just wanted to pretend like that whole thing had never happened. But the closer I got to my office, the more I started to wonder if I could actually go in there. The door had been fixed. You couldn’t tell that Seth had broken down the door to get me out. I took a deep breath and walked inside. It felt strange being back here.

  I put my stuff down and sat at my desk, trying to concentrate on getting myself organized for the day. Footsteps echoed in the hall and I found myself straining to hear where they stopped. They sounded close, but how close? Who was it? It was too early for students. I gripped onto my purse where I had my mace and dug around frantically in the bag for the canister. My head kept shifting between the door and my purse until finally I had a grip on the mace.

  My nostrils flared with every breath I took. I was being irrational. There was nobody there. Nobody that would hurt me anyway. Why was I being so paranoid? Because I had been kidnapped? That was a terrible excuse to start seeing threats at every turn. At least, that’s what I told myself. The school was secure and I would be fine.

  I gripped the canister in my left hand as I started shuffling around the paperwork again. What I was really avoiding was going into my classroom. Logically, I knew there wouldn’t be any blood left on the floor and there wouldn’t be a body or a man standing there with a gun. Logically, I knew that, but that didn’t mean my head was catching on. I waited in my office as long as possible and then picked up my stuff to take to my classroom. I took a deep breath and blew it out in one long breath. I could do this.

  I stepped into the hallway just as someone appeared in my peripheral vision. I screamed and raised my hand with the mace, not wasting a second in spraying it directly into the eyes of the person standing next to me. When the canister was gone, I finally lowered my hand and stopped screaming.

  Graham was standing in front of me, groaning and scrubbing furiously at his eyes. I stared in horror at what I had done and then spun around when I heard feet stomping down the hallway. Chance was here, along with Gabe and Jackson running from the other direction. I sighed and leaned back against the wall, shaking hard as I struggled to get myself under control. I completely ignored Graham’s whimpers of pain. I didn’t have any sympathy left to give him. I was too busy trying not to lose it myself. Or, maybe I already had lost it.

  “What happened? What did he do?” Chance yelled as he ran up to me. His eyes scanned my body, looking for injury and when he was satisfied, he turned to Graham and sneered at him. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” he stuttered as he continued to rub his eyes. “I can’t see. Can someone please help me? My eyes are on fire.”

  “Why were you outside her room? What were you doing?” Chance demanded.

  “I was walking in the hallway. This is a school, after all.”

  “And you just happened to be outside her office when she was leaving?” Gabe asked skeptically.

  “I was coming to see if she was alright. I knew that she was coming back today and I wanted to check on her! Now, can somebody please help me before I lose my eyesight?”

  “You could have knocked like a normal person,” Jackson sneered. “You knew she had been kidnapped. Why would you sneak up on her like that?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking up on her. I was trying to work up the courage to talk to her. I figured that she hated me at this point.”

  “I don’t hate you,” I muttered. “You helped them find me, but I am disgusted with you. Sleeping with a student? Asking her to abort her child so that you could keep your reputation? That’s despicable.”

  He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. I could see the tears streaming down his face and I tried to feel some sympathy for him, but I just didn’t have it in me. “I know it is. I’m not suggesting that we just go back to being friends, but I hoped you could realize that I made a terrible mi
stake and you would be able to forgive me. I was young and stupid.”

  “Young? This happened a year ago, dude,” Chance muttered. “I think that man bun is pulled a little too tight.”

  I could see now what the guys saw in Graham. He was a nice guy, but a little too naive to see the bigger picture. I couldn’t imagine any of the men at Reed Security ever responding the way Graham had to Seth’s sister. They just didn’t have it in them to walk away from their responsibilities, no matter the cost.

  “Graham, I appreciate all you did to help the guys find me, but I’m just not ready to pick up our friendship. I’m not even ready to be back here yet.”

  “Lucy, I made a mistake.”

  “I understand that, but we were friends and you didn’t even think of telling me what had happened, even when Seth started following me. I would have understood the situation better. Maybe none of this would have happened.”

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I still had a stalker after me, but perhaps the mess at the school could have been avoided.

  “Gabe, take him and get his eyes cleaned out. Then someone’s going to have to give him a ride home. He won’t be able to do anything for a few days. Jackson, go talk to the dean and explain the situation.”

  Both men nodded and before I knew it, I was alone with Chance.

  “I didn’t realize you guys would be here today.”

  “Well, Hunter worries about you. He wanted us to wait outside the building and just see how your day went, but none of us felt right leaving you in here alone.”

  “Thank you,” I said sincerely. “I’m not sure I’m even ready to be here.”

  “Where are you headed? I’ll stay with you.”

  “That would be wonderful.” I did my best to hold back my tears, not even realizing how badly I was shaken up after seeing Graham. I honestly didn’t know if I could make it through the rest of the day, but I had to try. I walked into my classroom later than I would have liked and saw that I already had students waiting for me. I took a deep breath and tried to force myself to walk the rest of the way in, but I was stalled in the doorway.