by Cherrie Lynn
“Neither was a fucking abusive, alcoholic father who used my head as his personal punching bag and a mother who didn’t give a shit.” He rubbed absently at a spot just outside his hairline over his right ear. Once he seemed to catch himself and dropped his hand, she noticed a faint scar where his fingertips had been.
When she’d been in his apartment earlier, she’d noticed nothing festive, no Christmas decorations, not a single thing that would indicate the spirit of the season, while all around them, even now, lights sparkled and carols played.
Lindsey would love to get caught up in it herself, but she had too much on her mind to partake in any Christmas joy. It was normally her favorite holiday, but she hadn’t put her tree up yet, either, even though she’d told her mother another lie and said she had.
“Do you have any family you ever talk to?” she ventured, feeling intensely lonely all of a sudden.
“I have the only family I need,” he said. Whatever that meant.
“That’s good.”
The waiter came and delivered their food—a burger for him and a tuna melt for her—and she took in his every move as he forcefully salted everything on his plate.
I can’t stop looking at him.
The realization was the disturbing impetus she needed to tear her gaze away and pin it to her food. Even when he’d insisted that he feed her before she went home tonight, she’d struggled to find any shred of an appetite. It hadn’t been there then, and it wasn’t there now. Her anxiety had ratcheted up to levels that eclipsed everything else.
He didn’t have any such qualms. Lindsey forced herself to nibble her sandwich, but he was done before she’d even managed to get through half of her food.
A group of adults and laughing kids came into the grill, bundled up in coats and scarves, and she smiled at their carefree merriment, almost wishing she could be one of them.
When she glanced at Jace, she found he was watching them, too.
And she realized she was a whiny brat. She had been one of them, once upon a time. Except for Lena’s occasional shenanigans, she’d had a model childhood.
Abused, removed from his home, probably moved all over the state…and then horribly betrayed just when his life was looking up, had Jace ever known much happiness? No wonder he had no room for her tears. Save your sympathy, he’d said, but how could she?
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked, blurting the question before she could talk herself out of it. He’d mentioned a “prior commitment” last night, after all.
“Why?” he asked.
Lindsey shrugged. “You asked me about my love life yesterday. I can’t return the favor?”
“Did you see my place?”
“Yeah.”
“Did it look like I have a girlfriend?”
“No. It was supremely male. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a girlfriend, just that she doesn’t live with you.”
“Supremely male.” He chuckled, wiping his hands on a napkin. “No. No girlfriend. Even one who didn’t live with me would probably try to liven up the place.”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s a goth chick or something.”
“I did have a goth girlfriend once.”
“Ah. What happened?”
“Well, we were only seventeen, so it’s not like it was going to last.”
“My parents started dating at sixteen. They just celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary.”
He lifted his beer bottle. “God bless ’em.”
“They’re pretty incredible.”
“Poor you for getting stuck with Lena for a sister.” He winced as soon as he said it, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess I need to stop doing that, huh?”
“I get it. And you’re absolutely right. Sometimes I’ve wished so hard for another sister or brother to share the Lena burden. But my mom had fertility issues, and apparently they were lucky to even get us.”
She could practically see the disparaging comment about Lena being more a curse than a stroke of luck trying to make its way past his lips, but he held on to it somehow.
“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted, picking at the toasted crust of her sandwich. “I don’t know whether to bring them into the loop or not. It’ll kill them, and we don’t even know yet who has her or why. Or even if.”
“Better to keep them out of it as long as possible, at least in my opinion,” he said.
“They’ll be furious at me for doing that, though.”
“I get it, but most likely it’s for their own good.”
Lindsey nodded and glanced around again, feeling eyes on her even though no one appeared to be looking.
Ever since Griffin and the webcam, she’d felt that cool phantom breath on the back of her neck, the skin there prickling as if waiting for the slice of the ax.
“I’m scared,” she admitted. “I feel like anyone who walks in the door might… I don’t know. Do something horrible to me. If it happened to my sister, why not me? I have my cell phone off right now, but it’s scary to think someone could be tracking me as easily as you did Griffin. The thought of not having it on me is even scarier, though.”
“Keep your phone.” He crossed his forearms on the table and leaned closer. “Lindsey, I don’t mean to alarm you, but depending on who we’re dealing with, they’re going to find you if they want. Giving you my location wasn’t a fluke. For whatever reason, they wanted you to know it, too. They probably knew I’d get that computer eventually. They might have even planned on it.”
She didn’t like hearing that. She hated the mysterious they. But with each hour that ticked by, it seemed less likely Lena had up and disappeared on her own. She had to face that sooner or later.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” she fretted. “We’re just supposed to wait until someone lets us know what to do?”
“That isn’t my style.”
She hadn’t been in his company for very long, but she already hated it when suspicion filled his eyes. When he studied her a little too closely, wariness tightening his jaw and his delectable mouth. He didn’t trust her, and she couldn’t exactly say she blamed him, but it grated her nerves. She’d done nothing wrong, but how could she prove to him that she’d told him everything?
This shift in his demeanor seemed to happen every time she expressed her utter confusion about the whole thing. But there was no other way to feel about this.
“You asked about Lena’s enemies. What about yours? You’re involved in this, too.”
“My enemies are my business.”
“Dammit, Jace.” Realizing she was getting loud, she lowered her voice and leaned forward herself. “I think they’re my business, too. It’s at least somewhat possible someone is holding my sister hostage. I can’t even think too much about what she might be going through, and don’t you dare say she would deserve whatever she gets or I’ll—”
“I would never say that.” His voice had chilled at least thirty degrees. Something about his expression told her he’d seen things no one would deserve, not even an archenemy.
“Okay, but I can’t stand feeling this helpless while it doesn’t seem to be bothering you at all.”
“Because I never feel helpless.”
“Never? Never once in your life?”
“I grew up with some of the roughest sons of bitches you could ever imagine. I could have curled up in a corner and felt sorry for myself, but I didn’t. I learned from an early age how to help myself.”
“You still feel sorry for yourself.”
“What?” Now his voice was an arctic blast, so cold she sat back, but despite the trembling in her very bones, she pressed forward.
“You’re still so bitter about what Lena did to you that you practically assaulted me in your hallway the first time I came to find you.”
“If I wanted to assault yo
u,” he said, “you would know.”
“That makes me feel so much better.”
“I really don’t give a fuck how you feel. We’re not friends. We never will be. I don’t know you; you don’t know me. You’re not going to gain any insights into my soul. It’s not here for you to analyze. So don’t think you’re going to kick your way inside just because someone told you to knock on my door after all these years. No one else has ever cracked me open, sweetheart, and there’s no reason to think you’re fuckin’ special.”
He was right. They weren’t friends, so the reasons for the pain that lanced through her heart would remain a mystery to her. Snatching up her purse, she rummaged through it for her wallet.
“Stop. I got it.” He’d leaned to the side, digging in his back pocket for his own wallet. But before he could draw it out, she’d thrown a couple of bills on the table and shot to her feet, jostling silverware and accidentally knocking a glass over in the process. Someone a couple of tables over snickered, probably thinking a date was going terribly wrong.
“You’re an asshole,” she informed Jace Adams, but as she was marching out, he only laughed.
Chapter Ten
She marched blindly toward the parking garage, her breath steaming in the wintry air. The restaurant was around the corner from Jace’s building, so it wasn’t a long walk, but it felt like five miles. Snow flurries flew around her face, tiny cold kisses on cheeks burning with anger, as her legs ate up the distance.
Footsteps pounded behind her, but she only sped up, even though it was futile to try and outrun him. Jace fell into step beside her. “It’s not something I didn’t already know,” he said, and she figured he was referring to her calling him an asshole.
“Good. Now it’s been reaffirmed for you.”
“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”
“Just speaking truths, I guess.” She pulled her coat tighter and quickened her steps. “Please leave. I’ll let you know if I hear anything. It’d be great if you do the same. Until then I don’t think there’s any need for us to speak to each other.”
“Why are you so mad?”
“I’m not.”
“If calling me an asshole and stomping away from the table is you not mad, then…”
“When I get mad,” she snapped, tossing his words back at him, “you’ll know.”
He laughed. Like this was all a game to him. For all she knew, he’d set all of this in motion. He was downright scary on a computer; he always had been. What if he was exacting his ultimate revenge on her sister for the years of hell she’d subjected him to and was taking Lindsey down for good measure? Far-fetched? Sure. But this whole fucking situation was far-fetched. Dear God, why hadn’t it occurred to her before? What if she’d walked right into a trap, and he’d set it?
“Really,” she said, “I want you to leave me alone.”
“You shouldn’t walk at night by yourself.”
“I walk at night by myself all the time. I’m a big girl. Good night.” She couldn’t go much faster without breaking into a trot, though, but she pushed herself until sweat trickled down her back even in the frigid temperatures.
Jace didn’t falter, matching her stride for stride, shoving his hands into the pockets of his black coat.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “You’re pissed, I get that, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine. Just cold. And exhausted. I’m ready to get home to bed. So please, leave me alone.”
“Lindsey.” He put a hand on her then, stopping her, and her heart leaped into her throat.
“If you try to hurt me, I swear to God I’ll start screaming,” she ground out through chattering teeth. “And maybe you can take me down, but you’ll have a hell of a time trying.”
“Hey,” he said, his dark brows drawing together. “Hey, now. I talk a lot of shit, you know? But I would never hurt you. In fact, if another motherfucker laid a hand on you right now, I’d rip it off.”
“Why? We aren’t friends.”
“We don’t have to be. I’d do that for a stranger.”
Maybe he was right, and she needed to stop getting so offended about everything.
It was only that she remembered those feelings all those years ago—the flutter in her belly when she watched him in class. The way she’d thought of him in the darkest hours of the night when she touched herself.
It had been his name ricocheting through her head when she came, sometimes even during her rare college sexual encounters. No one had affected her like he had, all from simply sitting across the room from her.
And to stand in front of him now, all these years later, and think about those harsh words shooting from his lips, aimed at her like bullets…
But he couldn’t know any of that. It shouldn’t even matter, because he wasn’t the same person. In many ways, neither was she.
Even though her mind had taken a dark detour, imagining that he might be behind all this, looking at his earnestness right now, his sincerity, she found she couldn’t truly believe it.
Or maybe she didn’t want to.
The falling snowflakes caught in his dark hair, glistening under the street lights as she stared up at him, and it was all Lindsey could do not to reach up and brush them out. God, was she going insane? Her brain was like a pendulum, swinging from one extreme to another.
From he’s going to hurt me to oh God, I want to kiss him.
“So, um…if I need you, is there some way I can reach you?” she asked.
“Call me.”
She’d expected something a little less overt than that, but like he’d said: these people no doubt knew right where they were. Probably at this very moment. She felt that breath at the back of her neck again, freezing the sweat that had gathered there during her speed-walking attempt.
She pulled her cell phone from her purse and powered it on, then navigated to contacts and handed it over so he could list his information.
“You can disable the GPS in your phone,” Jace said as he typed, “but regardless, you can still be tracked if someone has the know-how.”
And they probably did. She also figured Jace had her number from his cyber snooping, so she didn’t bother offering it.
“Any time,” he said as he handed her device back. “All right? Night or day.”
“Okay.”
“Leave it on. Yeah, that does mean anyone can find you, but it also means I can find you. Leave it on, never power it down. Never let your battery run out. That way if I can’t get a trace, then I know something’s wrong.”
She nodded.
“And let me walk you to your car.”
Lindsey agreed to that, too, her exhaustion so heavy that she couldn’t think around it any longer. If he or anyone else wanted to knock her in the head and drag her away to wherever her sister was, let them. She’d been dumb enough to stumble into the trap, right? She’d always thought she was pretty smart, but she didn’t know which way was up anymore.
Jace opened her car door for her after she remote started it, admonished her to be careful, then closed it after she got in. He even stood watching until she turned a corner and was no longer able to see him in her rearview mirrors.
Emptiness crowded around her. Heat blasted from her air vents, blowing her hair with its force, but she was still chilled inside. And would be until this was over.
Chapter Eleven
What a jackass he was. An asshole, like she had said. But Jace had to force himself to walk back to his apartment instead of following Lindsey home and camping out in his truck all night to make sure she was okay.
Getting emotionally involved would get his ass in the most trouble. Lena’s computer was still in his truck, so he made a stop to get it while an image of Lindsey’s amazingly astute green eyes lingered at the front of his brain. Yeah. Keeping her at a distance w
ould probably turn out to be the hardest thing he’d ever done.
He wanted to be, well, nicer to her, but she had the wrong fucking guy if she wanted this shit sugar-coated.
He banged on Helix’s door, ready to talk through everything he’d learned and come up with a plan of action, but there was no answer at his brother-in-arms’s door.
The others were always an option, but Helix was usually the first one he went to. The two of them had seen things together that might send someone else screaming into madness, and there was nothing quite like that bond, that shared understanding.
But it looked like a brainstorming session would have to wait.
Which sucked, because now he would be stuck in his own head all night, rehashing everything she’d said, everything he’d said to her. The hurt, the briefest flash of absolute utter devastation in her expression at the restaurant when he’d slammed down his walls and severed her feelings in the process. It was for the best, and someday she would probably realize that, but that didn’t help him feel like any less of a shit for saying those things to her.
He’d have to be more careful with her fragile heart in the future. Lena had been mean as a snake; she could take any shit anyone could dish out. Lindsey was obviously the total opposite. He could keep her at a distance without being a complete dick to her, he supposed, even if it was the easiest way.
He didn’t want her to hate him so much that she wouldn’t come to him if she got into trouble.
Sitting at his desk, he brought up her cell phone GPS and watched as she maneuvered through the streets. Someone, anyone else, might be watching her at this very moment, too, and his jaw muscles clenched.
Don’t get emotionally involved.
He was already breaking his number-one rule, and he’d only spent a few hours with the woman.
But there was no telling what kind of dark-web shit these women had unwittingly been caught up in. It might very well be that someone wanted revenge against Lena even worse than Jace did—or it might be way, way worse than any of them had ever imagined.
