Not that I’ll let her go home now anyway, not with the thought of some asshole coming after her, but it would have been nice to do the whole song and dance before things got serious.
“We need to look into all this shit and find out what’s what, so stop making jokes, funny man, and get with it. The way I see it is there are three angles to look at. It could have been one of the cops in my unit, a Lane or a Conrad, or that bum fuck ex of hers who, according to Ellie, is still sniffing around and wants her back.”
Right now, they’d all better pray that it’s the ex who needs to die, because if it ain’t, and I discover that one of my own, cop or blood, is after my girl, I’ll use every skill I learned in the military to make them suffer a cruel and unusual death.
“I’ll look at the family angle since I’ve been watching them, anyway. Jace, you take the asshole ex, and Roman and Miah can look at the cop angle since it’ll be easier for them to ferret out information.”
Easier how? I’m not entirely sure that I’m capable of being unbiased or rational around those men if I’m carrying the suspicion around that one of them is involved in what happened tonight.
“You saw that window seat? I’ll be damned if I know how that poor girl fit in that little box,” Jace says, shaking his head in disgust.
All I can do is nod when the rage threatens to overwhelm me again. I know exactly how she fit in there, and it’s not helping me to realize that she shoved herself in that hole out of sheer desperation and pure terror.
I’ve also listened to the 9-1-1 call and just hearing her voice, the way she’d only just managed to choke out a whisper that was barely discernible, and the frightened tremor that made her words hard to decipher is enough to drive me nuts.
My girl, a woman who I’d left with a bemused smile on her face, had bent herself double and crawled into a box just big enough for a child to fit into because someone had invaded her home and her space and scared her to death.
They will pay, whoever was involved.
By the time we all head off to bed and I’m dragging ass up the staircase, I’m feeling a little better. For now, I focus on the tiny lump sleeping soundly beneath the bedcovers as I strip down to my boxers and crawl in behind her to take her in my arms.
She sighs and snuggles closer. If I can take nothing from any of this but the fact that my presence seems to calm her and make her feel safe, it’ll be enough for now.
With that in mind, I finally allow my eyes to close and just enjoy the warm weight of Clari in my arms. Tomorrow is soon enough to go hunting.
“Miah.”
“Shh, sleep, babe. I’m right here.”
***
Clari
The first thing I feel upon waking is heat and a weight over my thighs that pins me to the bed. I can’t move a muscle, but who the heck cares, I think, stretching languidly with a smile and a satisfied groan for the rested feeling I have for the first time in a long while.
I’m not usually a heavy sleeper, but after that horse tranquilizer Jude shoved down my throat and the feel of strong arms wrapping around me at some point in the night, I’ve had at least a full eight hours of peaceful rest.
My eyes finally pop open and I see Miah staring down at me with an indecipherable expression on his handsome face.
“Talk to me, little bird.”
I know exactly what he wants to talk about and why he’s not too impressed with me right now. I can’t tell you that I’m impressed with me right now, either. Bu for different reasons, obviously.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Let’s start with why you decided not to call anyone after you were almost attacked in your bed,” he says and I realize my mistake immediately.
Miah is not one of those guys who just shows anger and blusters all over the place. He’s one of those reasonable men who simmer beneath the surface and wait for an explanation.
That’s worse because it makes me aware that my answer is super important and likely to send him into a fit of rage that I really do not want to see.
“I wanted to call you, and I was going to, I swear.”
“But…”
“But then I started thinking about how I just started living by myself and, that I should be able to handle myself better than calling someone at the first signs of trouble, and I kind of convinced myself that I was strong enough to do it alone without having a meltdown,” I confess, feeling terrible for that not being true.
Miah sighs and closes his eyes for a second as if searching for patience before looking at me intently.
“Tell me what happened. From beginning to end after I left you last night.”
What? That’s it? No shouting or name-calling or accusations? Just…this?