My head was spinning, and the longer I sat there, the closer I got to panic. I had an idea that he would still be looking for me, but it was different to hear it in his voice. He sounded so sure of himself.
I had to get the hell out of here. Pain ripped through my heart at the thought of leaving, but I had to. What if I’d messed up in some other way, and he could find me? The feeling of safety I’d been clinging to since I’d arrived felt like an illusion now. I was in danger. Dominic was in danger.
That got me moving. Standing from the table, I rushed upstairs and started packing. We needed to leave tonight.
Nineteen
Trainer
When Swole told me earlier in the day that Erica could move back into her apartment, I was less than pleased. I liked having her and Dominic around. My apartment was way too small for it, but I knew I was going to miss sleeping with Erica in my arms.
So, when she texted me asking that I come to her place for dinner, I had been happy. When she mentioned that Dominic would be staying at a friend’s house all night, I couldn’t fucking wait. It was well past time for us to take things to the next level physically.
That was my mindset when I arrived at Erica’s house. The sun had just gone down, and it was a humid evening. The wind helped to keep me cool when the bike was in motion, but as soon as I parked, the sticky heat clung to my skin. I whipped my helmet off and walked up the porch steps. I hesitated at the door, not sure if I should knock, but in the end, I decided against it. She was expecting me, after all.
As soon as I walked in. the smell of burning meat greeted me. I frowned. Walking toward the kitchen, I saw a haze in the air just before the smoke detector in the kitchen started going off.
“Shit,” I mumbled. Hurrying to the stove, I used the oven mitt to grab a pan with a couple of charred steaks and move it off the heat. I turned up the fan on the hood and took the battery out of the annoying smoke detector.
Where the hell was Erica?
“Erica?” I yelled out.
Something was seriously wrong here. I became even more certain of that fact when I walked out into the dining room and saw her phone on the floor in pieces. Tendrils of panic started to take hold of me.
“Erica!” I shouted louder as I started to climb the stairs.
“Trainer?” I felt a small relief at the sound of her voice, but it wasn’t enough to erase my concerns. She also sounded off somehow.
At the top of the stairs, I turned left, straight into her room. What I saw there stopped me dead in my tracks.
She was fuckingpacking.There were two suitcases open on the bed, and she was throwing things into them in a frenzy. I could see that her hands were shaking, and when she looked at me, her eyes looked crazed. It reminded me of a cornered animal.
“What the hell is going on?”
“I have to go,” she said, her voice just as shaky as her hands. “I’m sorry, really. I wanted to stay to make this work, but I don’t have that luxury. I married the wrong man, and now I’ll pay for it forever.”
“What happened?”
“I have to go,” she repeated. I wasn’t even sure that she was hearing me. She was so freaked out.
I stepped into the room, my strides long and steady as I drew closer to her. I rounded the bed until I was standing in front of her. I put my hands on her shoulders, stopping her from moving back and forth to and from the closet.
“What happened today? Why are you so freaked out?”
Erica looked up at me, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “He called me.”
“Jeff?”
She gulped and nodded.
“What did he say?”
“He’s coming to get me.”
“He knows where you are?”
“I don’t think so, not yet. If he did, he wouldn’t have bothered to call.”
