The club girls try to make the best of their morning being wrecked by setting out the breakfast that never got served upstairs. They don’t seem particularly stressed. I realize it’s because odd, one-off things like this must happen on the regular around the clubhouse. They’ve learned to trust the brothers to take care of things. Me? I wish I could unknow the things I learned during that phone call.
Tessa coordinates breakfast, keeping everyone busy and laughing. Managing people must be her super skill, I think to myself as I sit Katie at the counter and give her some eggs to eat. My little daughter is still all smiles. She’s too young to understand the reason we’re in this safe room is because her mother’s past has caught up with her one more time.
Tessa makes the go-away gesture. It’s her way of giving me a minute to myself. I gratefully take her up on her silent offer. Walking over to a quiet part of the room, I drop down into a cracked leather chair that looks like it’s seen better days.
I fold my arms over my stomach and stare at the floor.
Queenie comes to sit in another weathered armchair right beside me. She takes a sip of her coffee before saying the last thing I expect to hear. “Do you think we could bribe this ex of yours to go away?”
My head jerks up to stare at her. I guess word hasn’t got around about who was after me and why. “I honestly don’t know,” I stammer. “There’s more going on here than meets the eye.”
“If you want to talk about it, I’m a good listener,” Queenie says before taking another sip of her coffee.
I take a deep breath and start explaining. These people have been good to me, and I’m tired of repaying their kindness with lies of omission. “Well, for starters, that guy stalking me isn’t Katie’s father.”
Queenie responds smoothly, “I already knew that much.”
There’s something in her expression that unsettles me. I push it away and start to explain. “It started as an exposé on REACH. They’re a company who were supposed to be providing humanitarian aid in conflict zones across the world. The company prided itself on being able to get into places other supply companies deemed too dangerous or impossible to reach.”
I pause, my throat tightening. “We got a tip that they were grifting millions and not providing the services they claimed. After digging deeper, I found duplicate manifests, fake signatures, and accounts in names that didn’t exist. I was going to publish, but then my whole team was caught in an explosion—one I barely walked away from. When I woke up from a coma, all my notes and my laptop had gone missing. All I had left was a flash drive I wasn’t fully able to access. It was hidden in the toe of my boot, glued to the inside. Thankfully, the medical staff missed it when they removed my clothing. My brain was a little Swiss-cheesed from the head injury and coma, but the moment I shoved my foot back in my boots, I remembered.”
Her gaze doesn’t waver. “And why didn’t you use it?”
“Initially, because it was encrypted and I couldn’t figure out how to get the information off it. But then I started gettingphone calls where there was just heavy breathing. Things started going missing from my hotel room, and I eventually realized someone was following me. At first, I thought I was imagining it—maybe my brain was broken in a way that wasn’t obvious. Then the person on the other end of those phone calls started asking me questions about REACH. I thought they were asking questions and following me in an effort to assess if I was still working on the exposé. I made it very clear that I had put all that behind me and started meeting with clients who wanted me to write about things not related to the war. I stopped publishing stories under my own name and started using an alias.”
She just nods, like none of it surprises her. “That was a smart move. I’m guessing that didn’t work though, right?”
“No, ma’am. It certainly did not.”
“To be honest, Rock and I wondered if there was more to it than some man chasing after his baby momma. You seem too intelligent and resourceful to tolerate that for long. Getting a restraining order isn’t all that difficult in this state. We knew there had to be more to it than you were saying.”
“Just so you know, I didn’t ask for Slate to ride in and save the day. I didn’t want to drag him into my problems. When he showed up out of the blue, I knew the danger was real. I didn’t hesitate to accept his help. Protecting my daughter has to come before anything else. I hope you can understand that.”
“Of course I can. I’d have made exactly the same decision in your place, except I would have made it clear to the people I was staying with exactly what they were up against. We don’t like curveballs when it comes to security.”
“I apologize for that. To be honest, I was just planning to stay long enough to scrape up enough money for me and Katie to disappear again. Every time they find us, I learn how to keep us hidden a little better. I thought accepting Slate’s invitation to stay at your clubhouse was a foolproof way to drop off the grid. I thought it would buy us time.”
A smile tugs at Queenie’s lips. “You didn’t anticipate your little one liking us so much or getting attached to Slate and the rest of us, right?”
I jerk a shaky nod. “Or me slowly falling in love with Slate and the life you and your husband so carefully created here.”
That open admission of admiration gets me a full-on smile. “Rock was a little skeptical of your intentions in coming here, but I could tell your affection for my son was genuine by the way you look at him.”
That surprises me a bit. “I didn’t know I was being obvious. I thought I was keeping it all under wraps.”
Queenie chuckles. “You don’t give a lot away, but the moment he walks into the room and the two of you make eye contact, the mutual attraction is too plain to miss. Both of you light up like a Christmas tree.”
I don’t know why her words make me blush. “We have a history together. We got close during the war.” Glancing away, I tell her, “Slate has always been the one that got away.”
“I can’t help but think you were that for him too. It took months of Rock probing him for Slate to come clean about why he got that dishonorable discharge.”
Tearing up, I tell her, “I didn’t find out that he gave me his seat on the last transport out of Kabul until recently. I carry a lot of guilt that he was left behind and had to fight his way out on his own.”
“You should know that when Rock and his club brothers found out about that, Slate turned into a walking legend around these parts.”
“I hate that he got sectioned out of the military for going AWOL. Those were chaotic times. I would think his chain of command would see his actions as heroic, not as something to be punished.”
“Of course, they didn’t give a shit that he sacrificed his spot to save a person’s life. You can’t always trust the government to do the right thing because their military protocol and bureaucracy constantly trump every other consideration. We saw that as a selfless act of heroism and threw him a big party when we found out. He’s even got a tattoo to mark the occasion. He made us all proud. And now that I’ve actually met you and my granddaughter, I’m even more convinced that he made the right decision.”
