Finding out she lived a floor above mine, literally directly above my own, had given me a little peace of mind at the beginning. Not that it stopped me from following her around like a goddamn shadow she seemed oblivious to. But after her shiftsor shopping or time at the gym, it was nice knowing she was close. Safe.
But as I watched her go through life, move around without really paying attention, the overprotective and possessive beast inside me started to go feral. Simply going to the club every night she worked at or following her around wasn’t cutting it anymore.
It simply wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
You should just talk to her!The soft voice of the sane part of me that was left whispered. But I couldn’t do that. Not yet.
Day after day, I’d sat in my apartment looking up at the ceiling wondering what the hell she was doing whenever I heard a slight sound or pondered what her space looked like. It had driven me mad.
So much so, I ordered a couple of things to help keep an eye on her.
Jonas suspected what I was up to but knew better to say a word. He knew I wasn’t the kind of man who frequented strip clubs, but he also didn’t bat an eye when I asked for her schedule the last four weeks. Trager, the oldest of us, who was damn good with computers, was the one who helped me get information on her. He didn’t say a word, either. Not to mention the fact our youngest foster brother, Victor, had been the one to get me a copy of a key to her place.
But a key wasn’t enough.
I needed more.
I needed eyes on her for more than when she was at the club and the routine errands I followed her around. I ached to watch her skip around her place, carefree and relaxed as she lived her life a floor above me. That need ate at me day after day, until it had become too much and I had given in to the dark, almost monstrous thing inside me that had come to life the moment I’dlaid eyes on her at the Velvet Leopard on stage where anyone could watch her.
My hands clenched at my sides at the reminder of that first day.
I needed to figure out a way to get her off the stage.
It would have been so fucking easy to make Jonas fire her, but at least the Velvet Leopard was now, thanks to him, an upscale gentleman’s club instead of some sleazy strip club where women were taken advantage of. Jonas was my brother, blood or not, and was a good guy at the core. He’d kill someone before he’d let them get away with putting their hands on one of his dancers.
I forced my hands to relax their white-knuckled grip.
My phone vibrated a second time, the second alarm I’d set a godsend.I have time,I reminded myself as I glanced at the screen.
She was at the gym Hollis, my other foster brother, owned. He had political aspirations, but his gym was the way he started getting involved with the community. There hadn’t been a moment since I’d seen her that she’d been at work without me being there to protect her. Or a foster brother who could somehow keep an eye on her. After all, our little makeshift family had five of us.
What did she do before me?I wondered and I shook the thought that set my teeth on edge anytime it bounced around my head. The shit she must have put up with. The mountain of things I hadn’t been able to protect her from.But that was then. This is now.The voice in my head reminds me as I breathe out slowly. Digging into my pockets I take out what I’d originally snuck into her place for.
Peace of mind, that voice said as I stared at the little cameras I held in the palm of my hand.Peace of mind.I nodded. I hadeyes on her almost everywhere. This would take that almost out of the equation.
The last month had turned my life upside down and inside out in the best way possible. In a way I had never seen coming. And that was saying something considering the kind of man I was. Fuck, I was more than aware that shell of man, who hadn’t seen true beauty, who hadn’t known just how much life could be breathed into a human being, had come alive because of her. That’s what I’d been before her.
A shell.
A husk.
A person breathing and moving around the world but without purpose or reason, like some kind of NPC in a video game.
Now I had a reason. Jade was my reason. My purpose.
And with that thought in my head and a smile on my face, I got to work on giving myself peace of mind that would come from making sure I had eyes on her twenty-four/seven.
Peace of mind that would finally let me breathe knowing that no matter what, she was safe and sound.
ONE
JADE WHITLOCK
“Let me guess.” Kitty, my coworker and longtime friend, grinned at me from across the dressing room. Our eyes were locked on the reflection in the mirrors instead of sitting next to one another because Kitty had been late, so the other girls had taken up the free spots. “You feel like someone’s watching you?” she teased, and I rolled my eyes.
“I said that one time,” I muttered, leaning forward over the vanity as I lost sight of her and focused on swiping mascara on my very long, very fake lashes. “I just… had a feeling.” I shrugged, pulling back to study my reflection.
