“Cami, wait!” Cayden calls as I reach for the doorknob. He gives Raven one last look before walking over to me. “Stone’s at home.”
“Home?” That’s a kick to the throat. “He’s not coming back?” Now my heart is in a free-fall. He’s not coming back because he thinks I don’t want him.
“No. Not tonight.” He shrugs. “Maybe not tomorrow either.”
I’m not going to allow myself to fall apart in front of his friends. “Why didn’t he tell me himself? Why isn’t he answering his phone?”
“We don’t know the whole story,” Drake joins the conversation. “Just that there was an intruder downstairs, and the guy managed to grab Stone’s tools and hit him with the sledgehammer a few times as Stone restrained him.”
My hands shoot up to my mouth as I suck in a large breath. “Is he in the hospital? I need to go to him.”
“No,” Cayden adds, reaching for my arm. “He’s home. He’ll heal. I promise. He just needs to rest.”
“Yeah, this happened because of me. I need to go to him so I can help if he needs anything.”
“He won’t,” Cayden says.
“You don’t know that.”
“Stone becomes inanimate when he needs to heal,” Drake explains. “It’s sort of like a reset for him to grow back limbs or repair cracks.”
“Inanimate?”
“As in he can’t move or speak. That’s why he asked me to come, so he can make sure you’re safe while he takes the time he needs.”
I know firsthand that Stone is strong and that he isn’t exactly human, but being hit by a sledgehammer? Why does this feel like the beginning of the end?
Chapter 25
Stone
“Can we talk?” Camilla asks as I’m about to push a piece of wood through the band saw. Having spent enough time sidelined from injuries, I stop until I can turn my full attention back to the task at hand.
“It’s not a good time,” I answer, glancing at Erik and then back at her. I feel terrible about not being more attentive, but having expressed to Erik the urgency of getting the work completed for Camilla, and then losing three days to heal, he’ll have my ass if he deems me slacking on the job.
With a huff, she hugs her arms around herself, shakes her head, and heads into the kitchen, slamming the recently designed door separating the rooms behind her.
“Trouble in paradise?” Erik asks. I shoot him a look. “Do I need to remind you that Ms. Ramos made it perfectly clear that she didn’t appreciate being babysat by me or your friends?”
“Maybe that wouldn’t have been an issue if you weren’t walking back and forth in front of the store swinging a damn mace as if it were a pocket watch.”
“Come on, now, you never want me to have any fun,” he teases. Seeing that I don’t appreciate his humor, Erik continues. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
“What? That the creep that occupied this place before her made a deal with the literal devil to feed him souls in exchangefor money and sex before disappearing into thin air, causing a hit man to come searching for him? No, she doesn’t.”
