“Have you gotten a chance to look into everything like you told me?” Fangs asked.
Caleb shook his head. “No, I haven’t.”
Fangs glared at him, and I sure as hell wanted to smack the look right off his bitch-ass face. “Then, you better get the fuck on it right now.”
Caleb turned to face me. “Come on, I’ll show you to my room. You can stay with me.”
“What’s happening? Why in the world—”
He tugged me along. “Shh. Wait until we get behind a closed door.”
And the second he pulled me into a bare-bones bedroom, he quickly closed the door behind us.
Before turning and cupping my cheeks in his hands. “The computer set-up and internet here is better than what I’ve got at my place. You can bring your work stuff, hook up here, and know that you’re not only protected physically, but also protected by a mountain of firewalls and protocols that I set up myself. Your work travels, so you can—”
I stepped out of his grasp. “You guys really expect me to just… stay here, don’t you?”
“It’s the only way to keep you safe right now.”
“And what exactly are you keeping me safe from?”
He rushed over to his computer, hunched himself over, and started typing like a maniac.
“Caleb?” I asked.
“Just hang on a second,” he murmured.
It made me anxious watching him hunched over like that, so I paced around the room. There was a bathroom connected to it in the back left corner, and the measly excuse for a closet had the dresser stuffed in it. Probably to make more room for the furnishings they imagined putting in the room before they forgot to decorate.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said softly.
I whipped around to face him. “You ready to talk?”
The look on his face dripped with pity, and I didn’t know how to take that. He had never looked at me that way—like someone who was broken or battered—and as he pulled me in for a hug, I sat with that notion for a second. I’d never thought of myself as battered, abused, or broken.
And yet, I was running away from a man that had made me one.
“I’m so sorry for all of this,” he whispered.
I nuzzled into his chest. “Just tell me what the hell is going on.”
He stroked his fingers through my hair. “We have a rival club in town, the Devil’s Rage. They hurt women for fun. They take them off the streets and prostitute them wherever they feel they’ll make the most money, and then they dump the women they no longer have use for.”
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered.
“They’ve been trying to push in on our territory for a while, and we’ve fought them back with the police in stride. But now they’ve taken to burning down our clubs and pulling out the big guns, saying we’re the ones ruining the town. That they could do things better.”
I shivered. “What whack jobs.”
His lips brushed the top of my head. “This is why I wanted to keep you at arm’s length when you first brought up the Blake stuff. Being attached to me is very dangerous right now, and I’m sorry I didn’t work harder to keep you away from it.”
I snickered. “You know me better than that. When I put my mind to something—”
He gripped my chin and tugged my gaze up to his. “If I’m going to help you with this, then you have to do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
His face crept closer to mine. “Let me get your things from my place so you can stay here. It’s the only way I can guarantee your safety. It’s the only thing that will help me keep my head in the game while we’re trying to get you out of your marriage. Please. Just do that for me.”
