"There it is," he said. Not smug. Just noting it.
"It's not fair," she said mildly.
"No," he agreed.
The door scratching started.
She closed her eyes. "That's Clover."
"Yes."
"He knows."
"He always knows."
A long pause. Then a sigh from the other side of the door and a whine coming from a dog being dragged away.
“Damn it, Clover!” Irish scolded. “They obviously don’t want to be interrupted.”
"That was Irish," she said
"We heard nothing," Rampage said with a laugh.
"Nothing at all," she agreed.
CHAPTER 11
RAMPAGE
You make me feel like something's being handled.
He stood in the kitchen thinking about what Emily had told him on the drive back from her apartment a few days ago. He'd heard a hundred versions of that in his life. Usually from people who needed something tactical, something immediate, a problem solved or a threat neutralized. He'd provided that without ceremony and moved on.
This was different, and he knew it was different, and he knew why it was different, and he was not going to pretend he didn't know.
Irish appeared. “Our contacts got back to me. There are no signs of surveillance or tampering at her building or yoga studio. If they did, they didn’t leave any evidence behind. She doing okay?"
"She's doing better than she thinks she is. Better now that Daddy showed her what will happen if she breaks the rules." Irish had been the one to see Emily walking down the road. Rampage poured himself a hot cup of coffee and offered one to his friend.
“Too late for a cup if I want to sleep tonight,” Irish declined.
"Did Phantom get back to you?" He’d asked Irish to touch base and see if there were any updates. As much as he loved having Emily here and wouldn’t mind if she never left, he knew she would have to go back to her place at some point.
"Yeah. Federal contact is running Delling's phone against two other networks. Could be two weeks before we have anything concrete."
Two weeks.
Emily in the compound for two weeks, sleeping down the hall, eating breakfast at his kitchen table, doing her invoices at night while he worked beside her. He stopped that thought, it wouldn’t be fair to her.
"Keep me updated," he said.
"Always do." Irish paused. "You know Makenzie and Nicole are planning to take her into town tomorrow. They want her to feel less like a temporary resident."
"Who approved that?"
"You're going to approve it. I'm telling you now so you have time to plan the security logistics without doing that thing where your jaw does the thing."
"My jaw doesn't do a thing."
