“I could have been an extra set of hands readying for transport-”
“They were already dead, Liv.”
I go still, so still that my joints ache.
“Two officers killed while the traffickers were scouting your neighborhood looking for you.”
My pulse is thundering in my ears. He takes the opportunity while I’m too stunned to react to lead me further down the hallway and into a bedroom that is definitely as big as my whole apartment. I glance around the room, at the king-sized bed, the large windows showing the lights of the city out in the distance, and to what looks like an en suite bathroom. Well, that I can get behind.
Then my eyes go back to him, something they seem to be doing a lot tonight. He’s rigid, more than normal, as he sets the bag and carrier on the bed.
“You’re tense,” I notice.
His brow furrows slightly. “I’m always tense.”
“No,” I reply. “This is different. You’re watching everything, even here.”
He doesn’t deny it because he is. Since we’ve walked in this room, he’s glanced at every doorway, window, and every possible way that something could go wrong. He said this place is safe but he’s still worried. I guess with cop-killer, demented sex traffickers targeting me, he should be.
“You think they’ll come here,” I say.
“No,” he replies too quickly.
I tilt my head slightly. “You don’t believe that.”
He exhales slowly. “They’d be stupid to try.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
We go silent because we both know it. Nothing about this situation is predictable anymore.
I shift my weight, suddenly very aware of everything that I don’t understand and everything I’ve just been dropped into.
“The closet should be empty, go ahead and unpack. I’ve gotta get the car back to the precinct. I’ll be back in a little bit on my bike.” He leans down beside the bed, looking through the mesh of Pip’s carrier. A little pale, orange paw bats at him. “Let Pip out in here but don’t let him out into the rest of the house until we get it safe for him.”
“What about your dad?”
“He heads to bed early. We’ll meet up with him at breakfast. And we’ll get your work schedule planned out with Manny.”
“Who’s Manny?”
“The driver,” he answers casually.
“D-driver?”
A smirk spreads across his face, kicking my heart into overdrive for a better reason this time. “Well, you can’t walk to work while you’re staying here, and the last time you were on mybike, I thought you were going to have a heart attack. A driver would be easier for you to handle.”
Right,easier.
He turns to leave but I stop him with one more question. “Wait, if your dad has already gone to bed then who opened the gate to let us in?”
“Oh, that was Wilfred.”
“Wilfred?”
He stops in the doorway. “Yeah, the butler,” he says nonchalantly over his shoulder before closing the door and leaving me in here.
His footsteps echo down the hallway until they fade and everything goes quiet.
