I nod and look up at Mateo. “I still don’t know who would want to go through my stuff. It was probably random.”
“Or, someone got your name and information from security cameras at the warehouse, and they’re after you now.”
My heart stops beating. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” He kisses my head, and we walk into the building. I’m on the third floor, and I usually take the stairs, but despite moving around a little better since I crawled out of bed, my ankle throbs, so I push the button on the elevator.
“My place might be a little messy.”
“I don’t care, Violet.” He slips his hand in mine and links our fingers.
I nod, but I’m still a little nervous as we step off the elevator and I unlock my door and then step inside.
Everything looks the way I left it last night when I set off for the warehouse.
Jesus, was that just last night?
It feels like so long ago.
“I don’t see anything out of place,” I inform him as I walk into the bedroom and quickly pick up some dirty clothes and shove them in the hamper. “I don’t really have any valuables, so I don’t have to look to see if anything’s missing.”
I pull a bag out from the floor of my closet and start tossing clothes in it. Underwear, bras, workout gear, jeans, and tees. When it’s full, I reach for another bag and head into the bathroom to gather my toiletries, and when those are packed, I realize that Mateo never followed me in here.
“Mateo?”
I step back out into the living room and see him staring at my wall.
“Oh.”
Twenty-One
MATEO
It looks like the wall in serial-killer movies, where the investigators put all the evidence on a board and link things with strings. A photocopy of the letter Violet carries in her purse is the center, and Damien’s name is circled in red. There’s a police report and photos of a smiling young girl who must be Rosie because she looks a lot like Violet, along with newspaper clippings.
There’s a note with my fight club listed, and she must have added my name after that first night together.
It’s also circled in red, but there are question marks beside it.
The fact that my name is on the same wall as someone as despicable as Damien makes me want to set fire to the entire fucking apartment.
“Mateo?” She pokes her head out of the bedroom. “Oh.”
I’m not someone who’s often at a loss for words, but I don’t have any right now.
“When I’m here, which isn’t often, I like to look at everything in one place so I can think.”
She sets her bags on the floor and walks over to me, and I open my arm so she can snuggle up to my side.
“I don’t like seeing my name up there.”
She presses a kiss to my chest. “I’m taking it all down today, anyway. That’ll go in the trash. Unless this has changed something, and you don’t want me to move to your place.”
“It doesn’t change a fucking thing, it just rattled me, and that’s not easy to do.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I can arrange for a board to be brought into the penthouse so you can recreate this however you need to.”
“You’d do that?”
I scoff and turn to face her, tip her chin up so I can see her. The swelling has gone down a bit, but the bruising is at its worst now.
