Page 66 of Grant’s Blaze

“I thought you just said you aren’t a tech guy?”

“Ms. Farsey, that is just common sense.” Elijah closed his smart pad cover and stood and looked at me. “I think we have everything we need here.”

“What about the locks on the doors?” Rio demanded.

“What about them?”

“Someone came right in here!”

“Call your landlord or a handyman. I have other things to deal with, Ms. Gibson.”

Rio looked at me, and if a person could really have steam coming from their ears like in cartoons, she would have. I didn’t know why Elijah insisted on antagonizing her.

“Baby, I can deal with it later, or like Elijah said, call your landlord. Maybe it would be good that they know someone broke in here? What do you think about that, Banks?”

“No,” Elijah said at once. “I don’t think the authorities should get involved yet. And if there is a report of a break-in, that’s what will happen. Let me see what is on this video and see if there are any clues. There may be a message from our friend on here that the women didn’t pick up on when they watched it because they don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle. Make sense?”

“Yeah, I hear you. I’m going to hang here and talk with Rio while you deal with that phone. Let me know what you come up with?”

“All right, my brother. Stay vigilant, though.”

“Of course.”

“Ms. Farsey, can I offer you a ride home? I would feel much better knowing you got there safely,” Elijah said to Hannah, and Rio and I just gaped at the comment. The two of us waited with bated breath for her reply.

“I—I have my own car here.” She just stared at him for a few beats—maybe trying to figure out his angle. Motive wasn’t easy to guess with Elijah because he played every hand so close to the vest.

“My driver will follow you home, then. Again, just for safety. That will allow me to get the lay of the land in your neighborhood for my men.”

“Is all of this really necessary? I mean, what am I going to tell my family as to why a crew of burly men are hanging around our house?” Under her breath, Hannah muttered, “Although my sisters might find them interesting.”

“If my men are doing their jobs the way they’ve been trained, you won’t even know they’re there.”

“Oh” was the only comeback she could offer.

They left soon after, Elijah’s driver navigating the dark SUV right behind Hannah in her little silver BMW. Typically, the man didn’t indulge in the extra convenience of a driver like Bas did, but when he had a lot of work to do, it was nice to not lose valuable time stuck behind the wheel in LA traffic. On a bad day, that could suck up half a person’s time.

Finally, I was alone with Rio. Our morning came rushing back over me like a herd of panicked cattle. I wanted to take her in my arms, bury my face in her neck, and feel the comfort of her presence. But the memory of the morning’s events made my brain seize up and my emotions switch directions.

Maybe she still didn’t want me to touch her. Maybe she was still afraid to be alone with me. It seemed like I stood in the middle of Abstract Catering’s kitchen watching her watching me, each of us trying to figure out where our relationship existed in the order of those sort of things.

But nothing had changed inside my heart from the moment I’d confessed my love to her. I needed to stop these ridiculous, damaging thoughts and switch direction again.

She hadn’t been standoffish since I arrived. In fact, she was the one who called me to come over and help figure out what was going on with Hannah.

But as my overactive brain reminded me, if it weren’t for me and my best friend, Sebastian Shark, none of this would be happening in the first place. Especially at her place of business.

First her late husband, now her livelihood.

Holy shit…

Maybe these pirates were trying to get even with me and not Bas this entire time. Why had they struck my figurative house so many times and not his?

Sure, there were the piranhas, but that mess with Tawny Mansfield could’ve been a local small-time hit on a street urchin woman just to get even with Bas for embarrassing Viktor Blake at the Edge groundbreaking. And when Terryn Ramsey took her life, that had nothing to do with anyone other than the little nutjob herself.

But the dangerous hits so far had only involved me or people I loved.

I swallowed roughly and made eye contact with my beautiful Blaze, who had been watching me like an animal in a manmade habitat at the zoo.