Karsen
I stared at the cop who was taking our statement about the current disheveled state of our apartment and kept my teeth firmly locked on the tip of my tongue. I understood not all cops were bad, biased, and burned out. I knew there were law enforcement officers out there willing to give their all to serve and protect, regardless of their efforts being noticed or appreciated. And after spending so much time around Dominic Voss, I knew cops could be incredibly compassionate and understanding. Unfortunately, the police officer who showed up to investigate the obvious break-in at our apartment was none of those things. He seemed bored, and as soon as he asked Ari about her rapidly blackening eye and learned about her altercation with her boyfriend, he seemed determined to chalk the situation up to a lovers’ quarrel that had gotten out of hand.
He wanted to know if anything was missing, but with everything packed up in boxes and the only obvious sign of a break-in coming from the kicked-in front door, it was hard to tell. I didn’t want to divulge that in my room, which was still mostly unpacked, someone had rifled through all my drawers, dumping the contents on the floor and across the bed. My passport was missing. I was completely unnerved because it felt like whomever had broken in knew exactly what they were looking for and where to find it.
“I left my purse on the kitchen counter when Ari called and asked me to come get her. I wasn’t thinking and ran out the door with just my keys and my phone. My purse is gone.” I kept my voice calm, but inside I was a shaking mess. No passport and no driver’s license meant I wasn’t getting on the plane tomorrow, and suddenly I wanted to cry. I’d been avoiding going home for so long because of Booker, but there was so much there I missed. The ache to revisit my old life spread throughout my insides until I could practically feel it pressing on my heart. I squeezed Ari where she was tucked against my side and watched as the cop tried to hide an eyeroll.
“So, your purse was in plain view of anyone who happened to walk by?” He asked the question in a way that clearly blamed us. I hated assholes like him.
“My purse was inside my locked apartment. People were coming and going all day as we moved stuff out. This complex is gated and has twenty-four-hour security. This was not a crime of opportunity.” No. This was a targeted attack. I had no idea if it was tied to Booker’s sudden reappearance in my life, but it felt too coincidental for it not to be related.
“Do you girls have anyone in your lives who would want to mess with you? Anyone who would go out of their way to scare you? Maybe the boyfriend has some friends he enlisted to teach you a lesson?” He lifted an eyebrow at Ari and gave her a pointed stare. He was trying to intimidate her, and I wanted nothing more than for Dom to show up and kick this jerk’s butt all the way across Boulder. It was too bad we didn’t live in Denver. He would have been the first one to show up when we called in the incident.
“No. Nothing like that. Troy was pretty much a loner; he didn’t really have a group of friends besides me and Karsen. We just graduated so we’ve both been busy with school. I was with Troy until a few hours ago, and Karsen keeps mostly to herself. We’re boring and neither one of us has ever done anything to justify this.” She straightened under my arm and narrowed her eyes at the rude police officer. “Can I get your badge number? I don’t know if I mentioned it, but my brother is a cop. He’s with the Denver PD. I want to be sure he knows whom to talk to when I tell him how you handled this interview.” She batted her eyelashes at him and I had to bite back a giggle. That was my girl. Not the sullen, sad little waif who had been crying on my shoulder all night.
One of the reasons I loved Ari so much was because she had a spine of steel. The fighter inside me recognized the fighter inside her, which led to us being fast friends, even if my fighter had been mostly dormant until Noah Booker burst back into my life. That bitch was wide awake now and looking to do some serious damage.
I cocked an eyebrow at the seething police officer and tried not to smirk at him. “I’m sure Officer Voss is going to want to know all the details of your investigation. He’s very protective of his baby sister.”
The cop visibly ground his teeth together and glared at both of us. He mumbled something about getting Ari a business card with his information, then stated he was going to see if he could get the security tapes from the company that patrolled the complex and asked us for a list of people who might have the code to get in the security gate. It was a short list. Aside from Ari’s family and mine, Troy, and a couple of friends, we didn’t get many visitors. Ari was much more social than I was; saying I kept to myself was being generous. I rarely interacted with anyone unless I had to. I found most of my classmates annoying and far too sheltered and oblivious for my liking. Plus, there was the fact that Booker found his way in with no problem whatsoever, so having the code was irrelevant.
The cop told us he would be in touch and left in a huff.
When he was gone, I let go of Ari and looked around the mostly empty apartment in search of anything else that might be out of place. I felt violated and dirty. The thought of someone going through my things, putting their hands on articles of clothing I never intended anyone else to see, turned my stomach and left a sour taste in my mouth.
“Do you think it was Troy?” Ari had her arms wrapped around herself and she looked as lost and as unsettled as I was feeling.
“I dunno.” I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “It’s weird that the only things missing are my purse and identification. My passport was tucked away in the very back of my underwear drawer. So how would whomever broke in know that unless they had an idea where it was stashed? Doesn’t feel like a random break-in to me.” Especially not with Booker back in the picture.
“God, Karsen.” Ari shivered and turned huge eyes in my direction. “That would mean Troy went through your stuff when he was here. That is so fucking creepy. I feel like I walked into a nightmare and can’t wake up.” Slowly she shook her head and I could see tears forming in the dark depths once again. “How could I be in love with a monster and not realize it? Dom taught me better than that, Karsen. I know all the signs to look for when someone isn’t who they seem to be.”
I tapped my fingers on the kitchen counter, silently cursing Booker. If he hadn’t shown up and spun my world off its axis, I probably wouldn’t have forgotten my purse in my rush to save Ari. He had me all spun out and twisted up, just when my life was supposed to be laid out smooth and straight in front of me. He was always the kink in my otherwise level and balanced existence.
I shivered in revulsion, thinking about Troy pawing through all my personal belongings. I hated that for Ari, but it made the most sense. He knew I was leaving to come get her. He also had the code to the gate and had been here countless times. He’d spent the night with my roommate, which gave him unfettered access to our place when I was in class or out studying. I never considered locking my door with Ari home, but now knowing Troy’s true colors, I was regretting being so lax with my personal security and belongings. I knew better than to leave any part of my life vulnerable to intrusion.
“Sometimes all we can see is what we want to see when it comes to love. Our hearts tend to be blind until they’re forced to see the light.” My heart was still blinking against the brightness of this reality. That illumination burned and was forever imprinted in my mind. I saw those naked, writhing bodies every time I closed my eyes. I heard him calling me a little girl in all of my dreams.
Ari suddenly cocked her head and started pacing back and forth in front of me. “The only things missing are your IDs. That means you can’t leave Colorado any time soon. What if the break-in was about keeping you here? What if Troy hit me because he knew there was no way you would leave me when I was upset and dealing with a breakup? Maybe he’s crazy obsessed with you and doesn’t want you to go back home.” She sucked in a breath and put a hand to her chest like her heart was hurting and she was trying to soothe it. “He was always very curious about your plans after graduation. I thought he was worried about you because you hadn’t committed to anything, but maybe it was more than that.”
She was one smart cookie. It was obvious her older brother taught her how to see the invisible threads connecting things most people missed. “Why would he want to keep me here? What’s back in the Point he’d want to keep me away from?” I never told anyone about what it was like back in my hometown. In fact, I rarely even told anyone where my hometown was. They wouldn’t understand it, or my unwavering love for a place that regularly ate innocent people alive.
Ari lifted her chin and gave me an are-you-kidding-me-right-now look. “Oh, I don’t know. Something, or rather someone, who’s about six-and-a-half-feet tall, with dark hair, who’s built like a Spartan soldier, rocking some amazing gray eyes and has been carrying a torch for you since you were jailbait? No normal guy is going to stand up to the legend that is Booker. Troy would have to know he didn’t have a prayer of catching your attention if the massive mountain of delicious man-meat was back in the picture.”
It was my turn for the are-you-kidding look. My words were short and sharp when I demanded, “And how would Troy know about Booker? No one knows about him, except for you. I never even told my sister why I had to leave the Point as quickly as I did. I think she guessed it had something to do with him, but I never got into the details with her.”
She deflated in front of my eyes. Her shoulders slumped forward and her head dropped so her hair was covering her face. She wrapped her arms around herself in a hug and started slowly swaying side to side. Her voice was soft and I could hear the tears crawling up her throat as she whispered. “I told Troy about Booker.”
My entire body jerked and I had to lock my knees to keep them from melting from shock. I trusted Ari implicitly. This betrayal burned something deep. “What? Why? When?” The questions fired out like bullets, each one more forceful and angry than the one before it.
“After that Fourth of July barbeque at Dom and Lando’s place.” She looked up at me, her face pale and her eyes wide. “Lando introduced you to that hockey player. The one the Avalanche just signed. He was young, hot, and clearly into you. Not to mention he had that sexy French-Canadian accent. You turned him down without a thought. You acted annoyed he was interested in you. People noticed. Troy noticed. He bugged me for over an hour about it. He wanted to know why you don’t date and asked if you were planning on spending your entire life alone. I didn’t want to lie, so I told him you had a thing with someone back home and it didn’t end well. I didn’t give him details, but Booker’s name might have slipped out.” Her glassy eyes pleaded with me to understand and forgive. “I’m so sorry, Karsen. I honestly didn’t think it was a big deal.” She let out a bitter laugh. “I also didn’t think my boyfriend was a violent lunatic.” Her head fell forward again, and the silent resignation in her features almost gutted me.
I was mad, but she was too fragile at the moment for me to really lay into her. Instead I sighed, plowed my fingers through my hair and told her, “We don’t know for sure it was Troy. And ID or no ID, I’m not missing my sister’s wedding.”
Sometimes it paid to have friends in low places. If I needed to get my hands on a fake in the next few days then that’s what I was going to do. I wanted to close my eyes and wake up in my bed inside the glass and iron castle I called home. I wanted my sister to hug me and kiss my head while she told me I was the bravest, brightest girl in the whole world. I wanted Race to wink at me and give me the look that said he knew I was made of stronger stuff than my sister, so he didn’t have to worry about me the way he did her. I desperately wanted to be able to walk down and knock on Booker’s door and have him usher me into his private space like we were the best of friends. He was the only person in my life I was ever able to be real with, and I believed I offered the same thing to him. He wasn’t the hired thug with a gun and quick hands when we sat on the couch and binge-watched old episodes of Veronica Mars. No, he was just a guy who accepted his lot in life and did whatever he had to in order to survive when he was with me. The guy who was kind to me when it obviously did not come easy. The guy who protected me when it became more and more apparent he had no idea how to protect himself from simple things like emotions and feelings.
Before Ari could continue apologizing, there was a sharp knock on the broken door and her brother and his boyfriend sauntered in. I was surprised it took them as long as it did to show. Ari called Dom right after reporting the break-in. I thought for sure the boys would break every traffic law known to man getting to Boulder once she was done explaining everything that had happened during the night.
The next hour or so was spent going over the hellish night, and everyone tried to calm Dom down when he got a good look at Ari’s bruised face. Lando was reassuring and gentle as he handled my injured friend. He was more forceful and demanding when he ordered his hot-headed boyfriend to pull his shit together. Both men refused to hear any arguments about Ari going anywhere but home with them. It was clear Dom needed some time to coddle his baby sister, and she needed time to be cared for. I gave Dom a brief rundown of what happened with the jerk cop who took the report on the break-in; for some reason, though, I couldn’t tell him about Booker being in town. Ari gave me a look over the obvious omission, but I stared right back, defiantly daring her to give my secret up to someone else I wasn’t ready to share it with.
She owed me for blabbing my business to her creepy boyfriend. I silently ordered her to keep her trap shut to her brother when it came to Booker.
All three of them insisted I go down to Denver with them at least for the night. The lock on the front door was busted open and there had been so much drama today that I think they were all worried I was going to break down and fall apart.
I probably would have if I didn’t know for certain I was going to have a visitor sometime before the night was through.
I didn’t want to go.
I refused to examine my motivations behind my insistence that I had too much to do to leave. I told them I still had to pack my room before the movers arrived. Which was true. I explained I needed to call home, to let them know what was going on with my identification and my flight. Also true. I insisted I needed some time alone, a few quiet hours to get my head around everything that had happened. Which was a big fat lie. Somewhere inside of me, I knew Booker was coming back, and I wanted to be here when he did. I tried to tell myself it was because I needed to know if he found Troy or not, but there was more to it. I might be able to lie to everyone else in the room, but I'd never been very good at lying to myself.
It took an endless amount of reassurance and the promise to check into a hotel for the night once I was all packed up to get Dom to agree to leave with Ari. He also arranged to have a marked police car drive around the block every hour and call me regularly in between patrolling, which I didn’t see the need for since the apartment complex had security, but it made him feel better and finally got him out the door.
I was on the phone trying to convince my sister she didn’t need to drive to Colorado and pick me up to bring me back home. I also had to explain that she didn’t need to order Race to charter a private jet to get me back where she thought I belonged. About that time, the broken front door swung open and a dark figure materialized in the opening.
No one else moved as quietly as he did. No one else stole the air out of the room and made my skin feel too tight the way he did. I knew it was Booker before he stepped into the room.
I was tired of having the same useless argument with Brysen about the fact that I was an adult now and could find a solution to my own problems. She wanted to send Race’s entire security crew out to Boulder to bubble wrap me so they could deliver me unscratched to her doorstep. I practically yelled at her that I would be fine and insisted I didn’t need a security detail. It had been one of my conditions when I moved away. I was tired of being watched. I was sick of having eyes on me all the time. I made Race promise he would call off his watch dogs when I left for school. He agreed, reluctantly, and I wasn’t about to let myself get railroaded back into the gilded cage I’d run from. I could take care of myself. I wanted them both to believe me when I told them exactly that.
Booker made his way into the room, eyes not missing anything. His mouth was twisted into a frown and his dark eyebrows were drawn into a deep V over his nose. I could see him cataloging every inch of me from head to toe, features relaxing when he saw for himself I was uninjured and in one piece.
He waved a hand at the door. “What happened?”
I shrugged and tucked my hair behind my ears. “Someone, probably Troy, broke in. All they took was my purse and my passport so I can’t get on my flight home tomorrow.”
He scowled and started pacing around the room. He reminded me of a wild animal forced to live in a manmade enclosure. He never seemed like he had enough room to move, to breathe.
“Do you need me to get you an ID?” He had friends in even lower places than I did and they would move faster.
I slowly shook my head and watched him as he continued to prowl. “I’m going to drive home.” As long as I didn’t get pulled over the risk involved in that seemed far less than the one involved with running around with a fake ID in my pocket.
He paused, then stopped moving altogether. His eyes narrowed on me and I could practically see him working through everything that might go wrong if he did what I was about to demand of him.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I couldn’t find the boyfriend and there is some shady shit going on with him that I don’t like. I heard you tell Brysen you don’t have a security detail anymore. You, on your own, out on the road, doesn’t seem like a good idea right now.” He was worried about me, and I hated the way his concern warmed all the places inside of me that had been cold for so very long.
I blew out a breath, feeling it shake as it left my body. I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life, but there was no stopping the words once they spilled out.
“That’s why you’re coming with me.”