Anson looked between Piper and Luca sitting on opposite sides of the table, staring at each other. Piper had a cup of coffee and a donut in front of her. Luca was sitting with a cup of coffee staring back at her. Hudson leaned back in the velvet chair, his eyes on Anson, a small smile playing around his mouth as he drank his coffee. Hudson was a smart guy and knew he didn’t need to get involved in this particular standoff. Donuts or Die had an old-school coffee house feel with large couches and plush chairs pushed into small seating areas. They served coffee and donuts, nothing fancy, and they definitely had nothing that even resembled espresso. Bookshelves lined with volumes gave off that smell of old paper mixing with the sugar and coffee scents to create a cozy atmosphere.

Anson had introduced everyone and they had commenced the stare-off. Anson was ready to call out Luca for being a dick, but Piper was holding her own. Taking a sip of his coffee he waited for one of them to crack. Piper was slowly eating her breakfast like it didn’t bother her to be sitting across from a man that terrified most people. Luca was a marksman with lethal skill, but he was also a jerk who rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Like Nadia. Aside from that, Luca was patient when he needed to be, but he didn’t hesitate to protect his target or his crew.

Anson had never met someone that didn’t take a step back when they met Luca. Piper was the exception. He was proud of her. She was staring down the beast and barely blinking. Piper’s strength sitting in the donut shop proved that whoever thought they could control her didn’t know her well. Her strength wasn’t wavering, it was just that she seemed emotionally tired. Her life was busy and her heartaches would have sunk most people. But there she was staring down a Kindred bear like she was watching the aquarium fish at her dentist’s office.

“How long you two going to do this?” he finally asked.

Piper kept her eyes on Luca. “Do you think this job is beneath you? Driving me around?”

Luca paused in his drinking. Anson had to hold back a laugh. Clearly, the man wasn’t expecting her to challenge him.

“I do whatever King tells me to do.”

“And King told you to do this?”

“No, Anson asked me to take a shift.”

“So, if he didn’t ask you wouldn’t have volunteered?”

“I don’t volunteer.”

“I see that about you.”

“Do you?”

“They’re scared of you, aren’t they?” Piper asked.

“They?”

“Everyone.”

“Generally. Why aren’t you?”

Anson watched a slow smile spread over Piper’s face. “Because you don’t hide who you are.”

Not knowing how Luca was going to take that, Anson’s eyes shot to his partner. And fuck him, because in the years he had known Luca, that son of a bitch never smiled. But right before his eyes, the normally stern face of Luca of Clan Othala twitched, and then a slow grin spread over his face. Anson blinked, barely able to believe his own eyes. The last time Luca had even smirked around him was when he’d taken a shot at a not so great guy and knocked the hat the man was wearing neatly off his head. The man had wet himself and started running. Piper Armstrong had made Luca of Clan Othala smile. It would be a day that would go down in history.

“I’ll pick you up at six,” Luca said, his smile fading.

“Fine,” Piper replied primly.

Anson took that as a cue that introductions were over.

* * *

After dropping Piper off, which included walking her to her office with a terse reminder to order lunch in, he left with a slightly uncomfortable feeling that he wasn’t going to be the one picking her up after work.

He trusted Luca, hell, he trusted all of his coworkers. But it didn’t feel right not to keep the shift for himself. Van called in to let him know he was back and ready to start into whatever was available. When Anson returned to the KSI offices, he set himself up in an empty room and mapped out the rotating shifts that Piper would require. He wanted to schedule himself for more pick-ups in the mornings. Being the only one picking her up in the morning could set a pattern that he didn’t want to establish for someone watching her. They needed to be kept guessing about her movements.

Though there was also the fact that he liked the way she looked early in the morning. Sleepy and rumpled. Piper was still soft and warm from whatever blanket she’d crawled out from under. He didn’t miss the fact that she’d been sleeping on the couch. From the set-up he’d seen, she did that a lot. He could imagine her struggling to stay awake and avoiding the nightmares of her daytime, and probably her nighttime too.

Anson looked up to see AJ rolling in, behind him was Zion, a tall muscular man with skin the color of teak and his eyes flashing silver.

“You’re back?”

“Yeah, had to see a man about a bomb threat,” the big man replied, taking a seat.

“You get all the fun assignments,” Anson said with a smile.

“Oh yes, days of trying to sniff out explosives that weren’t there.”

“You should have grabbed one of Hudson’s dogs. They have training.”

“You think dogs can out-sniff me?” Zion scoffed.

“Yes, I think you get distracted by the pretty ladies’ perfume.”

“There were no pretty ladies and you know it.”

Zion had been down in Brazil with an international client that often got overly nervous. King had sent down a full crew to provide security. Anson looked over to AJ who was absentmindedly examining his fingernails.

“We boring you?”

AJ looked up. “No, just waiting for my turn.”

“Why are you in here?”

“I pulled up your client’s former almost husbands. Both of them were pretty stable guys. No signs of any worry that they weren’t in it for the long haul. They both had already made inquiries to adding her to their life insurance and the first guy had applied for a mortgage with her. These guys weren’t making any moves to run.”

Anson looked to Zion, “Which means?”

“Someone made them run,” Zion answered.

“You’re telling me that someone managed to make two grown men run away from Piper?”

AJ raised his eyebrow at him at his choice of words. He chose to ignore it.

“I think that whatever happened it was enough for them to push away an amazing woman,” Zion answered.

Anson didn’t like that. “What makes you think she’s an amazing woman? You haven’t even met her.”

“Luca was quite impressed this morning. Whoever she is, she managed to make him sit up and pay attention. That means something.”

Anson couldn’t stop the growl that rolled out of him.

“Shit,” AJ said with a laugh. “Fighting over the new toy.”

“She’s not a toy,” Anson growled.

“No, she’s a client. Remember?” Zion said, his keen eyes assessing Anson’s response.

“I remember. She’s also been hurt by these assholes. They ran, why?”

“That’s what we need to find out. I think we need to pull them in.”

Anson didn’t know if they were overreaching. They had to track her stalker and they only had one direction to head and that was back into Piper’s history, a place she probably didn’t want to ever go again.