Stepping into Rounders the next day made me jittery and nervous. It could have also been the four cups of coffee and very little food in my system. The previous night had been hell.

Every noise from the crickets outside to the small creaking in the house woke me up. It felt like the most endless night of my life. It was also hard not to have my mother to take care of. Without her presence, I was left to my own devices. Which meant a lot of movie watching, and triple checking the locks on the doors.

I’d worn what I felt like was normal. The same shorts I’d worn to my shift the previous night I'd worked, and a white t-shirt. It just happened to be one with a V-neck and a smidge on the tight side. There wasn’t much left to the imagination whenever I bent over.

Walking through the bar, I saw Duke wiping down the counter in his area. He raised a hand in greeting and I returned it. If he asked, I'd tell him I’d had a family thing that kept me away from the place. Although, Cade probably had something worked out as a cover.

The music was already blaring, and there were several customers sitting at tables already. Michelle was bustling between the chairs and tabletops like a pro.

I nearly made it all the way to the breakroom in the back before a familiar hand clamped down on my arm and started steering me toward the office.

“Glad you’re back, Suzanne,” Cade’s familiar voice said. “How are you feeling? Heard the flu was going around.”

“Er, good. Just a twenty-four-hour thing.”

When we reached the office, he let go of me and shut the door.

The glare he gave me was scorching. “What were you fucking thinking? You should have just left everything alone! It was fine.”

“You in jail wasn’t fine!”

He stalked toward me and I backed away. “We had everything handled. Aiden was arranging a legal team to fight it. There I am thinking you would be at the safehouse when I got out and the next thing I know, Agent-what’s-his-nuts, is telling me I’m good to go if I can work the case. I sign the fucking papers then he tells me you cut a deal.”

“Well you should have told me!”

He took another slow step toward me. “Thought I made it pretty fucking clear, Suzanne. The answer was hell no to you working as a decoy. In fact, I repeated it several times! And now we’re right back where we were, except you have a goddamn target on your back this time! How the fuck was this going to work in your head?!”

I glared at him. “I’m not going to debate the merits of my decision with you. I felt like it was the only thing I could do at the time. I needed to talk to you, and then Holden showed up. He said you were in jail. Had voluntarily gone to jail, and all I could think about was you not talking to me about it.”

He growled and stalked me as I maneuvered around his chair. “Baby, you are so going to pay. Do you know how mad I am right now?”

My legs hit his desk and stopped my retreat. “Mildly upset?”

His eyebrow arched. “Fucking furious! They tell you what he does? Did they mention he keeps them for two days?”

I nodded. “I’m sure they left some things out, but yeah.”

“Yeah, sunshine,” he growled. “You think I’m the kind of man that would let his woman walk into that shit and not try to keep her out?”

“I need to get out on the floor,” I said unsteadily. The last thing I wanted to do was be in the office with Cade screaming at me. I might love him, but right now, I didn’t need his overbearing wrath.

“It’s covered!” he barked. “Fuck, woman. You drive me insane. You know what really burns? The fact that you didn’t trust me to take care of shit. I had a fucking plan.”

I glared at him. “Look, I was going to call them anyway. But I was going to talk to you about it at dinner first. Talk. As in have a second, and maybe a third talk with you about it. Then I found out my mom was sick, you were in jail, and I did what I felt was right. Don’t lecture me when you didn’t fill me in on this plan of yours from the beginning!”

His face blanched. “Your mom’s sick? What’s wrong?”

“None of your fucking business,” I hissed. His head jerked back at my tone, but I didn’t regret it. “You don’t tell me shit, you don’t get to know shit.”

He titled his head as he eyed me with a furious glare. “I’ve told you everything about my life! You’re the one who showed up here with a fat lip, an excuse and didn’t want to tell me about it. I have to drag stuff out of you to get you to talk. You still haven’t told me that fucking guy’s name, and you shut me down when we’re talking about your life before Muse.”

I held up my hands in frustration. I was just too damn tired to deal with anything and needed out of here. “I need to go work. I don’t have time for this shit.”

He grabbed my arm as I tried to walk past him and pulled me to a stop. “Fuck that.”

I jerked my arm free and backed toward the door. “You want to talk about communication? How about the plan you hatched where you died, and I watched your casket lowered into the ground? How about me trying to figure out my life and hating the better half of it because you were gone? I couldn’t tell a corpse I wanted him.”

“You weren’t even a part of my life at that point. You were just this crazy woman I couldn’t get out of my head and wanted to bend over my desk every other day. Why would I tell you that shit?”

“That’s not the point! You didn’t tell your friends, didn’t tell anyone!” I ran a hand down my face in frustration and growled. “I can’t do this shit.”

“Great! I’ll call Wyatt dumbfuck to come pick me up and take me back to jail. You can get your ass to the safehouse and pout about it there all you want. Maybe you can think about why this was a stupid fucking move and why you shouldn’t have done this!”

His face was flushed with anger so much his neck had turned red. And while he was shooting daggers at me with his eyes, it occurred to me that it hadn’t mattered at all what I’d tried to tell him. It hadn’t mattered that I wanted to help save other women’s lives or keep him from sitting in a federal jail. None of it mattered to him. His mind had already been made up before we'd even gone to the meeting with his friends. When I’d made the call to Logan, I’d slammed the door shut on any possible way to convince him otherwise.

If I’d kept his boys out of it, then I might have been able to change his mind. But with an alternate solution readily available when they forgave him and offered to help, he hadn’t even considered the possibility of anything else.

Yeah, it was dangerous. It was a shitty situation. But it was also the right thing to do, and I knew it. The guys had an unnatural aversion to doing anything that diverted from their way of thinking. I’d heard every single detail of every time they'd gone alpha and blown a gasket. And now, Cade was doing the same damn thing.

“Stupid decision,” I said flatly. “I’ve made some pretty bad ones in my life, but not this one. I told you why I had to do it. Why I had to help. And that’s stupid? I can’t do this.”

“I’m glad we’re finally on the same page,” he muttered.

“Nah,” I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant. I’ll call Agent Kennedy, and have you removed from the case. I can’t do what I need to do and deal with you on two hours sleep at the same time. You can be mad all you want while you’re sitting on the sidelines.”

He gave me a hard glare. “I don’t fucking think so.”

“Leave me alone, Mark. Whoever the hell you are.”

There was a growl as I yanked the door open and quickly hurried down the hall before Cade could catch up with me. I ducked in the breakroom and saw one of the younger girls putting up her purse. Nodding to her, I grabbed a smock and left while tying it on.

“Change your fucking shirt while you’re in there,” Cade growled as he came barreling past me. “No one gets to see that shit but me.”

“Not anymore. I’m done,” I growled back at him, and exited the kitchen into the main area.

“What the fuck did you say?” he barked.

Ignoring him, I turned left, went around the crowd of people, and headed to Duke’s area. Michelle waved me down and pointed to the back area near Cade’s half. Fuck, I didn’t want to partner with him. Bad. Bad. Bad. Idea.

Heading toward Duke’s bar, I saw him filling glasses of beer for two customers at the end. Stopping at a couple of tables, I introduced myself and grabbed a couple of empty glasses from a table.

Cade’s arm shot out and grabbed a glass off the table. He crowded me in with his body and made it apparent that he was right behind me.

“Did you just say we were fucking done? We’re not done by a long shot,” he hissed.

Elbowing him in the chest, I dumped some utensils in a glass. “You need to back off.”

“Hell no,” he said, glancing up as someone walked by. “That’s bullshit. You don’t just throw this away when you’re pissed, and you know I’m right.”

Irritated, I threw him a look that told him where to go and stalked around the table to another one.

Cade brushed against me to reach for the same glass I was trying to clear. We both tugged at it for a minute until I let go and let out a low hiss of my own.

“You just hate that I’m the one saving you instead of the other way around. You and your pals are so pig-headed that you can’t imagine that someone might be able to save themselves.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Pig-headed? Are you nuts? It has nothing—”

I walked away in the opposite direction and saw Michelle with an empty tray. “Hey, girl! Can I use that?”

She nodded, giving me a strange look. When she glanced over my shoulder, her eyes widened, and she scurried away quickly to another table. I piled my glasses on her tray then felt Cade behind me again before I saw his hand shoot out to place more glasses on the tray.

“You’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever fucking known.”

I lifted the tray over my shoulder and walked toward Duke’s bar.

Michelle met me at the side counter as Duke approached us.

“Hey, Red. You okay?” he asked as I started piling glasses on his counter with a little more irritation than I should have.

“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Michelle. “Do you mind if I work with Duke? Mark is giving me shit about my doctor’s note. I had the stomach flu. He just bitched me out about missing my shifts.”

Michelle touched my arm and looked at me with sympathy. “Of course, I will. Was that all he was pissed about? It seemed like he wanted to strangle you.”

“I guess he hates it when people miss shifts,” I muttered.

Duke snorted. “He’s a dick. I don’t think strangle covers it. He looked like he was about to drag you to the parking lot and do something, but I’m not sure that was it.”

I eyed Duke and he gave me a smirk. I wondered if he’d figured out that something personal was going on. Leave it to a nosy bartender to realize the truth.

“He’s not a dick,” I found myself saying, then kicking myself when I saw his eyebrow arch. “He’s just being a pain in the ass.”

He leaned over the counter and gave me an assessing glance. “Do tell.”

“Forget it,” I said, and shoved a couple of glasses toward him.

Michelle frowned at him. “Ignore Duke. He’s just pissed because Mark doesn’t like him giving his number out. Don’t be such a man-whore and he might actually like you.”

Duke chuckled. “Whatever. I can’t help that I’m easy on the eyes.”

Michelle rolled her eyes then filled me in on the tables she’d just left. When she walked over to Cade’s side to put in her orders for the tables I’d just walked by, he gave her a sharp glare then his eyes hit me over her head.

The look he gave me didn’t need interpretation. He was pissed that I’d switched to work with Duke.

Good. I'd ask Wyatt later to take him out of the situation. He needed a break to think about what he’d done. To get back to his friends and figure out that his life wasn’t meant to be spent behind bars, or pretending he was someone else.

On some level I’d already accepted this as the fallout for helping Mick and Wyatt. That Cade may be so angry that he wouldn’t want to talk to me for a long time. But I didn’t think my choice would cause Cade to think less of me.

Without saying it, that was essentially what had happened. He thought I was stupid. I wanted to hit myself for thinking of every man that'd made me feel that way. Cade was nothing like them. But his lack of faith in me, made all those same feelings churn inside my chest. It was ugly, guttural. It honestly made me wonder if I would ever get past the ugly way that men had treated me in the past.

“Hey, Red, you’re up,” Duke called out as he pushed two glasses of beer in front of me. “Regulars, table nine.”

I shook my head and once again did what I always did in a shitty situation. Ignored the pain and carried the order over to the two men that had just sat down. They were decent guys and even made me laugh after a minute or two when I chatted with them.

Then I made the rounds. Typical night, loud music and people enjoying themselves.

I was wiping off a table when someone bumped into me. I glanced up and saw a semi-familiar face.

“Oh, hey, sorry!” the man said loudly as he passed by. He suddenly whirled back to face me. “Wait, oh, shit. I think that’s the second time I’ve knocked into you.”

I frowned at him for a moment trying to think of who he was. Brown eyes, light hair.

“The park. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Ohh, yeah. Sorry it took me a minute.”

He sat down at the table I’d just cleaned off and held out his hand to shake mine. After I took it he said, “Doug.”

“Suzanne,” I said having to raise my voice above a particularly loud rock song that had just come on. “It’s okay, I think you’re forgiven for bumping into me here. Busy place.”

He laughed. “Yeah, but no excuses for the park. There was plenty of room and I just plowed straight into you.”

“Eh, it’s okay, I wasn’t really paying attention myself.”

Doug grinned, and two dimples peaked out. My mom would have said he was a cutie for those alone. The fact that he was wearing a tight black t-shirt, and a pair of nice jeans, wouldn’t have been lost on her either. He appeared young and eager for a night of drinking, or whatever had brought him into the bar.

I glanced over at a table full of girls that had noticed him and smiled. “I think you have some admirers. Maybe you can get one of them to dance if they can actually hear you above the noise in here.”

He glanced over and waved at them. They blushed and laughed at his antics as I shook my head.

“Okay, Doug, you know the drill. ID and what’s your poison?”

He handed his ID over, I checked it then returned it before he’d decided.

“Uhm, two shots of fireball and anything you have that’s good on tap.”

“So, you’re here to drink away all that running, huh?”

He laughed and leaned in. “I run because I like to drink. Either way it’s a win, win. Looks like you keep in pretty good shape yourself.”

His eyes dropped to my top suggestively, and I let out a laugh. “Doug, you have a better chance with those girls over there. I’m not available.”

When he glanced back up at me he winked. “You should give it a try. Younger man, more stamina.”

A large hand landed on my back just as I was about to say something back, and I knew young Doug was about to lose his life.

“She said she’s not available. Back off,” Cade growled.

Doug’s eyes stared over my shoulder, and he visibly blanched. The odd thing was after noting the angry man behind me, he smiled.

“Was just an offer, man. Didn’t know she was taken.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not! I’m very, very single. Single with a capital S.”

“MICHELLE!” Cade yelled over the music, the chatter, the buzz, and every other sound in the crowded bar. People turned, conversations ceased, some in the direct vicinity flinched. I scowled. What the fuck was he thinking?

Michelle, like the champ that I knew she was, walked over with an unassuming look on her face and waited.

“Grab Louis in the kitchen. He’s up on bar duty. Drag Molly in here to help. Suzanne is going on a fucking break.”

Her eyebrows shot up, but she just nodded and gave me another sympathetic glance. Duke on the other hand, looked like he was laughing as he stared over at us and started wiping down his counter.

I gave Cade a disgusted glare before turning back to Michelle. “My new friend, Doug needs a couple of drinks.”

Cade grabbed my upper arm, and started hauling me through the crowd of people, who were happy to move out of the way as he barreled through them.

“New friend, my ass!”

“He jogs in the same park. I think we’ll become fabulous friends.”

Cade didn’t stop when he hit the kitchen with me in tow. Michelle was standing in his warpath until she was grabbed by a blonde man that appeared to work in the kitchen.

I dug my heels in and tried to loosen Cade’s grip from my arm. “You’re being ridiculous!”

He turned, and I suddenly found myself over his shoulder, staring back at half the shocked kitchen staff, and an astonished Michelle.

I tried to smack him on the back several times to no avail.

Then suddenly, the door to his office slammed shut, the lock clicked into place, and I was tossed in a chair.