Lance

“Is there a reason you’re not answering my texts?”

“You texted once,” I said, phone pressed tight to my ear as I walked home from making sure Tara was safe in her apartment. Still, I scanned every alley, wondering if I should head back and stake out her place. Jesus, I was fucked up over that woman.

“Am I supposed to keep texting? Used to be, you’d call back at one peep from me, drooling for information. Now I gotta keep at you?”

I gritted my teeth. Hal was not wrong. And it was jacked that I had been so wrapped up in Tara’s shit, that I wasn’t focused on the reason I was in this goddamn shithole of a town in the first place. I picked up the pace and kept walking. “So if you’re raising this much of a fucking fuss, then what you have better be good.”

Hal waited a beat. “He’s a ghost, man.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, the dulled pain rising again to squeeze his heart

“No one knows. His parents are dead and buried, so no leads there. His former crew isn’t talking and by that, I mean in a way where I’m convinced they really do not know.”

Hal had a lot of experience as a private investigator and had a good read on people. If that was his read, then I trusted him. The only reason he was helping me on this likely suicide mission was because he wanted revenge for my brother’s death as much as I did.

“Then I’m here until he comes back.”

Hal sighed. “Lance—”

“He wants what’s in that safety deposit box,” I said. “He wouldn’t have taken pains to put it in some shitty bank in some shitty town with a dumbass fake name unless whatever was in there was precious as fuck. I don’t care what’s in there, I only care that he comes back, and I get my shot at him.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’ll be whatever I want to be,” I snapped back. “Getting him back for killing Trent is the only reason I live and breathe.” I ended my sentence on a snarl and ignored the glimpse of Tara’s half-lidded, sexy gaze that floated to the surface of my mind. I dunked it back under the water.

“Look, there’s another angle. I told you he’s got a sister—”

“No,” I bit off.

Another sigh. “Look—”

“I told you before. I don’t give a fuck about his sister. You told me she skipped town to get away from his mess?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then I’m not finding her and dragging her back into it. I’m not using a woman to get what I want.”

“Your call,” he muttered.

“Yeah, it is,” I shot back.

“Just saying.”

“I get that’s what you're saying, and you need to get that I’m not going there. He’ll be back.”

“I got eyes on it. Soon as he shows up, I’ll call.”

“Perfect.”

“Lance,” he said softer this time.

I was close to my warehouse, and that was good, because I couldn’t take Hal’s soft tone. Hal had been my dad’s best friend. He’d loved Trent like a son. My brother and my dad—two of the best men in my life—were now gone. Hal was the third best man I’d ever known so yeah, his soft voice got me.

“Son,” he added when I didn’t answer.

I inhaled sharply as I threw up the garage to my place, then slammed it shut behind me. The moonlight cast a glow over my rumpled sheets and I leaned against the wall, fatigue hitting me like a two-ton brick. “Yeah.”

“Be smart. You behind bars… those weren’t only hard years for you. I don’t want to go through that again.”

Laying guilt on me was not cool, but I didn’t have it in me to spit fire at him. When he’d visited me, I saw how much my incarceration cut him. Since he knew I didn’t give a shit about myself, he was hitting me where he knew it’d hurt—over him. “Gotta go, Hal. Been a long day.”

Hal waited a beat before answering. “Sure.”

“I’ll answer your next texts.”

Hal snorted, humor in his voice that almost made me smile. “I’d like that.”

“Take care.”

“You too.”

My hand holding my phone dropped to my side, the small bit of metal feeling like a fifty-pound weight.

The burden of where I’d been, what I’d done, and still want I wanted to do sat on my shoulders like a boulder. I felt like Atlas sometimes, but I wasn’t holding up the world, I was holding up my own fucked up life and wondering when the hell I’d crumble beneath it.

I finally straightened up from the wall and trudged to the bathroom, did my business, then crawled under my sheets in my boxers. Something tickled my nose where it rested on my pillow, and I pulled a long, brown hair off the fabric. The moonlight caught on it, and I tossed it to the side, rolling onto my back with a curse. I’d even washed these sheets.

I thought of her…last night, tonight. Walking to her apartment and her saying dorky shit like YOLO. Imagining her licking brownie batter off a spoon, pink tongue lapping the gooey chocolate from her lips. If I was there, I’d lick it off for her, I’d dip my tongue into her mouth and find out what a chocolate-coated Tara tasted like.

Seeing her at the bar, that man’s arm around her…I’d nearly lost it. One, because she was fucking clueless some asshole with a gun was watching her and two, because that arm hadn’t been mine. Because she’d left me and gone right back out, like it was nothing.

Except, I’d told her it was nothing. Then I’d shown up tonight like a raging bull and sent her mixed messages. She could have slapped me and I wouldn’t have blamed her. Instead she’d let me fuck her up against the wall of that alley and hadn’t blinked. Just wanted to get hers and wanted to get it with me.

With a jolt that had me blinking at the ceiling, it occurred to me that for the first time in years I was falling asleep thinking about something other than revenge. Because I was thinking about her.

Honest to God, I hadn’t thought about how a woman could chase all that away. Maybe because I’d never met a woman who’d ever instilled in me confidence that it was possible. I wasn’t sure how Tara did it either, but she had. Last night when she’d been in my bed, there’d been no buzz from the fluorescent lights, no scratchy sheets and shitty bed fucking up my back. No shouts from the guards, no grunts from my cell mate next door who was jacking it and didn’t care that anyone knew.

For a brief moment, that ugly, out-of-control tornado in my gut that fueled me since I got out had settled. Stopped turning.

I’d had a fucking moment of peace with her in my bed. And I barely knew her. What would it be like when I actually let her in? When I handed over a bit of that poison that seeped in my blood? I’d either infect her too or she’d wash me clean. It was a lot to lay on a woman, which was why I’d steered clear.

I brought the heels of my palms up to my eyes and rubbed, groaning. I’d promised her…I’d fucking promised to look out for her, and I couldn’t renege. I didn’t want to.

I rolled over, needing to sleep, knowing that tomorrow was another day of waiting. For once though, I wasn’t dreading it. Not if waiting meant I saw more of Tara.

* * *

The sirens woke me up, and for a moment, I forgot where I was. Panic sliced through me, sharp and sick. I rolled over, falling out of bed and jumping to my feet, legs braced for whatever was happening.

I blinked into the darkness, heart pounding. The sirens continued.

Fire engines.

I knew where they were heading. Not sure how, but with a rolling churn in my gut, I knew.

I tugged on my jeans, stuck my feet into my boots, not bothering to tie them. I was pulling a Henley over my head as I sprinted out of my place. Smoke was already rising above Waterstone, thick and grey, choking the light of the full moon. I knew where the smoke was coming from.

Reston apartments was a fifteen-minute walk. I made it in less than ten, my lungs burning, thinking I needed to quit the smoking. Three fire engines were there, and people were milling about, huddled in their pajamas as it was 3:00 a.m.

Both stairwells were blocked by flames, and the engines had aimed their fire hose on them. I cast my gaze around. Yep, all the stairwells. Un-fucking-passable.

Didn’t take a genius to know this was deliberate as fuck.

I dashed around to every person in the parking lot, and they didn’t even pay attention to my alarmed scrambling as they stared at the flames consuming their apartment building. I reached the last group with a sinking feeling, knowing I wouldn’t find Tara.

“Got men on the third floor doing a sweep,” I overhead a man tell a firefighter who looked to be authority. “I think we got everyone though.”

Third floor. That was Tara’s floor. See, in Reston apartments, the 200s were actually third floor. Top floor. And I would have bet money the fire started there.

Tara had a middle apartment. The furthest from the stairs on each side.

I didn’t waste time and raced around to the back, right to Tara’s balcony. I squinted up at it, and could see smoke curling behind the glass door. Then a hand smacked the glass, and the door jolted but didn’t open.

I couldn’t see from where I was, but I would have bet money that something was lodged in the track to prevent her from opening the door. So she was in there, trying to get out, probably not able to escape from the front with flames in her hall and smoke seeping into her apartment.

Mother. Fucker.

She saw me then. Her face pressed up against the glass, her mouth open, eyes wild. She mouthed my name and banged on the glass.

I couldn’t see a fast way to climb up there and didn’t want to take the time to figure it out. I hoped like hell I still had it, that all those times throwing the ball to my star catcher brother were worth it, because in this moment, my aim had to be fucking true.

I dug around the base of the apartment building and came away with two rocks about the size of tennis balls. I held them up, and yelled “Get back! Cover your head!” I wasn’t sure she could hear me, but she could see the rocks. She wasn’t stupid. Immediately, her face left the glass, but through the other pane I could see her huddled form, curled into the fetal position, covering her head.

I bounced the rock in my palm, cocked my hand back, and whipped it. The rock glanced off the handle of the door, not even touching the glass.

“Goddamnit,” I bit off. I could see the orange glow now through the glass. The fucking flames were in her apartment. The motherfucking flames were in her motherfucking apartment.

With a growl and a vicious overhand throw, I hurled the rock at her back door. It hit the glass dead on and the thing fucking shattered.

She barely waited for the glass to fall and then she was tumbling out of the window, the sharp edges of the glass catching on the large T-shirt she wore. And that was it. That was all she wore, a large T-shirt, bare fucking feet, scrambling on broken glass on her way to get out of her apartment before she choked on smoke.

She reached the balcony and gripped the railing. I widened my stance and beckoned to her. “Jump!”

She stared at me. “Are you fucking insane?”

“I promise I’ll catch you, now fucking jump!”

She looked behind her, at the flames now roaring in the darkness of her apartment, then she peered down at me. Her shoulders heaved, then she climbed up onto her railing, sitting her ass at the edge, bare feet dangling.

“That’s it, baby,” I said, positioning myself beneath her. “I’m going to count to three, then drop down, all right?”

She nodded, but she looked terrified and anything but confident. The breeze whipped her shirt around her bare legs, and smoke began to billow out of her apartment

I wasn’t super confident either, but this was the only way. “One, two, three.”

She didn’t even hesitate. She pushed herself off the railing and dropped three stories into my arms.

I absorbed her weight, although it brought me to my knees before I was able to rise back up holding her close to my chest. She shook like a goddamn leaf, and her face was streaked with smoke and ash and tears. She blinked at me with blurry, unfocused eyes.

“You promised,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

“Tara—”

“You promised, and you followed through.” She was still whispering, and it pained me to hear how much effort it took to force words out of her likely sore throat. She shook her head, hair brushing my arms. “No one, not anyone in my life, has ever kept their promise to me.” And then she burst into tears.