Brent and Jack were waiting for us in the control room of the safe room, Brent looking as though he’d been dragged out of bed. Jack was still in the same suit he’d been wearing when he drove me to the guesthouse earlier in the day.

“Don’t you ever take time off?” I asked, reaching up on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

“I got a call on another case. I just happened to be on the way out the door when I got the heads-up about the warrant.” Jack’s eyes moved from me to Bo, a mixture of concern and anger in his expression. “What happened?”

Bo gave them the condensed version of the story, emphasizing the fact that he was trying to protect me during the entire exchange. Brent turned away from us, his gaze resting on the security monitors as he listened, his shoulders stiff, his jaw set. There was something going on with Brent that worried me, but now was not the time to ask what it was.

Jack sighed heavily when Bo finished, crossing his arms over his chest as he stepped back to draw Brent into the discussion.

“West is going to be a big problem for us.”

“He already is,” Brent said, turning again to face us. “He’s released most of the Mad Dog members because he says we didn’t have the proper authority to be in the clubhouse that night.”

“What? That’s ridiculous!” Bo said. “We contacted his office. We had all the proper permissions. We even had a couple of his officers there backing us up!”

“Yes, well…we’re lucky we had the other evidence on Trigger, or he would have released him, too.”

“Doesn’t that prove that he has Mad Dog in his pocket?” I wanted to know.

Jack shook his head. “Not to anyone but us. What it does is make us look bad to the district attorney. He’ll be checking our cases with a fine-tooth comb from now on.”

Silence fell between us. I watched my brothers, the emotion dancing over their faces as they considered the future of their business. And the fear in Bo’s eyes that he was trying so hard to keep hidden from me.

“We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“What do you suggest we do, Remy?” Brent wanted to know.

But I was just as lost by all this as they were.

And then Jack was touching his ear, his head cocked slightly to the side. I hadn’t noticed that he had a comm device in his ear, but he must have. And he didn’t like what he was hearing.

He cursed, storm clouds racing across his face. “West is here.”

“Here?”

I moved behind Brent to check out the monitors. Sure enough, a line of five police vehicles—both patrol cars and unmarked sedans—pulled to a stop in the drive outside the front doors. As I watched, West got out and watched as his men assembled, saying something to them we couldn’t hear.

“I’m going to go deal with this.”

Jack stormed out of the room, the sound of the heavy security door slamming ringing through the entire facility. Brent pushed a button and we were suddenly able to hear the things West was saying to his men.

“You will search every room, even the break rooms, the janitor’s closet, anywhere that a person could hide. This man is a dangerous criminal who beat a man to within an inch of his life not three hours ago. You will be on guard the entire time you are inside the building. Do you understand?”

I shook my head. “Asshole!”

Bo slid his hand over my back, tugging me closer to his side.

Jack could be seen stepping out the front doors. When West saw him, he pulled a piece of paper out of his suit jacket.

“This is a warrant to search the premises for Bo Villemont.”

Jack didn’t even touch the paper. “Do what you want, West. You won’t find him here.”

“We saw him get into a vehicle that is parked right there,” West said, pointing to the SUVs that had, indeed, brought us there. “We will find him wherever you hid him.”

“Are you looking for Ms. Mitchell, too? Is her name on there?”

“What we might find as a consequence of this search is incidental.”

Jack stepped back and waved his hands toward the front doors. “Just, please, try to put everything back where you find it. The custodial staff has enough work on their hands as it is.”

West glared at Jack as he gestured for his men to get to work. “You will regret ever crossing me, Jack Stone,” he muttered loud enough for just Jack—and us, thanks to the comm—to hear.

Jack just watched him walk into the building, never responding and never giving him a reason to respond to him. Then he glanced at the camera over the front doors from which we were watching the whole thing. He winked.

West wouldn’t find Bo or Violet. The door to this room was hidden at the back of the main elevator and, even if he could find the door, the codes that opened it were indecipherable. It would take a team of techs to figure out how to gain entrance and by the time they did, we could be halfway to Virginia. There was another steel door behind a line of shelves in the storeroom that led into the parking garage. We could be out of here in seconds.

I wasn’t worried about West getting in here. I was worried that he wouldn’t stop. Bo couldn’t live in this room for the rest of his life.

We watched as the cops filed into the building. A couple went down to the parking garage, a couple moved around the lobby, looking in closets and behind the security desk. The rest boarded the elevators and headed upstairs, two or three getting off on each floor. I chewed on my thumb as I watched them moving around, touching things that didn’t belong to them. Brent cursed quietly as we watched one cop enter his office and toss pile after pile of papers off his desk. In Jack’s office, they turned over a couple of chairs and smashed a lamp that had been given to him by a client. Then they started on Bo’s office. They pulled whole drawers out of his desk, his file cabinet, and turned them over onto the floor, stomping on the carefully organized papers that fell, scattering over the carpet.

There was no point to it. It was like they knew they wouldn’t find Bo. They just wanted to create as much chaos as possible.

I walked out of the room, unable to watch the mindless destruction of what Jack and Brent and Bo had worked so hard to build up.

I paced in the hall outside the bedrooms, telling myself that there had to be a way out of this, there had to be an answer. There had to be something.

Bo stepped into my path, taking my arms in his hands to still my movements.

“You should try to get some sleep, babe. We can attack this thing in the morning.”

I shook my head. “We have to figure this out now.”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t just hide out in here forever!”

“I won’t. I’ll face the consequences if that’s what I need to do.”

I shook my head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You shouldn’t have to face these idiots. They’re just trying to get to me.”

“They’re trying to get you to give up Violet Mitchell. And I know you won’t do that.”

“I will if that means he’ll leave you alone.”

Bo drew me closer to him, his hands slipping over my shoulder, down to the small of my back. “I love you for saying that, but I know you won’t. I won’t let you.”

“I can’t let some narcissistic ass ruin your life! Our life!”

“Remy, we’ll find a way out of this. But not tonight. You’re exhausted. I’m exhausted. We should get some rest.”

Only when he said that did I realize there were dark shadows smudged under his eyes and lines around his mouth that spoke of a day that had gone on a little too long. I rose up on my tip toes and offered him a gentle kiss.

“You go. I want to check on Violet first.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Rem—”

“Really. I just want to check on her for my own peace of mind, nothing more. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He kissed me again, then reluctantly let me go. I watched him move down the hall, even his gait exhausted. He dragged his hand over the top of his head as he paused in the doorway of his room, looking back at me with a strange mixture of distrust and complete and total trust. I smiled, wiggling my fingers to make him go. He did, a little reluctantly, but he disappeared and I heard the door snap closed.

I spun on my heel and walked down to the door that was locked against Violet Mitchell. I tapped on it and was instantly rewarded with something slamming against the heavy door with a resounding thud.

She was awake.

I retreated to the control room to find the key. Brent was watching me before I even walked over the threshold. “What are you up to, little sister?”

I ignored him, snatching open the top drawer of a tall filing cabinet. The key was on a hook on the inside of the drawer, hanging with five other keys that were identical to it.

“She’s been violent since she came out from under the sedation. We could hardly take her food without someone getting hurt.”

“She’s just scared.”

“I can’t let you go in there alone, Remy.”

“You can’t stop me, either.”

I strutted out of the room, determined to do this no matter what anyone else had to say. But Brent was right behind me, following but not making any move to interfere. I glanced at him, but didn’t say anything. I knew there was no point in arguing with him.

I hesitated after unlocking the door, taking a deep breath with my hand on the knob.

“You don’t have to—”

I pushed the door opened, a little shocked at the disarray that met me. Violet had pulled the sheets off the bed and torn at the material that covered the bare mattress. The pillows were bare, torn into long sheets of fabric, the stuffing strewn all over the room. The dresser was tipped over, the drawers all lying in an illogical pattern along the floor. The towels from the bathroom had been brought into the bedroom, unfolded and tossed about.

It looked as if a very large two-year-old had had a temper tantrum.

Violet herself was sitting on the floor, her knees against her chest, rocking back and forth against the wall. She was partially clothed, her shirt and shoes missing. I couldn’t even begin to guess where they’d gone.

“Violet? It’s Remy Stone.”

“I don’t know a Remy Stone.”

Brent put a hand on my arm to keep me from going into the room, but I shrugged him off. I stepped carefully, trying to avoid the pitfalls of the junk tossed around the room. Violet watched me, backing tighter against the wall.

“It’s Second Year, Ms. Mitchell. I need to talk to you for a minute.”

She frowned, but I could see recognition in her eyes. I walked to just a few feet in front of her, then squatted down so that we were on the same level.

“We need to talk, Ms. Mitchell. I need you to answer a couple of questions for me.”

“I don’t know you.”

“You do know me. I work for you. I got you out of the break room after he came to the office and scared you. Do you remember?”

She shivered, but she didn’t try to pull away again.

“I need to know what you have on him. I need something we can use to stop him.”

She shook her head violently. “You can’t stop him.”

“He’s trying to find you, Violet. He’s not going to stop until he does. We can’t let that go on.”

She shook her head again, banging it against the rough, cinderblock walls. “You can’t stop him. He knows too much. He knows our secret and he’ll use it against us.”

“What secret, Violet?”

Tears spilled from her eyes. “I can’t say.”

“Violet, he’s a monster. He’s going to keep coming until we do something about it. And we need your help to do that.”

She shook her head a third time, again banging it on the wall so hard that she blinked with each blow. I grabbed her head, tried to hold it still, but she was stronger than I was.

“Please. He’s coming after me, too. And Bo, my…my everything.”

She stilled then, her eyes moving over my face. “New love,” she whispered softly.

I shook my head. “No. Old love that’s just finally bloomed.”

She touched my shoulder. “He hurt me. He made me do things I didn’t want to do, so I slipped the pills in his coke. He wasn’t supposed to die; he was just supposed to get very, very sick. But I guess I gave him too much.”

She was talking about the guy on the football field, the guy she accused of rape in college. I took her hands between mine and waited for her to continue.

“He was supposed to get sick. He deserved to suffer for what he’d done to me. But he died and everyone looked at me differently. They all knew. And I…how was I supposed to live with that? I didn’t know how.”

“You had a breakdown.”

Her eyes lit up like she couldn’t believe I understood. “They put me in the hospital under my mother’s maiden name. I was okay when I got out. Okay until he started talking to me again. In my car, in my house. Chasing after me from the other side.”

“He talked to you?”

She nodded. “Ignoring it didn’t work. And the blood. There was blood in my house that wasn’t mine.”

I glanced back at Brent. He had a pained look on his face as he watched us.

“Thank you, Violet,” I said softly, touching her face gently. “You’ve been a lot of help.”

She smiled up at me, then yawned. “I’m tired.”

“You should sleep.”

She nodded, laying down right there in the pile of bedclothes and pillow stuffing that lay around her. I smoothed her hair away from her face and wished her a good night’s sleep before slowly backing out of the room.

“What was the point of that?” Brent demanded as I relocked the door.

“Evidence.” I handed him the key. “Can I borrow your car?”

“For what?”

“I’m going to fix this.”

He hesitated, but then reached inside his pocket and handed them to me. I turned to go, but he grabbed my arm. “Be careful, Remy.”

“Of course.”

I tossed a mental kiss toward the door behind which Bo waited for me before ducking into the store room and slipping out the back door into the parking garage. I was gone before West and his men even knew I was there.