Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
GRANT
“ J ax and Scott are stupid fucking names. You say them together like that and it sounds like one name. What kind of men have to put both of their names together to make up one full ass name?”
Rafe cuts into the cake that I brought back for Kit so hard that I’m half expecting the knife to get stuck in the cutting board. “They’re idiots.”
“Fucking one name sharing idiots,” I agree. “I don’t want them near Kit. That shit they’re doing with Alana is fine but not Kit.”
Rafe grunts in solidarity. Good, I’m glad we’re on the same page. We have to be with the way things are right now. “I don’t give a shit what Holly is saying. I’m not having Kit staying with those rent-a-cops.”
Kit slides onto a seat at the counter with a piece of pizza in hand. “They’re ex-special ops, I don’t think it’s fair to call them rent-a-cops.”
“I said what I said,” I tell her and set the kettle to boil water for her tea. “I don’t trust them, not with what Alexia told me about Holly.”
“Thought we agreed it wasn’t Holly,” Rafe says.
“That was before she decided to bring in a man named Jax.”
“Fair enough,” Rafe returns.
“We don’t think what is Holly?” Kit asks. She’s confused. The look on her face is adorable. I smile and lean across the counter to stroke her hair.
“Alexia thinks it’s Holly that took Jane. She’s convinced she’s got a hand in everything that’s going on now, but she’s wrong,” Rafe tells her. “Grant is just pissed because of the meatheads she hired to keep you safe.”
‘That’s our job,” I say because I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of saying that I’m pissed even if it is the truth and we all know it.
“Holly couldn’t…I mean, she wouldn’t do that, would she?”
“No way. She needs this movie to work as badly as we do. Besides, how would Holly be taking photos of us with no one knowing? The paparazzi feeding the photos to the papers would love nothing more than to be the one to expose something like that.” He slides a plate of cake in front of her and hands her a fork. “Eat up and don’t worry about this shit. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”
Kit looks like she wants to keep asking questions but she finishes her pizza and picks up the fork. Lofi plays in the living room, the calming strains of it filter into the kitchen and it’s almost easy to slip into the domesticity of the moment. We had moments like this in Seattle. Too few for my liking but enough that I know how good this part of being with Kit and Rafe can be.
I’m starting to steep her tea when Kit puts her fork down and breaks the calm. “Alana is coming with us, right?”
“Yeah, if that’s what you want. The place is big enough for her.”
“Okay, good, I just…I don’t like being far away from her while this is going on, even if she’s happy about what she’s calling her ‘bodyguard era.’” She picks up her phone and I know she’s texting Alana. Her friend left half an hour before with Jax and Scott in tow. They’d been reassigned to keeping Alana safe for the evening in the cabin next to us. The cabin was assigned to only Jax and Scott but they are putting Alana up for the night under Holly’s direction.
“She’s fine,” Rafe soothes as he rounds the counter to wrap an arm around her. “We wouldn’t have let her go if we didn’t think they were okay.”
“But you were just calling them rent-a-cops. That doesn’t sound good. Alana is like my sister. She has to be safe .” Kit is drumming her fingers on the counter and wiggling her foot. She does both when she’s anxious or nervous.
I bring Kit her tea and put my hand on hers to still her fingers. “Not fans of them in our territory. We keep you safe and nothing is ever going to change that. We don’t need a couple of washed up military bros creeping around our space.”
Kit threads her fingers through mine and I feel her relax. “I still can’t believe Holly got bodyguards.”
Of course Kit doesn’t understand why Holly got the okay for bodyguards that look like the poster boys for a superhero movie. They’re fit, I’ll give them that. Not that Rafe and I couldn’t take them apart if we wanted to. Rafe looks at me and raises an eyebrow. I know what he’s thinking.
We need to tell her there’s more than one.
We haven’t yet because there hasn’t been time alone. I rub my knuckles over hers and nod at him. Now is as fine a time as any to tell her. But before I can, Kit’s phone pings with a text.
“Who’s that? Alana?” Rafe asks.
“Yes it is.” Kit laughs and then holds her phone up to show us a gif of a woman drooling with heart eyes. There’s a photo and text with it of Jax and Scott shirtless in the living room. One of them is doing push-ups and the other is looking out the window.
“Is this what your life is like? It is, isn't it?”
“I think it’s safe to say Alana is doing just fine,” she says and starts to text her friend back.
Rafe leans over her shoulder to get a better look at the phone and scoffs but I don’t know miss the way he walks off into the living room and starts doing a set of push-ups too. Fucking idiot.
Kit looks up from her phone at us. “I know that it’s not ideal having Jax and Scott around but it could be helpful, right? We don’t really know who we’re up against and five against one are great odds.”
“Two, maybe three…could be four, I guess but that feels like overkill,” I tell her, even though this isn’t how I wanted to do it. It’s only going to make her worry but there’s no way around it. The only way forward is through it.
“What do you mean two? ” Kit asks but she pauses when she seems to realize Rafe is exercising. “Are you doing push-ups? Is this because Jax is doing push-ups?”
“Fuck Jax and his stupid name,” Rafe grunts and keeps going. “It’s stupid. Grant’s right and you know I fucking hate saying that.”
I sigh and reach over the counter to grab the cake I brought. I didn’t pay much attention to the flavors but I know Kit loves strawberries and chocolate and this cake is extreme chocolate and strawberry to the max. I grab two forks. Rafe will want cake when he’s done with his set.
“You know, a lot of people would say that your name is stupid, too,” I point out because it's fun to work Rafe up. He shifts and moves to one-handed push-ups so he can flip me off with his free hand.
“Eat my ass.”
I throw up my hands and replace Kit’s plate with the cake platter. She deserves the entire cake, not just one slice. “What part of later don’t you get?”
Kit claps her hands and pulls both of our attention back to her. “What do you mean two? Two what?”
“Two stalkers,” I say because I’m not ready to call them killers. Not yet. Jane is missing but from what Alexia said she smelled and the jug we saw, the blood is fake.
“H-how do you know there’s two of them?” Kit asks and her voice sounds so small that I get angry. The feeling comes on a rush, like water from the tap that I turned on and now can’t turn off. I close my eyes and take in a deep breath to calm the fuck down.
“The times,” I tell her and take in another deep breath. “I talked to Alexia today. She said she saw Jane at three-thirty am, but the fucks that took the photo of us did it at three forty. That’s only ten minutes and this place is too damn big for them to cover that kind of ground in ten minutes.” I take the photo out of my pocket and slide it across the counter to Kit.
“You see that?” I tap the picture beside where the alarm clock numbers shine bright.
Kit squints and brings the photo up to her face while I start to inhale chocolate cake. Rafe finally gets up from his push-ups and yanks his shirt off on his way to us. He looks good. I pass him a fork and he digs into the cake without a word.
“Yeah, I see the time…so what you’re saying is there’s not enough time for them to have taken this photo and taken Jane from the last time Alexia saw her?” she asks. Rafe holds out a forkful of cake to her while I nod.
“Exactly. We’re working with at least two people here. I wouldn’t be surprised if two of them helped set up that ladder, which is why I said maybe three. After what rent-a-cop number one said about finding the ladder, I’m not so sure.”
“His name is Jax,” Kit points out from around a mouthful of cake and Rafe kisses her silent.
I nod my thanks to him and keep going. “He said they weren’t sure why they didn’t pack that ladder up if they had a vehicle to bring it out. I’m thinking maybe there was just one and there wasn’t enough time so they left and drove off.”
Rafe nods in agreement. “Could be someone almost saw them or came too close, with the kind of party that was going on. Couple wanders off from the main group and stumbles on them before they can put that ladder away so they say ‘fuck it’ and leave.”
“That makes sense,” Kit says. She slumps forward against the counter and yawns. “There’s a lot of reasons they could have left that ladder, I guess.” I don’t miss the way her shoulders droop as she rests her head against her hands. My girl is tired.
I rub her back and brush her hair to the side. “Let’s get you to bed.”
She looks over her shoulder at me and smiles. “Bed sounds nice.”
Kit lets me help her out of the chair and it’s with a quick touch to my shoulder that Rafe moves past us and into the kitchen. He starts cleaning while I get Kit ready for bed. I stay with her while she’s in the tub and brushes her teeth. I’m the one that goes into the bedroom to get her clothes for her. I give the skylight a glance on my way out but there’s nothing there but the moon and sky. When I bring Kit her clothes to change into, I keep my eyes on the bedroom door. I don’t know what I’m expecting to happen but I watch. There’s nothing else I can do but be ready to get my hands dirty if Kit is in danger.
In the end, nothing happens and Kit goes through her skincare routine and brushes her hair on autopilot. We don’t talk and the silence is nice. Just being with her makes me feel calmer. I can stay in control to keep her safe. Kit puts on her bracelet and I touch it when she slips past me. I like seeing jewelry on her that Rafe and I got her. It’ll be rings soon but the bracelet works for now. I don’t miss the way she brings her knives with her and slips them beneath the pillow on the pull-out couch we’re sleeping in. I pull the blankets up around her chin and smooth her hair back while Rafe turns off the kitchen light and goes to the bathroom to get ready for bed. That’s exactly where I stay until he climbs into bed next to her.