Chapter 18 #2
So the next morning, while she’s in the kitchen with Emma and the kids are busy destroying a pile of blocks in the common room, I swap out the strike plate and tighten the screws in under three minutes flat.
Nobody notices.
Then there are the cameras.
Dom usually handles most of the tech stuff when it matters, but I know enough to adjust the basics without bothering him for every little thing.
The outside camera on the east side had too much dead space near the side lot anyway.
I angle it lower. Widen the porch sweep.
Tighten the hallway coverage on the downstairs entrance so if anyone unknown comes near that end of the building, I’ll know before they get close enough to matter.
Still not enough.
Then I start paying attention to who gets near her. That one happens by instinct more than plan.
A brother lingers too long in the kitchen doorway while she’s making lunch for Lexi? I appear beside the fridge.
Some old hangaround from one of the out-of-town crews wanders a little too close on the porch while she’s outside with the kid? I ask him if he’s lost.
One of the prospects clocks her a little too openly in the common room? He suddenly finds himself volunteered for a deeply unpleasant cleanup job in the garage.
Nobody gets too comfortable. Nobody gets too curious. Nobody with a pulse and a functioning survival instinct mistakes her for available.
That’s not possessive. That’s practical. At least that’s what I tell myself.
The lie gets thinner every day.
By late afternoon, I’ve managed to talk myself into the garage long enough to keep my hands busy with something mechanical because if I spend another hour inside the clubhouse cataloging every small change in Raven’s expression, I’m going to lose whatever edge of objectivity I’ve still got left.
Shadow finds me there, naturally. Because if there’s one thing that man does well, it’s appearing exactly where he’ll be most irritating.
He leans against the open bay door, cut on, arms crossed, watching me with the kind of expression that says he’s been noticing entirely too much and enjoying it. “You look pissed.”
I don’t glance up from the bike in front of me. “That your official diagnosis?”
“Pretty sure that’s the technical term.”
I tighten a bolt harder than necessary. “What do you want?”
Shadow is quiet for a second, which usually means he’s deciding how annoying he wants to be. “Nothing,” he says eventually. “Just wondering why you’ve suddenly got the downstairs hallway under tighter security than church.”
That gets my attention.
I straighten slowly and look at him.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t grin.
Just waits.
I wipe my hands on a rag and keep my tone flat. “You got a problem with it?”
“Nope.”
“Then mind your business.”
Shadow’s mouth twitches. “Pretty sure it became my business when you started acting like the guest wing’s holding state secrets.”
I stare at him.
He stares right back. Then he says, quieter this time, “You know you can just say you’re worried.”
I laugh once without humor. “About what?”
“Pick one.”
There are too many. That’s the problem.
I look away first because if I don’t, I might say something honest and I’m not in the mood for self-reflection with an audience.
Shadow lets the silence stretch. Then, because apparently he’s decided not to be a complete bastard today, he says, “Whatever happened to her…you don’t need details to know it was bad.”
I glance at him again.
He isn’t wrong.
That’s what’s been eating at me all damn day. The fact that I don’t know exactly what happened, and somehow that almost makes it worse because my head keeps filling in the blanks with things ugly enough to make my vision go hot around the edges.
“I know enough,” I say.
“Yeah.” Shadow shifts his weight against the doorframe. “You gonna ask?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Because if she wants to tell me, she will. Because if she doesn’t, I’ll still be ready to put somebody in the ground for it. Because I’m already too fucking invested in a situation I should’ve left at the state line.
Instead I just say, “Doesn’t matter yet.”
Shadow studies me for a second too long, then nods once like he understands exactly what I mean.
That should bother me. It does.
He pushes off the doorframe and starts to leave, then pauses long enough to add, “If you start checking the locks twice a night, I’m putting you on a leash.”
“Get fucked.”
His laugh follows him out into the yard.
I should be annoyed. Instead, I go right back to thinking about the locks.
That evening, the clubhouse settles into its usual rhythm. Kids in and out of the common room. Dinner smells drifting from the kitchen.
Brothers moving through the space with beers, boots, and too much volume.
I keep one eye on everything without looking like I’m doing it, which is a skill I got good at a long time ago and have apparently now repurposed for a woman who is absolutely not my responsibility in any official capacity.
Raven sits at one of the tables with Lexi tucked against her side while Emma and Mac argue over something stupid and the kids race in and out of the room like tiny criminals. Raven laughs once at something Emma says, soft and surprised and still a little disbelieving every time it happens.
Then somebody upstairs drops something heavy.
A loud crack. Sudden. Sharp.
Raven startles so hard even though to everyone else it’s almost invisible.
Her shoulders jerk. Her spine goes rigid. Her hand tightens instantly around Lexi’s arm like she’s anchoring herself through the kid.
And just like that, my imagination betrays me in vivid, violent detail.
I see bruised-looking fingerprints in my head.
Not real ones. Not something I’ve actually seen on her skin.
Just the shape of them. The implication of them.
Thumb marks around an upper arm. A hand clamped too hard around a wrist. Fingerprints blooming dark against pale skin where someone bigger and meaner and too fucking comfortable with control decided he had the right.
My vision narrows. It only lasts a second. Maybe less.
Then Raven blinks, breathes, smooths her hand over Lexi’s back like nothing happened, and keeps talking to Emma as if her body didn’t just tell on a history she still hasn’t spoken aloud.
But I saw it. I saw all of it. And something ugly settles deeper.
Not just anger now. Not just protective instinct.
No.
Something more focused than that.
I’m starting to want names. Not vague pieces of a story. Not “the ex.” Not “connected.”
Names.
I want the exact shape of the man who taught her body to react like that. I want his face. I want his schedule. I want to know how many people would miss him if he disappeared and whether any of them matter enough to complicate the math.
Because every time she startles, every time she apologizes too fast, every time she checks a lock like it might fail her if she doesn’t physically confirm it with her own hand, I feel the same thing clawing harder at the inside of my chest.
Whoever touched her should be afraid.
And I’m getting real close to making that a practical problem instead of just a thought.