37
E rin moved to the slow melody, Paetyn’s hands on her hips as he stole kisses while they danced. It was the weekend before Halloween, and they were at Mirage for a themed night. Erin was sure the place was packed to capacity. There was a costume contest with a cash prize for the best three.
“You keep kissing me, and I’m going to think you’re trying to corrupt me,” she stated in his ear.
“Would it take a lot, little angel?” he teased.
She’d decided to dress as an angel that year. It made the most sense to her. She wore a long white dress that plunged in the back and a halo. She’d forgone the wings, not wanting to fight with them all night. Her men were dressed in all black. Demons to her angel.
“I guess we’ll find out at the end of the night. I still need to stop by my apartment when we leave.” She needed to pick up a few things to finish her first two-week stay with them. Chayse had picked her up so she could help her get ready, and they’d stopped by her apartment to get the dress, but they were running short on time, so she hadn’t grabbed anything else.
Paetyn nodded, and they continued their slow sway until the song went off. It was the third they’d danced through and headed back to their section. Cruz pulled her down onto his lap, and she grabbed her drink off the table. Remy and Lawrence had taken to the dance floor, and Chayse and Nik were doing the rounds. Alijah and Kieran sat on a couch across from them. Her friend had managed to get Kieran to dance a couple of times, but for the most part, she’d danced with either her or Chayse.
Cruz and Kieran were similar in their stances on dancing. They preferred not to, but Erin had gotten him to dance with her a couple of times. However, she would never try to push him outside of his comfort zone. Since Paetyn would dance with her whenever, she’d dance a few with him and one with Cruz afterward while spending most of her time in their section on his lap or between them.
“Your phone has been vibrating nonstop, Ma?y.”
“It has?” she asked. She hadn’t noticed it before.
“Since the two of you went to dance,” he responded.
She felt the vibration from her clutch that sat beside them as if on cue. She put her glass down and took the phone from the bag. It wasn’t a saved number but had a Washington area code, and Erin’s stomach dropped. Had something happened to her dad?
“I’m going to go take this real quick,” she stated, standing and leaving the section before anyone could respond.
She briefly considered going to Nik’s office, but she knew the door leading there was locked and didn’t want to track him down. Instead, she headed for the front door and entered the cool October weather.
“Hello?” she answered, walking away from the line of people still hoping to get in and any prying ears. Static answered her. “Hello?” she asked again.
“Such a pretty angelic being.”
Erin furrowed her brow. The voice was low, and she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. She realized this might have been the person who was calling before. After she blocked the first number, they called from others, and she’d block it whenever she answered, and no one said anything. Or she only heard a word or two. This was the first time she’d been able to make out a whole sentence, and she immediately began to look around because this person knew what she was wearing.
“Who is this?” she asked after a moment, and she could only describe the answering sound as a sigh. “Who is this?” she stressed. This time, there was nothing, and she hung up the phone.
A car came to a slow stop beside her, and Erin wasn’t paying it any mind as she blocked this most recent number. It wasn’t until the horn blew, startling her, that she looked up. The windows were deeply tinted. The passenger side window was down just enough for her to see something round that resembled a barrel.
Her stomach dropped as a loud pop came, and she was shot with…rose petals? She looked down at them, a bit shaken before it was overtaken by anger, and she glared at the now rolled-up window.
“What do you want?!” she yelled. “Leave me alone!”
The car drove away, and she glimpsed at the license plate, trying to remember what she could of it.
“Erin?”
She jumped at her name and turned to find Nik staring at her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “What are you doing out here?”
“I had to get something from my car. You don’t seem fine. What was that about?”
“I am, and it was nothing.”
“It didn’t seem like nothing,” he countered. “What’s going on?”
“Drop it, Nik. I don’t answer to you,” she responded, irritated because she didn’t want to think about it.
“But you’re about to answer to me.”
Well, shit, Erin thought at the sound of Paetyn’s voice. Nik looked between them when her boyfriend had joined them before leaving them.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
Erin sighed. There was no point in beating around the bush. “I thought the phone call I just received might have been a hospital or someone calling about my dad since it was a Washington area code, but it wasn’t. It was whoever’s been calling.”
“You blocked that number like we asked you to?”
“Yes, but they made another one, and when I blocked it, it started a cycle of them making new ones and me blocking it.”
“When did they start calling again?”
“A couple of days after I blocked them the first time, and just now, a car pulled up and fired a rose cannon at me, but I couldn’t see who it was.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. See the petals.” She pointed at the ground.
“You know that isn’t what I’m talking about. They’re still calling you.”
Erin had only ever seen him annoyed once, but what she saw now was beyond that.
“You can’t be mad at me for them calling; I can’t control that.”
“I’m not only pissed that they’re still bothering you. I’m mad you didn’t tell us, Erin.”
She involuntarily flinched. “You can’t do anything more than I can about it, so what was the point in telling you? And don’t call me Erin.” She placed her hands on his chest. “I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you. It was only stupid calls, and I wasn’t worried about it until this happened, but I got part of the car’s plate. Maybe we can find out who it is, and I can get a restraining order.”
“There are cameras outside of the building. I’ll ask Nik to see if they caught the full plate.” He paused. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“As okay as I can be with some weirdo calling me and now showing up where I am at random.”
He pulled her into his chest. “I should have asked you that first instead of being upset. So, I apologize. We’ll figure it out, but I need you to keep us in the loop.”
“I will. I promise.”
“Good, and you have to tell Cruz.”
Erin pouted up at him. “Can’t you tell him for me?” Her boyfriend had such a way with words that he could make it seem like nothing and keep her other one from being too upset.
“Nice try, Angel, but no.”
“Fine.”
Paetyn led her back into the building, and Erin thought loving on her man before she told him would keep him calm.
C ruz hadn’t been the happiest when Erin told him she was still receiving calls. He wasn’t upset with her for something out of her control, but he was upset with her for not telling them about it. He understood that since they were using text apps, there wasn’t a real way to track the person, and other than annoying calls; they hadn’t done anything until showing up at the club.
Nik checked the security footage and gave them the entire plate. Cruz sent it to Vega to run for them. He didn’t know how the other man accessed the DMV database, but he was sure it had not come by entirely legal means. Cruz didn’t care as long as it yielded information they could use to get whoever it was to stop harassing their girlfriend.
He was ninety percent positive that it was a man. However, Erin said she wasn’t sure from the voice since they’d been speaking so low, and they hadn’t said anything before setting off the rose petal cannon. That made him assume the nuisance was male because a woman would have likely tried to ruin her dress. Instead, the gesture had almost seemed romantic if tormenting someone with unwanted attention could be considered such.
He was waiting to hear back from Vega as he pulled into Erin’s building’s parking garage. She needed to pick up a few things before they headed home.
They were headed down the hall to her apartment when his phone vibrated. A text from Vega stated he’d call him in a few minutes. He hadn’t realized Erin had stopped short of her front door until he almost ran into her. He glanced down at her before looking at the door and found it slightly ajar.
“Stay here with Paetyn,” he instructed, stepping around her.
The lights were off in the apartment as he pushed the door open more. He turned them on and looked around the open living space. Nothing he could see was readily out of place, and he decided to check the other rooms, opening the closets and checking under her bed. He didn’t find anything and returned to the living room, where Paetyn stood in the doorway, Erin behind him.
“There’s no one here,” he announced. “Did you forget to set the alarm?” he asked her.
“I…maybe. We were in a hurry, and I must have forgotten,” she responded.
Cruz refrained from allowing his irritation to show. What was the point in the system if she didn’t remember to set the alarm, especially when she could do it from her phone? Even more so with the calls she’d been receiving. He understood she might have thought they were harmless and annoying, but that could change.
“Nothing seems out of place,” Paetyn stated, looking around. “Maybe you didn’t close the door completely,” he directed at Erin while Cruz went to the security panel.
The rest of their conversation was background noise as he pulled up the footage for the last few hours. He watched Erin leave, the sound of the door closing heard distinctly, and she locked the deadbolt with her key.
He then ran it at four times the speed from the time Erin left. At some point, the door opened, and the camera swung in, but no one was on the camera. It wasn’t until they left that he saw them, the back of the person wearing a black hoodie, head covered by a beanie.
Cruz didn’t like this. They’d avoided the camera on entry, which meant they knew it was there since it only picked up the front of the door so as not to infringe on her neighbor’s privacy.
“She closed and locked the door,” he stated as he paused the video with them on screen.
“Who is that?” Erin asked.
“I’m just as lost as you,” he responded.
“Why break in and not take anything?” Paetyn asked.
Erin paused, then turned back to the living room and looked around. She then went down the hall, returning as fast as she’d disappeared.
“Because they did take something,” she stated, going to the entertainment system under her television. She pointed to the several empty spots. “They took all the pictures I have with you.”
She was right. She’d had some of the pictures they’d taken at the botanical gardens and on vacation printed, framed, and placed around her living room, with two in her bedroom.
“We need to call the police,” Paetyn stated.
“And tell them what? Someone broke in to steal pictures?” Erin asked. “They’ll probably laugh.”
“When it was just calls, there was nothing they could do. Now, someone has broken in and attacked you in public,” Paetyn countered.
“I wasn’t attacked. They shot rose petals at me.”
“So then you enjoyed it?” Cruz asked because regardless of what it was, it unnerved her.
“You know I didn’t.”
“Then we’re calling the police,” Paetyn responded, taking his phone out.
“I’m telling you—”
“Go pack, Erin,” Cruz cut her off. “At this point, it isn’t up for debate. I don’t care if they take it seriously or not. It’s better to have it on the record.”
She glared at him before turning and damn near stomping off towards her bedroom, throwing over her shoulder. “Stop fucking calling me Erin.”
Cruz took a deep breath as his phone rang, and he glanced at the name before answering.
“Hey, Vega.”
“Hey. That plate you sent is registered to a rental company,” the other man stated, getting down to business as always. “I can go down there in the morning if you want and see if they’ll tell me who rented it, but I don’t anticipate having much luck. I’ve had to deal with them before, and without a warrant, they wouldn’t tell me shit.”
He thought about it briefly. There was no point in Vega wasting his time when he knew they wouldn’t cooperate. Besides, they had the license plate number to give to the police when they arrived, and they could get the information since the vehicle had been used in an attack—an untraditional one, but one nonetheless. Erin could have been right, and they might not see it as that, but at least going through the steps would show they’d done so if something else happened.
“Thanks for the offer, but don’t worry about it,” Cruz responded.
“Okay. Let me know if you need anything else.”
They ended the call, and Paetyn was off the phone by that time. “The police are on their way.” He paused. “Why do you think they’re doing this?”
“Crazy people don’t need a reason for what they do.” Did he know for sure they were crazy? No. But he didn’t see another explanation for what was happening.
“I know she said calling the police is pointless, and she’s putting on a brave face, but she’s shaken.”
“I know,” Cruz responded. “Unless one of us is with her, I don’t want her here alone.” It would be easier for her to stay with them until they sorted everything out.
Paetyn walked over to the monitor. “Whoever this is better hope we never end up in the same room together. I will beat them until they can’t stand for this shit.”
Cruz paused, looking at the other man. It had been a long while since he’d heard that tone of voice, and anytime he had, nothing good followed. Paetyn was so good about keeping calm and his emotions in check. Something he hadn’t always been good about. Angering him was never in anyone’s best interest.
“I have my things,” Erin announced, pulling a suitcase behind her. Cruz took it from her and placed it by the door.
“The police should be here soon,” Paetyn supplied, eyes still on the screen.
“Ma?y, when did these calls start?”
“I don’t remember the exact date, but it was a couple of days after the convention I went to when we first started dating. I could check. Why?”
“I’m just curious.” He pulled her over to the couch. “We know you’re supposed to return here next week, but we don’t want you here alone. At least until this gets handled.”
“Okay,” she responded, and he could easily see she had no desire to be there alone either. “Paetyn, come sit with me, please.”
Paetyn joined them on the couch, and Erin placed her hand on his thigh. Cruz was sure his mood wasn’t lost on her. It was almost like they could feel it. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t just as pissed, but both of them giving off that energy wouldn’t help the situation. So, he was remaining calm. It wasn’t often that he and Paetyn switched roles, but it seemed that tonight was one of those times.
Once the police came and took the report, they left her apartment, double-checking the lock and setting the alarm. Whoever had picked them hadn’t even scratched the plating. When they were home in bed later that morning, Erin snuggled between them; Cruz mildly wondered if Erin getting harassed was their fault. It hadn’t started until after she began dating them, and he could think of a few exes that might be a bit salty things ended.
However, he was almost sure the figure on the screen had been a man, a slight one, but a man, unless the bagginess of the hoodie was throwing him off. With a silent exhale, he closed his eyes, wanting to forget about the night’s events.