Chapter 4
Dane
I stare down at my woman. My life . I’m afraid to blink. This can’t be real. No one comes back from the dead. I’ve had a million daydreams about her somehow returning to me. I’ve thought of so many irrational possibilities.
The reason I’ve been able to pose scenarios in my head is because there was no open casket—a decision her father made because the morgue advised it. They’d said the body was too damaged. They were certain they’d positively identified her from dental records. They said seeing her would leave a lasting image neither of us could ever erase.
It had gutted me, but I’d gone along with it. What they hadn’t warned us was that we wouldn’t have closure. That I would spend the rest of my life wondering if it had really been her. What if she hadn’t been at that bank? Maybe she’d been in another bank branch, and she’d been kidnapped and was being held in someone’s basement. What if she’d been sold in some human trafficking ring? What if she’d had amnesia and was a Jane Doe in some random hospital? And I was just out there living my life, not looking for her.
That’s what happened to my mind because I didn’t see her body. But I never considered witness protection. I didn’t even know the shooter had escaped. I hadn’t paid a bit of attention to what happened to the robbers. I was busy burying my fucking girlfriend.
There’s a knock at the door, and I glance in that direction, annoyed. I know it will be Drake and Easton. They’re worried. They have a right to be. “I need to reassure my friends you’re okay.”
I slide off the bed and pull Paige to her feet, taking her hand because I’m not willing to let her go. I need to touch her.
I shuffle across the room and open the door. Sure enough, the Riley brothers are standing at the door with furrowed brows.
Easton runs a hand over his head. “I’m sorry, man, but I’d be a horrible club owner if I didn’t check on Shannon.”
I nod and step back. “Come in.”
When they both enter, I shut the door.
Drake homes in on Paige. “Are you okay?”
She nods. She also grabs my arm possessively and leans her cheek against my bicep.
I wrap my arm around her and pull her against my side. “We need to talk,” I say to my friends, looking back and forth between them.
Easton nods toward the corner of the room that’s covered with ceramic from the shattered lamp. “I’ll grab a broom.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, pulling Paige around to my front. I need both hands on her.
Easton returns, but when I start to reach for the broom and dustpan, he shakes me off. “I’ve got it.”
I breathe heavily as I watch my friend clean up my mess. He’s quick about it.
Finally, Drake and Easton sit on the loveseat.
I grab a chair from the small table in the kitchenette area and bring it over. I sit and pull Paige between my legs before lifting her onto my thigh.
I glance back and forth between the brothers. “Please tell me no one else knows what happened except Marny.”
Drake nods. “Not a soul. We’ve spoken to Marny in private. We immediately brought her up to the office. She assured us that she hadn’t said a word to anyone. She hadn’t even had a chance. No one else had passed her. Not that she would have. But the point is, we can easily look at the footage from that time period. And, before you ask, yes, we have checked. Marny did not see or speak to a soul, nor did she use her phone.”
I breathe easier.
Paige relaxes marginally on my thigh. She wraps an arm around my neck and plays with the collar of my shirt. She probably doesn’t even know she’s doing it. It’s so fucking life-affirming. Everything she’s done since bumping into me has been life-affirming.
Easton leans forward, setting his elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands together. “The story Marny will tell anyone who asks is that, yes, there was a woman who came in. She watched what was going on for a few minutes, didn’t feel like the scene was right for her, and left. We refunded her the dues she’d paid. It’s what we would do for anyone.”
I blow out a long breath.
Drake’s brows are furrowed. He addresses Paige. “I assume you’re under government protection.”
I groan.
Paige has the gall to chuckle. She pats my shoulder. “Yes. And this is a problem. I can’t tell a soul. It’s vitally important. My handler is going to have a fucking field day when I tell him I had the audacity to join a fetish club and four people found out who I am.”
“If it helps,” Drake says, “Marny knows nothing. Easton and I would never say a fucking word, not even to Faye and Lily. If we need to talk to your handler, we will be happy to do so.”
“They’re going to want to relocate me,” Paige mutters.
I squeeze around her waist. “That’s not going to happen.”
She stiffens. “I don’t get options, Dane.”
“Yes, you do. You can withdraw from the program.”
Her breath hitches. “And sit around waiting for that fucker to find me and kill you for harboring me?” She shakes her head. “Not a fucking chance. I’d rather be hidden and never see you again than find you dead because of me.”
“No one is going to kill me, baby. I’m sharper than them. Besides, I’m going to find that asshole first, so he doesn’t have the opportunity.”
Paige jerks her gaze toward me and then jumps off my leg and shoves away from me. She moves so fast, she’s out of my reach in a heartbeat. Hands on hips, she glares at me. “No. Fuck , no. See? This is one of the reasons I let them relocate me in the first place. You’re so hotheaded. You think you can hunt down a fucking killer and what? Fight him? Wrestle him to the ground and hold him with your knee while you wait for the cops to arrive?”
I can’t help but smirk. She has no idea what I’m capable of. “Baby, when I find that asshole, I will not be turning him over to the cops. You will not be waiting a year for his trial. There will be no trial.”
She gasps, eyes wide. “Dane!”
“Okay,” Easton says as they both stand. “We’ll go. Let us know if you need anything.”
My two amazing friends leave the apartment.
Paige is still staring at me. I’m not sure she heard a word either of them said. Flames are coming out of her head.
She throws her hands in the air and screams at the ceiling.
“The apartments are well-soundproofed. You can scream as loud as you need. No one will hear you.”
“Oh, that’s just great.” She rolls her eyes. “Wonderful. That fixes everything.”
We stare at each other for several long seconds. Now doesn’t seem like a great time to elaborate on my plans for what to do about the man who robbed that bank and murdered everyone inside.
She looks away, probably not wanting to hear my words either. So, she changes the subject. “This is the smallest apartment in the history of studio apartments, Dane. How much is the rent?”
I rise and put the chair back under the table. She’s right. Without doing so, we hardly have room to move around. “Five thousand dollars a month.”
Her eyes bug out. “Five thousand dollars a month! Are you kidding me? That’s a lot of fucking money. You don’t even have a kitchen. How do you come up with that kind of money? I have a nice apartment a few blocks from where I work that’s much bigger than this for far less.”
I chuckle. “Baby, I don’t live here. This is a club. This apartment is a place I keep above the club. It’s a private play space.”
Her jaw drops. “You pay five grand a month for a play space?”
I move closer to her. I need to touch her. “Yes.”
“What the fuck do you do for work? You owned a security company clear across the country three years ago.”
I smile. “I still own it, baby. Levitt Security. I moved it to Seattle two years ago, hoping to get a fresh start. Plus, the business was growing. There were far bigger opportunities here. It’s been an extremely lucrative move. Most of our clients are high-dollar.”
She searches my gaze.
I grab her around the waist and pull her into me. “I can and will hide you indefinitely, baby. I will also find that fucker and take him out.”
“You can’t do that. It’s madness. You’d end up in prison. Where would that leave me?”
“I promise I will not end up incarcerated.”
“I can’t just walk away from my life, Dane,” she murmurs as she wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly.
I lower my face to her hair and inhale her scent. Fuck, I missed this. When she first died, I bought ten brands of shampoo that claimed to be burnt vanilla. I washed my pillowcases in them, trying to hold on to the memory of her scent. None of them were quite right, perhaps because they needed to be mixed with her own personal scent.
“That’s not your life,” I tell her softly. “Your life is with me.”
“You don’t even know me. Maybe I’m not the person you thought you loved,” she replies to my chest.
“I didn’t think I loved you…Paige. I loved you. I’m just a fucking fool for not saying it. Now, is there anything important you need from your apartment?”
She tips her head back. “You can’t be serious. This is madness. You need to let me walk out of here and never tell a soul about seeing me. It’s the only sane possibility.”
I shake my head. “Not a chance in hell. We’ll stay in this room until we figure out how to move you to my penthouse without anyone finding out.”
She rolls her eyes. “You have a penthouse?”
“Yes. I’ll need to put my cleaning people on hiatus. I have a safe room in the penthouse. If anything were ever to happen, you could go into it. No one would find you there.”
“You have a safe room,” she deadpans.
“I do.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Yes, you do. It’s just that I have more money than the last time you saw me.”
“Apparently.”
“Is there anything of sentimental value you want from your apartment? I’ll get it.”
She chuckles sardonically. “Everything of sentimental value I could have ever wanted was in my old apartment. That was one of the hard parts about walking away. I lost everything I owned. I’m sure it all went in the dumpster. Pictures. Mementos. Jewelry.” She lowers her forehead to my chest. “My mother’s ring. Some heirlooms. My father probably trashed it all.”
I slide my hands around her back and hold her close. I press my lips on top of her head. “I have all of that, baby.”
Her entire body goes stiff. She yanks her head back to look at me. “You’re kidding.”
I shake my head. At least I can give her this one thing. “No. I mean, I can’t be certain I took every single thing you might have wanted, but I have a box. You’re right. Your father was too upset to deal with your apartment and belongings, so I was the one to deal with it all. I couldn’t part with anything that you and I had accumulated together. And…” I’m choked up again. I need a second.
“And what, Dane?”
“I was a fool. All our friends thought I had lost my last brain cell. I couldn’t accept that you were gone. They tried to tell me, but I refused to believe it was true. So I packed up your favorite things and took them to my place. I told myself it was because I wasn’t ready to part with them. I also told myself you weren’t gone.” I don’t mention her phone yet. She’ll think I’ve gone mad.
She stares at me, tears running down her cheeks again. I hate that she keeps crying. I hate that I keep crying. But there’s no way to avoid it. We have to flush this all out.
“I didn’t get to see your body, baby.”
She swallows hard, nodding. “I wondered if that was going to work for you. I was afraid you might insist and ruin everything.”
I close my eyes. “Ruin everything… You mean your grand plan to cut me out of your life like I meant nothing?” My anger keeps coming back to the surface. I can’t stop it. There’s a war inside me. A war between the elation of finding out the only woman I ever loved is standing right in front of me, not dead, and knowing that she voluntarily walked away and never looked back. That part hurts.
“That’s not fair, Dane. You meant everything to me. That’s why I left. To keep you safe. To keep everyone I knew safe. What if my face had been plastered all over the news as the lone survivor? I saw him, Dane. I saw that asshole. I helped the FBI figure out who they were looking for. He’s out there somewhere. He knows I saw him. He knows what I looked like. The FBI had to act fast. They had to make a decision. I wasn’t conscious when they decided to tell the world there were no survivors. They hoped when I woke up, I would agree.”
I purse my lips, trying to understand.
Paige slips out of my arms and paces the room. “You don’t understand how fucking difficult it was to turn my back on everyone I knew, everyone I loved. By the time I woke up, you had already been told I was dead. My father was making arrangements for my funeral. The FBI spent hours explaining to me what would happen if the killer knew there had been a survivor.”
I growl in frustration. I get it. I do. I just hate it. I’m fully aware of how “persuasive” the FBI can be with witnesses. They need to keep them alive. I’m sure they told her everyone she knew would be murdered in their sleep, and maybe they were right.
She’s crying again. She’s ripping my heart out.
I go to her and open my arms. “Please, baby. I need to hold you.”
She comes to me.
I wrap her in my arms, not fully able to breathe except when I’m holding her. I don’t know when I’ll be able to stop touching her. When will I be able to sleep again? Not for a long time. I’ll be too scared to close my eyes. Afraid if I open them again, I’ll find out this was all a dream. She’s still dead. I’m still mourning her.
“We’ll stay here tonight. You’ll call in sick in the morning. I’ll do the same. My people can handle things without me. I have my computer here, and whatever we need, Drake and Easton can get it. We’ll both say we have the ugliest stomach flu ever. Been heaving all night. Not sure when we’ll be better. Fever. Shakes. Vomiting. Diarrhea. Whatever it takes.”
She inhales deeply and then nods. “Okay.”
“Do you have a burner phone you use to contact your handler?”
She smirks. “Do you know everything about the US Marshal Service?”
“Yes. I work in security, baby. I know everything about every organization. I have worked with the US Marshal Service before. I’ve helped them coordinate relocations, in fact. That will help. I have contacts. They’ll be less leery about our plan when they find out who I am.”
“You’re so sure of yourself.”
“Yes.” I don’t hesitate. We will figure this out. There are no other options.
She leans against me again, using her full body weight this time. “He’s going to be pissed. We’re not supposed to do anything that remotely looks like our old life. For me, that would include coming to a BDSM club.”
“What made you come here tonight?”
“I was so lonely. It’s been three years since I’ve even had dinner with a man. Three years since I did anything kinky. I did a lot of research and determined this was one of the most elite clubs in the Seattle area. I discovered that the owners were very well-respected. I decided to treat myself to a year’s membership for my birthday. I’d hoped I could find some solace here. I know I wasn’t supposed to join a club, but what were the chances anyone would ever make a connection between me and my former life? And no one would flinch about my identity. People often don’t use their real names in clubs. That wouldn’t be weird. It seemed foolproof. And then you stepped in front of me.”
“Thank fuck. Are you hungry? When have you eaten, baby?”
She shakes her head. “I couldn’t eat if I tried. I’m fine.”
“Is there anything you need tonight that I might not have? Any medicines or toiletries?”
“No. I’m fine.” She looks past me. “I do need one thing from you, Dane.”
“Anything, baby.”
“I need you to spank me. No, I need you to paddle me.” She looks in the other direction toward the armoire. “I bet you have all kinds of implements in that cabinet.”
I stare at her. I’d give anything to dominate my girl like I used to, but is it the best idea tonight? “Baby…”
She pushes away from me and shuffles across the room toward the armoire. She opens it and looks inside. “That’s what I suspected.” She reaches out to stroke a few different floggers before choosing one and lifting it from the hook. She grabs a paddle next.
When she turns around, a wry smile crosses my face. “I don’t think you remember how submission works, Paige.”
She rolls her eyes. “I remember just fine.” She hands me the items. “But I can see you’re worried, so I thought I’d help you out a bit. Start with your palm; move on from there.”
“Paige…”
She squares off with me, toe-to-toe, hands on her hips. “I need this, Dane. I need you to remind me. I need you to chase away the pain. I need you to make me forget. Please.”
Fuck .