Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
RJ
Something wakes me in the gray hours before dawn.
I reach for Dalla automatically, the way I've done every morning since we started sharing this bed.
My hand finds warm skin, the soft curve of her hip, and I relax.
She's here. She's safe, but something's off.
I lie still, listening.
The basement is quiet.
The clubhouse above is silent.
No sounds of disturbance, no alarms, nothing that should have pulled me from sleep.
Just the soft hum of the air conditioning and Dalla's steady breathing beside me.
Then I see it.
On the nightstand, next to Dalla's phone, there's a paper coffee cup.
The logo is familiar—that little café about a mile down the road, the one I've passed on perimeter checks.
Green letters, cheerful font.
The cup is empty, a ring of dried foam around the inside, a lipstick mark on the rim that matches the shade Dalla was wearing yesterday.
A to-go cup.
From outside the compound.
I sit up slowly, careful not to wake her.
My mind is already racing.
That cup wasn't here when we fell asleep.
Which means sometime after I fell asleep, while I was unconscious beside her, Dalla left the compound.
Alone. Without telling me. Without protection.
After everything that's happened.
After the camera in the woods.
After the sedan.
After I explicitly told her there was a threat.
After she promised me she wouldn't keep secrets.
She left anyway.
The anger that floods through me is hot and immediate, burning away the last traces of sleep.
I want to shake her awake and demand an explanation.
I want to yell.
I want to put my fist through the wall.
I want to wrap her in my arms and never let go, because the thought of her out there alone, vulnerable, unprotected—
It makes me want to burn the world down.
Instead, I take a breath.
Then another.
Then a third, because the first two didn't do shite.
I force myself to think like a soldier instead of a man in love.
She went out.
She came back.
She's here, in this bed, alive and unharmed.
Whatever happened, whatever risk she took, she survived it.
But that doesn't make it okay.
Not even close.
I slip out of bed and pull on jeans, moving quietly.
I need a minute to get my head straight before I confront her.
Need to figure out what I'm going to say that isn't just pure, unfiltered rage.
Need to remember that I love this woman, even when she does something so monumentally stupid that it makes me want to strangle her.
I take the coffee cup with me.
The basement common area is dark and empty, the only light coming from the small window well near the ceiling.
Dawn is just starting to break, painting the sky in shades of pink and gray.
I sink onto the couch and turn the cup over in my hands, studying it like it might give me answers.
The café's name is printed on the side in cheerful green letters.
There's a handwritten note on the cup—VL, for vanilla latte.
Her usual order.
The timestamp on the receipt stuck to the bottom says 10:01PM.
She didn't just step outside for air.
She walked—or drove—a mile down the road, after dark, ordered coffee, and came back.
While I slept not twenty feet away, completely oblivious.
Some fecking bodyguard I am.
The door to the bedroom opens, and Dalla appears in the doorway, wrapped in one of my t-shirts.
Her hair is mussed from sleep, her eyes still heavy-lidded.
She looks soft and beautiful and completely unaware of the storm that's about to break.
"Hey." She yawns, padding toward me on bare feet. "What are you doing up? Come back to bed."
I hold up the coffee cup.
She freezes.
"Want to explain this?" My voice is calm. Too calm.
I can hear the danger in it, and from the way her face pales, so can she.
"RJ—"
"You left." I set the cup down on the coffee table, carefully, deliberately. "You left the compound. Alone. In the middle of the night. After I told you there was a threat. After I asked you to trust me to keep you safe."
"I just went to get coffee. It was fifteen minutes, maybe twenty—"
"I don't care if it was five minutes." I stand, and she takes a step back. "Do you have any idea what could have happened? Do you have any idea what I felt when I woke up and realized you'd been gone?"
"You were asleep. You didn't even know—"
"That's the fecking point, Dalla!" The words explode out of me, louder than I intended. "I didn't know. I was lying there unconscious while you walked out into god knows what. If something had happened to you—"
"Nothing happened."
"This time. Nothing happened this time." I run my hands through my hair, trying to get a grip on myself. "What were you bloody thinking?"
"I was thinking that I couldn't sleep and I wanted coffee." Her voice has gone defensive, her chin lifting. "I was thinking that I've lived in Florida my whole life and I'm perfectly capable of walking down the road without a bodyguard."
"You're not just some random woman anymore. You're a target. You have enemies you don't even know about."
"Because you won't tell me about them!"
The accusation hangs between us, sharp and bitter.
She's not wrong.
I've kept things from her—the camera, the trafficking, the full scope of the danger.
I told myself it was to protect her, but maybe all I did was make her complacent.
Made her think the threat wasn't real.
"You're right," I say quietly. "I haven't told you everything. But that doesn't change the fact that you put yourself at risk tonight. Unnecessary risk. Stupid risk."
"Don't call me stupid."
"I didn't call you stupid. I said the risk was stupid. There's a difference." I take a breath, forcing myself to lower my voice. "Tell me what happened. All of it. Where did you go, what did you do, who did you see?"
She's quiet for a moment, her arms crossed over her chest.
I can see her weighing whether to fight me on this or cooperate.
Finally, she sighs.
"I went to the café. I ordered a vanilla latte and sat at the counter for maybe ten minutes." She pauses. "A woman bumped into me."
Everything in me goes still. "What woman?"
"I don't know. She said her name was Sol. She was about my age, maybe a little older. Dark hair, sharp features. She apologized, offered to buy me a replacement coffee."
"Did you take it?"
"She ordered it before I could say no. I took a few sips to be polite and then left." Dalla frowns, remembering. "There was something off about her. The way she looked at me. Like she was... studying me."
"Describe her again. Everything you remember."
"Dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail. Angular face—pretty, but kind of severe. She had this way of tilting her head, like a bird." Dalla shivers slightly. "Her eyes were wrong. They didn't match her smile."
My gut is screaming.
Everything she's describing—the calculated approach, the forced interaction, the intensity of observation—this wasn't a random encounter.
This was contact.
Intentional, planned contact.
"Did she touch you? Beyond the initial bump?"
"She shook my hand."
"Did she ask you questions? Personal questions?"
"She asked if my name was Scandinavian. I told her my parents are into Norse mythology." Dalla's frown deepens. "Why? RJ, what's going on?"
"Did she say anything else? Anything at all?"
"She said..." Dalla trails off, her face going pale. "She said she had a feeling we'd be seeing each other again."
Feck.
Feck, feck, feck!
"Stay here." I'm already moving toward the stairs. "I need to talk to your father."
"RJ, wait—" She grabs my arm, forcing me to stop. "Tell me what's happening. Please. You're scaring me."
I look at her—this woman I love, standing in my t-shirt with sleep-mussed hair and fear in her eyes.
She deserves to know.
She deserves the truth, even if it terrifies her.
"There's a trafficking organization operating in this area," I say quietly.
"Your father's club took down their front man a few months back.
But the real leader is still out there. We think they've been watching the compound, gathering intelligence.
The camera I found in the woods, the sedan—it's all connected. "
Her face has gone white. "You think this woman—Sol—is part of that?"
"I think it's too much of a coincidence. A stranger approaches you, makes deliberate contact, studies you, says she'll see you again?" I shake my head. "That's not random. That's a well thought out plan."
"Oh god." She presses a hand to her stomach, and I notice she looks pale. Paler than just fear would account for. "Oh god, RJ. I didn't know. I swear I didn't know."
"I know you didn't. That's why I need to tell your father. We need to figure out who this woman is and what she wants."
"I'm coming with you."
"Dalla—"
"No." Her voice is firm despite the tremor in it. "You said you wanted me to be your partner. That means I don't get to hide in the basement while you handle things. I'm coming."
I want to argue.
Every protective instinct in me is screaming to lock her in this basement and not let her out until I've eliminated every threat within a hundred miles.
But she's right.
She's been right this whole time.
"Fine," I say. "But you stay close to me. And after we talk to your father, we're having a conversation about you ever leaving this compound alone again."
"Fine."
We stare at each other for a moment—stubborn, angry, scared.
Then she crosses the distance between us and wraps her arms around my waist, pressing her face into my chest.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I wasn't thinking. I just needed to breathe, and I didn't want to wake you, and I thought—"
"I know." I hold her tight, feeling some of the anger drain out of me. "I know. Just... please. Don't do that again. I can't protect you if I don't know where you are."
"I won't. I promise."
I press a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her shampoo.
She's here. She's safe. That's what matters.
But the woman at the café—Sol—she's still out there.
And she knows exactly where to find us.