29. Soren
Soren
M y footsteps are unsteady on the way to the kitchen. It’s still early morning and I hold the edge of the counter as I make coffee. Muscles aching and head light. This is the kind of thing a man can get used to. The perfect way to start the morning.
Aiden walks into the room with a yawn and his arms stretched overhead. “She’s in the shower. And I texted Tase.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s on his way. Gilli’s stalker threat is the kind of thing we need to discuss between us.”
He quirks a smile in a way he knows pisses me off, but the thought of having a tête-à-tête this early doesn’t even bother me. Not really.
“She wants him too, you know,” Aiden tells me. Like it’s the news of the century.
I jerk my head in acknowledgment. “I got it, yeah. It was impossible to miss the moon eyes the other night.”
“Our girl is greedy in all the right ways.”
It’s quiet and peaceful as we wait for the coffee machine to work its magic. And only about ten minutes later the crunch of rubber on gravel announces Tase’s arrival. He must have dragged himself straight out of bed and into the car.
“He sure sped his ass over here,” I mutter. “Probably shoulda gotten a ticket.”
Gilli might be defiant and assures herself she’s got it covered, but I have my doubts. The more I think about it, the more the fear digs deeper into my mind. It’s impossible to miss the worry in her eyes and the blatant unhappiness when she thinks we’re not watching.
It isn’t her fault some fuckheads decided to target her. She’s lucky she made it to the cabin in the first place.
I’m not sure when my hatred dissolved, when it shifted from an always present sensation sharing my mind to this distant thread of feeling, like something that never belonged to me.
Or maybe I’ve found a more deserving outlet for it—those fuckheads hunting her.
I’ve got no doubt she’s telling the truth now. There are some pretty sick people out there and the anonymity of the internet emboldens them.
She was scared enough to leave everything behind to escape. I’ve never seen a person willing to leave their cell phone. And now it makes sense why she has refused to leave here. It wasn’t stubbornness like I originally thought.
It was survival.
Aiden answers the knock at the door, and Tase stands on the other side bundled in a leather jacket. His gaze narrows on me. “You said it was an emergency.” He sounds accusatory.
“And you know you don’t have to knock,” Aiden chides. “Come in.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to interrupt anything.” Tase draws in a deep breath. “Smells like sex in here.”
Aiden bursts out laughing and my scowl deepens. “ Which is why she’s in the shower right now,” I say. “Washing away our cum.”
Tase grimaces. “Sure, blame it on Gilli. Got any coffee?” He shucks off the coat, moving to the couch and sprawling out with his arms over the back. His head drops. “What’s the rush, Sor? What’s the big emergency?”
I head into the kitchen for the coffee pot and pour out three mugs.
The water is still running in the shower. Gilli won’t be able to hear us.
“Yesterday she told us what’s going on,” I reply as I hand one mug to Tase and the other to Aiden. We’re gonna need it. “Some asshole threatened her during a live video, then men came to her apartment. She thinks she’s being followed.”
Tase sits up straighter. “Followed?”
Ah, there we go. The darkness in his eyes turns to flint.
“Apparently the dude who made the threats has done this kind of shit before. Cops are too busy with their donuts to pay her any mind,” Aiden fills in. He shakes his head. “She called the police when she got here.”
“Did she tell you what kind of threat?” Tase pushes. He leans forward, his fingers white against the coffee mug. “What did they say?”
“Not sure. But it spooked her enough to send her running,” I pace the floor.
I’m too worked up to sit. My limbs crackle with too much energy.
Outside, early morning mist rolls over the surface of the still lake, and the sky is painted peach and gold, slowly giving way to pure blue. It seems a surreal backdrop against the seriousness of this predicament.
We tell Tase everything, Aiden and I taking turns relaying whatever Gilli had said to us. And through it all, the vet listened in his solemn way, without interruption .
“What are we going to do?” he wants to know once we’ve finished.
“We’re going to protect her,” I say.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind.
How the hell did I go from hating her to wanting to burn the world down for her? It makes the least amount of sense of all of this. She’s just a scared girl. And I’m the fuckwit who wanted to hurt her to punish her for someone else’s sins. In that aspect, I’m no better than the thugs chasing her.
I’ve seen shit before. It’s impossible to escape that kind of thing in the city, especially New York.
Muggings, stabbings, they are a part of everyday life. None of those things will happen to Gilli. Not on my watch.
“She said she was sure someone followed her yesterday, but she saw nothing,” Aiden adds. His lips peel back in a thin smile, ragged at the edges. “How much do we want to bet we’re dealing with professionals here?”
“Oh, of course they’re professionals. If she’s telling the truth.” Tase scrubs a hand over his stubble.
“She is,” I growl.
“Well, well.” Tase turns to me. “You sure changed your mind now that you’ve been inside of her. Seriously, Soren? Is this the game?”
My dick swells at the memory of this morning and Gilli taking both me and Aiden at the same time. I drop down in the chair and shift back, hiding my reaction in a slow sip of coffee, looping one leg over the other in a purposely cocky move.
“No game. It’s simple. She’s mine to ruin. Not some faceless asshole who thinks that money can buy him anything he wants, including another person’s peace. If anyone is going to make her undone, it’s me.”
“How is she yours to ruin?”
My jaw flexes. The doc is getting heated. “Tase, get off my ass about it.”
Aiden exhales sharply and shoots me a warning glare.
Yeah, it’s on me. The change of tune is entirely mine because once she turned those eyes on me, once she came alive underneath me, I knew I’d do whatever it took to keep her safe. I’m a dickhead, for sure, but I can admit when I’m wrong.
It isn’t her fault what happened to my mother. Just like it’s no one’s fault but the three people involved in the destruction of a single marriage.
Gillian is her own person, and right now, she’s in trouble.
She’s also made this cabin into more than simply safe space. She’s become the light shining through the windows after a storm. Cooking, cleaning, organizing. Making herself useful like I taunted her about.
I want to make sure we have more time for her to come apart when I slide into her. Or when Aiden takes her in his arms and makes her cry out his name.
We need the time. And the only way to get it is to take out the threat.
“Has she figured out who this dude is?” Tase says.
“Not that I’ve been able to figure.” Aiden blows out a breath.
“Then again, I haven’t had a chance to dig into it.
The last time she used the computer, I’m sure she did some research.
I should be able to look at her browsing history if she hasn’t cleared it.
She was definitely worried enough to ask me about a VPN, so no one would be able to track her online activity. ”
“It’s a long shot that this guy is in Jersey,” Tase continues. “I mean, what are the odds? What if he’s not even real?”
Tase has always been skeptical. It’s in his nature to question the world around him and figure things out, figure out the root cause of why . Sometimes there are no answers. I’ve found out for myself that it is sometimes better to wallow in the confusion than to hurt yourself discovering the truth.
In this case, I don’t need proof to understand that Gilli is in trouble. And today we’ll take the next steps .
“So what’s your plan?” Tase asks.
“We gather evidence, we take it to the cops, and we keep her safe in the meantime. So are you with us or not?” I snap.
Tase considers me. The longer the quiet stretches, the more the air clears. It’s always been our way. He doesn’t need words to have a full conversation and neither do I. It’s what’s made us such a good team in the past.
Finally, he relents. “What do you want me to do?” He’ll do anything, too. For her.
It seems like Gilli has gone from being an annoyance to being the center of our circle. We’re the ones orbiting around her, our bright slice of sunlight, helplessly pulled to her again and again.
It’s not just the sex, although fucking her is brilliant. It’s her heart and her mind, her resolution to put herself out there in the face of incredible odds.
We talk in low voices, fleshing out the foundation of a plan, until the door to the bathroom opens. A belch of steam escapes before Gilli pops her head around the corner and her eyes go wide when she spots us. She ducks her head like she’s embarrassed, but none of us are.
We know the deal with sharing. Well, Aiden and I do. Tase has always kept his partners to himself, even before he got married. Her skin still rosy from the hot shower, Gilli hustles across the hall to her bedroom and lets the door click shut to give her privacy while she dresses.
“We keep this to ourselves,” I finish. “There’s no sense in alarming her if she’s already jumping at ghosts.”
Tase nods. “Agreed.”
“The three of us against a faceless threat? We have it covered,” Aiden says, sounding assured.
I want to believe the worst is already behind us and whatever it is we’re facing now will be easy to fix. A matter of search, destroy, and pick up the pieces afterwards.
Because as stupid as it sounds, I want to keep her.
I’m a selfish prick for it, as she’s called me too many times to count, but the hatred in me has shifted into something else.
If it was hatred to begin with, because now that I take a closer look at it, I suspect it’s been desire since she came back into my life.
I crack my knuckles. Whoever is out there trying to hurt her, I’ll make sure they pay for it. Slowly. Painfully.