Chapter Four
Carter
“Tell me you have something,” I said into the phone.
“Nothing substantial, but he’s not the guy you’re looking for,” Chace said.
“How can you be sure?” I snapped.
“Because I’m fucking good at what I do, dickhead,” Chace snapped right back, but then continued in the more normal tone. “And the man has an alibi for the break-in.”
Fuck. The break-in at Harley’s apartment. I still haven’t told her about that fun fact.
“Give it to me,” I invited.
Chase didn’t make me wait. “Jude Brown, twenty-eight years old. Lives with his mother and father, temps as a music teacher. Or he used to, until a year ago when he won a stint in a medical facility and was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder. That was after he got collared for stalking and peeping on a coworker, Juliete Ward. No other priors. While in custody, he leaned heavily into music therapy. Was discharged six months later and transferred to an outside treatment regime. After, he had a few odd jobs here and there, but nothing stuck. Attended every appointment with his probation officer and scheduled therapy. It seemed he got his life back on track.”
“It seemed wrong,” I said.
“Yeah,” Chase muttered.
“What tripped him?”
“According to the records?” Chase sighed. “Nothing. He hasn’t missed an appointment with his therapist, he picks up his meds regularly, and his screens come back negative every time. He’s a success story on paper.”
“Maybe he’s working with someone,” I pushed.
“Don’t be such a na?ve pussy,” Chace shot back. “You know as well as I do that those particular kind of fucks work alone. They’re possessive, territorial, with a single-minded focus.”
“So, what you’re essentially telling me is Harley has two stalkers on her ass.” I sighed.
Fuck me, I was fucking whipped.
After they got Jude out of the club, and into the police car, I took Harley back to the hotel. She didn’t push again with her question if her situation was over. Even before I got Chace on the phone, I knew it was far from over.
Jude didn’t have the patience and planning abilities that were required for this level of fucked-up. No, he was more like an overexcited puppy that got the first look at its owner.
He was fixated on Harley, and thought her songs were for him and only him, but that was where his fixation ended. Was he capable of violence? Of course, everyone was. But not towards Harley. In his fucked-up mind, he knew if he hurt her, her songs would stop, and he needed them to continue.
What made my whole body vibrate was seeing the dazed look in Harley’s eyes, and when she sat in the back of the car, she clasped her hands together in her lap in a vain attempt to stop their tremble. In fact, her whole body trembled.
That woman, who held the crowd of thousands of people transfixed with her voice, who had countless people eating out of the palm of her hand just by the touch of her fingers to the strings of her guitar while on stage.
A woman who could get any man to his knees just by one single look.
A woman who after such a short time became an itch under my skin I couldn’t scratch.
A woman that a dynamo.
My Dynamo was trembling because some sick fuck cornered her in a dark hallway.
The moment we got to the hotel, she slammed the door to her bedroom and stayed there.
There were no complaints. There was no anger or frustration from being cooped up in a room.
There were no silly break-out attempts.
There was nothing but silence. After being with her these last days, there was one thing I knew for certain—where Harley was, there wasn’t silence.
Except now.
“I don’t think that’s the case,” Chace said into my thoughts. “Jude just had the opportunity and took it. I actually don’t believe he meant any harm. Just an overzealous fan.”
“Except he’s a fan with a mental disorder that drives him to stalk his fixations,” I surmised.
“Well, yeah,” Chase said.
“I still want him locked up.”
“He will be,” Chace assured me. “How are you holding up?”
“It’s quiet, too quiet,” I said, glancing at the door for the hundredth time.
“He’ll make his move, they always do. I’m just glad that you’re the one who has Harley’s back.”
“Not what I mean.” I turned my attention back to my laptop and started clicking through the surveillance footage of the club. “She’s too quiet.”
“What do you mean?” Chace asked.
“She’s always on the move. Either singing, or playing, or trying to slip past me. That woman has no pause button. From the moment she opens her eyes in the morning up until she closes them at night, she doesn't have a moment of stillness. And now, everything is still.”
“Sounds like you have your hands full.” Chase chuckled.
“Nah, I have her ass covered at all times,” I said. “But tonight, it’s different. I don’t like it.”
“You sound worried.”
“She’s just not the woman I came to know. She’s not the Dynamo I know,” I muttered the last part.
“Dynamo?” Chace asked.
“Don’t start,” I warned.
Chace, being the fucker I knew him to be, didn’t hear my warning. Actually, no. He heard it, he just chose to ignore it.
“Does my baby bro have a little crush on his new client?”
It was turning out to be more than a crush.
Every waking thought I had was about the woman, and not in a client way.
I watched her hands, and how fluid her movements were.
I tracked all her smiles, and how she had different ones.
I craved to hear her laugh; the rich, warm tone of it never failed to slow the blood rushing through my veins, and a tranquil feeling washed over me like a blanket just by hearing it.
The moment I saw her in the morning, I knew, no matter what, my day was going to be filled with beauty, because I had a chance to look at her. At night, while I was alone, right outside her door, I had to use all my strength not to barge in her room, and feast on her body.
“Are you lost in a daydream of your Dynamo?” Chace taunted.
Yes, yes I was. I didn’t admit that. Instead, I simply said, “Fuck you.”
“Ohhh, it’s true. Baby bro has a crush. I can’t wait to tell Max and Rory,” Chase kept teasing.
“The fuck you will,” I growled. “Don’t stir shit up. You know well Rory is frothing at the mouth for all her payback plans she has because of our welcome period for Jason.”
“Calm down, man.” Chase chuckled. “I won’t say a word to her.”
“Good. There’s nothing to tell,” I harrumphed.
“There is,” Chase mused. “But I was in your situation not long ago. I know the knots you’re tying yourself up in. And I know the level of denial you’re reaching up to.”
If anyone did know, it was Chace. Hell, he met Alina, his woman, right in the middle of investigating her father. While he was undercover, no less. It was a mess, but thankfully, he was able to straighten everything out.
“My advice, though?” Chase said into the silence. “Don’t keep secrets. Let her in on everything.”
“I don’t need to do that. All this romantic notion is just in your head. She’s just a client,” I said.
“Yeah, you keep lying to yourself. But we both know you started down the path Max and I went.”
Max, my other brother. His story was even more fucked up than Chace’s.
He met Skylar, his now fiancée through getting texts she was sending to Jacob, her dead high school boyfriend, years.
Until Sky sent her last text, saying tearful goodbye, ready to walk down the aisle to a man who was considered a head of the mafia branch in Denver.
That was when Max lost it and answered. What happened later wasn’t a mess, it was chaos.
“I’m not,” I denied, shaking my head to banish all the thoughts of danger that swirled around my brother’s women. I couldn’t even think about that time without shivering.
“Sure you are,” Chace chuckled. “But I’m telling you, you have to let her in. Don’t keep secrets from her. Just remember what happened when Alina found out about me.”
“Enough of this shit,” I barked into the phone. “I don’t need a therapy session. I need to know, are you in or what?”
“Hey, now.” Chace sounded hurt. I could even picture him putting the palm of his hand over his heart. He was always full of theatrics. “You know you don’t even have to ask that shit.”
“Yeah, I know.” I sighed. One thing was for sure. No matter how immature, or goofy my family was, I could always count on them.
“Want me to read Max in?” Chace offered.
Max didn’t work cases like this with us often.
We read him in only when the stakes were high.
These days, he did mostly security checks and light investigation for us, while also working on the renovation part of the home design for Sky’s firm.
It was the perfect mix for him. Something out of the field, while also staying in this world for us.
He was an ex-swat, and the high-profile cases were hard for him. But with Harley we needed him.
“On it, bro,” Chace said. “And remember, don’t fight it.”
“Fuck off,” I muttered. “Give my love to Alina,” I said before hanging up.
It was dark. Every light in the room was off. I walked and looked in every corner, behind every door, except one, and through every window.
Everything was still. Cracking the entrance door to the suit opened, I spied Miller, one of my guys, standing in front of them. “Everything good?’”
Miller looked over his shoulder and jutted out his chin in affirmative. He was never one for words. a trait I liked about him.
“I’m turning in for the night, but if anything changes, do not hesitate to get me.”
Another chin lift.
I closed and locked the doors, beelining for the couch. The suite had another room, but I didn’t use it. Every night I parked my ass on the couch.
“Fuck me.” I sighed as I lowered my tired body onto it. I was worn out, but this quietness was grating on my nerves.
At three in the morning, it was supposed to be peaceful, but with Harley, it never was. She was usually up until five in the morning, giving me just a few hours of shuteye. But not tonight.
“Come on, Dynamo. Snap out of it, you can do it,” I muttered into the dark. I knew it sounded ridiculous.
The shock and retreat was a normal reaction to something like what happened tonight at the Castle. But I knew Harley. I knew her from before she got big.
She used to sing at the Elite, Alina’s club, and I’d seen her here and there. Then I’d also got to know her these past few days. I knew she had it in her to get through this and back to her old self.
I just had to figure out how to help her. I couldn’t let her retreat into this scared self and lose herself into the fear. If she did, it could take her years to break out of it.
It took Max to meet Sky and wade into her situation to fight out of his. Even now, he wasn’t back to being fully himself. There were still dark clouds around him sometimes and only Skylar could chase them away.
I didn’t want that for Harley, but tonight’s situation had the power to do that to her. I was giving her tonight, then tomorrow, I would do something to yank her back into the light.
I just didn’t know what.
Just as I was drifting to sleep, still trying to figure out what to do, I heard it—the soft sound of guitar being played like the player was introducing themselves to the instrument. Moments later, a soft humming. Then the words came.
Raw. Hurt. Beautiful.
“That’s my girl.” I smiled to the ceiling.
She proved me right, she had it in her. She had the strength to get back all on her own.
I frowned. How did she get so strong? Or, better yet, why did she have to learn to do that?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. But I sure as hell needed to find out.
Fuck.