Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
The front door is slightly ajar, and even from a few feet away, I can see that the lock is broken.
“Shit.” I grimace at the broken lock, then slam my car door and head toward Fisher’s house.
After the meeting in the basement, I borrowed a pair of sneakers from Blair. Then Vaden and I climbed into his car to drive down to pick up my clothes.
Thankfully, my navy Honda is still parked where I left it. There doesn’t appear to be any damage, so I guess the men after me figured I wouldn’t come back, or one of Fisher’s neighbors might hear them breaking into my car.
Vaden inserts himself between me and the door. I step to the left. He must have eyes in the back of his head because he mirrors my position without looking at me. When I try to step around him again, he puts his hand back, his palm against my belly.
“Stay behind me, Shelby. I don’t smell anyone here, but they could have left traps.”
I eye his back warily. “Traps?”
“He’s not wrong,” Jeremy says, walking around us.
When I suggested coming to Fisher’s house to grab my things after I threw myself out the window wearing only the T-shirt I wore to bed and panties, I wondered why Vaden was agreeing, since he’s been so protective of me. I should have known there was no way he was letting me come alone.
There’s me, Vaden, Jeremy, Luka, and Marshall.
It’s three more people than I thought we would need, but if they’re worried about traps, maybe I’m too na?ve.
The only reason Averie and Fisher aren’t here as well is that they overslept after staying up so late last night and were just headed to the farmhouse for breakfast as we were leaving.
“We’ll go round the back,” Jeremy says, snagging Marshall’s arm. “You guys get the front. I don’t smell anything, but that doesn’t mean trouble isn’t waiting for us.”
“Got it,” Luka says quietly, leading us in.
It’s about 10:00 in the morning, so it’s quiet. Fisher’s neighbors must be at work or in town because there are only a couple of cars parked outside the single-story homes.
“There’s nothing here,” Luka says, walking back to us from the bedrooms. He adds calmly, “We should head back to the house and let Mart know to replace the broken lock.”
Vaden gives Luka a searching look, then nods. “Let’s go, Shelby.”
Luka’s expression is calm. Too calm. Too bland.
“There’s something you don’t want me to see, isn’t there?” I ask.
He doesn’t respond.
I drop Vaden’s hand and step around him. He tries to stop me but I shake my head. “Don’t hide things from me, Vaden. This is my life. I need to know what they did.”
Vaden lets out a sigh. “I’m coming with you.”
“The bedroom,” Luka says.
As I walk to the bedroom I slept in last night, Luka and Vaden are just a step behind me.
I left my bedroom in a rush, literally flinging myself out the window to escape the two men who broke into the house in the middle of the night.
I thought they had come after me to shut me up permanently.
If they couldn’t do that, I expected they would just leave, especially since my car is untouched out front.
My clothes have been shredded.
Strips of material cover the hardwood floor.
They must have grabbed scissors from the kitchen to do this much damage.
I didn’t have much. A couple of pairs of jeans, sweatpants, some T-shirts, one summer dress, and my underwear.
But all of it was mine. Every time they tracked me down, I was forced to leave more and more of my stuff behind, running in a hurry.
This was everything I had left from the years I spent working, building a life for myself in New York after I aged out of foster care.
Now I have nothing.
There’s no message spray-painted on the walls… unlike last time.
There isn’t a broken window or red paint poured over my bedsheets… like the time before that when I barely got away.
But the message is the same. The message is always the same: we came here to destroy you, and we won’t leave until we do.
Because I wasn’t here, they destroyed my things. Things I worked so hard to afford and can’t immediately replace.
All because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and heard something I wish I could forget.
“Shelby?” Vaden is a quiet, protective presence beside me as I take in my ruined clothes.
My cheeks are wet, and I wipe the moisture away with the back of my hand. “My cell phone?” I hid my tears from Vaden, but my voice is so husky that he’ll know I’ve been standing here, desperately trying not to burst into tears.
I keep telling myself this is just stuff. I can replace stuff. It’s no big deal. But when you have nothing, stuff matters. This mattered to me, and as much as I want to rage about it, I want to cry more.
Luka, at the bedroom doorway, shakes his head. “I haven’t seen it. There’s a charger near the nightstand, but no cell phone on it.”
Of course they would take my phone. They probably thought I had important information on it.
But there’s nothing. For once, it’s a good thing I don’t have anyone in my life they could target, because they’d hurt them while looking for me.
They’ll destroy my phone once they realize they wasted their time taking it.
“My car keys should still be here, or they would have taken my car,” I say, walking out of the room and heading toward the coat closet by the front door.
They ruined my clothes, but I never kept all my things in the same place.
I tucked my purse on the top shelf. Maybe they didn’t look there, or they assumed it belonged to Fisher because my purse is still there.
All I know is that they had to have been watching me at the grocery store, or they were at the B&B and followed me when I packed up my things there to move them to Fisher’s house.
They couldn’t have found Fisher’s house by accident.
Reaching into my purse, I let out a sigh of relief to find my wallet and car keys still there. I don’t have the biggest bank balance in the world, but the couple hundred dollars I have is money I earned, and it should be enough to top off my gas and get me out of town.
“Jeremy and I will get the bedroom cleaned up,” Luka says.
Marshall and Jeremy are in the living room watching me. Both look concerned, so either they heard what I found in the bedroom or Luka told them while I was looking for my purse in the coat closet.
“I can do it,” I say, my voice husky. My eyes are probably red from crying. “I need to let Mart know about the broken lock on the front door.”
“You don’t need to be the one to do that,” Vaden says, taking my hand. “Leave your car keys with Luka, and he can drive it back for you.”
Marshall came in his car, while Jeremy and Luka came in Jeremy’s.
“I’ll stop by the grocery store and speak to Mart about the lock,” Marshall offers.
“I’m a mechanic when I want to be, and fixing a broken lock is easy enough.
All I need is to make a quick stop at the auto repair shop for parts.
I’m working today anyway, and Fisher’s house isn’t too far from my shop. ”
I rummage through my purse. “I have some money—”
“Put your money away,” Marshall interrupts gently but firmly. “I don’t charge family for anything.”
“But I’m not…” My voice trails off. “Is this another pack thing?”
“Damn right it is,” he says, and I smile, though it’s a bit wobbly.
“Thanks.”
“Keys,” Luka says, hand out.
I pass him my car keys, and he tucks them into his pocket.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Vaden wraps his arm around my shoulders and steers me out of the house. We leave Luka and Jeremy heading into the bedroom with trash bags, and Marshall studying the broken lock on the front door.
Vaden opens the passenger door for me, slams it shut, and rounds the front while I buckle up.
I look out of my window. Marshall grins at me, and I smile and wave as Vaden pulls away from Fisher’s house. “Is it always like this?”
“Is what like this?” Vaden asks.
“Being in a pack.”
Because I think I like this feeling of having someone watching my back and helping me pick up the pieces of my life when it implodes. I could do it on my own, but sometimes it’s nice not to have to, you know?
He nods. “Yep.”
“What about your pack? You followed Averie here from Oklahoma. Don’t you miss them?”
“I do. But it was time to move on. Not just to find my sister. To find a new life for myself. After our dad died, I wasn’t his head enforcer anymore.
I could have kept doing it, but I never liked it much.
I did it because it’s what my dad needed me to be, but the rules, putting the pack over my sister, always felt like a cage. Here is better.”
I eye him curiously. “Even though you and Dayne argue?”
“Even though.” He slows his car instead of driving through Main Street and parks in front of the diner.
“Vaden? Why are we stopping here?”
He cuts the engine and unbuckles his seatbelt. “Full disclosure, I’ve never invited a woman out on a date. But I’d like to take you out for something to eat. I know we had breakfast not that long ago, so maybe we could just get a slice of pie.”
My stomach warms at the idea of going on a date with Vaden. The last time I went on one was in college, when life was simpler in some ways but harder in others. I was working three jobs to afford college, but I had my own place, not a temporary foster placement. “Why?”
“Right from the moment we met, bad things have been happening to you. It’s time for something good. Something… normal.”
“You’re not normal,” I remind him.
He cocks his head. “Is that a bad thing?”
With a smile, I unbuckle my seatbelt and reach for my door. “Now, I didn’t say that.”
We sit in a booth with red bucket seats facing each other. I was nervous about walking in wearing sweatpants and borrowed sneakers that were a little too small, but no one looked at us twice. They just smiled, nodded, and went right back to their conversations.
“So…” Vaden studies me across the table through hooded eyes. “Have you done this before?”