Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dagger
“You didn’t have to come with me today,” Katrina huffs, stepping into the studio ahead of me.
I grin and shake my head, following her deeper inside. The moment the lights come on, I tug her to a halt, stepping in front of her.
“What . . .”
“Quiet,” I order as I pull my gun out of my holster under my cut. “Stay behind me, hand wrapped around my belt. Don’t let go unless I tell you.”
Katrina does as I tell her, and I start moving through the structure, scanning the area for anyone who could still be here.
The place is completely trashed. Furniture she had set out for comfort around the place had been torn and ripped apart by whoever was behind the break-in.
Glass and ceramic crunched under my boots.
Guitars smashed up. The drums were gutted.
Symbols bent. The equipment she used in the recording room was damaged beyond repair.
On the walls in there, someone sprayed the words ‘You’ve been warned’.
“This can’t be happening,” Katrina whispers, her hand still tightly grasping the back of my belt, but I knew she’d been watching around me, seeing everything I did. “Why would they do this?”
“Who?” I ask, twisting to look at her. “Who the fuck would do this?”
“I don’t know,” she says, shaking her head.
I draw Katrina into my arms, hold her tight, and kiss the top of her head.
“We’ll get this taken care of,” I tell her while thinking about how to find the person responsible for this.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if Carl, whatever his last name is, would be so stupid as to fuck with my woman.
He hadn’t been back around that I knew of, and she hadn’t mentioned him to me.
“Have you had any threats in the past weeks? Carl come back?” I ask, doing my best to keep my voice calm and gentle.
Katrina jerks at the questions and tilts her head back to meet my gaze. “You think Carl has something to do with this?”
“Can’t rule him out.” I didn’t want to say he did, but I also don’t know if he didn’t have something to do with trashing this place. More than that, I don’t miss that she didn’t answer my question. “He come back here?”
“Carl’s here at least once every two weeks.” She huffs out a breath and pushes away. “Though he’s been by twice in the past three. He’s persistent, that’s for sure.”
Fuck.
I shove a hand in my front pocket and yank my phone out. I find Cy’s number and press the phone icon before lifting it to my ear. I meet Katrina’s eyes and hold them as Cy answers on the third ring.
“What’s going on, brother?” he asks in greeting.
“Need you to look into a guy named Carl,” I say and ask Katrina, “You know his last name?”
“It’s Riggs,” she says, narrowing her eyes while also crossing her arms. “Why are you asking someone to look into him? I didn’t ask you to.”
“Look into Carl Riggs. He’s a realtor,” I tell my brother. I’ll get to Katrina and explain why as soon as I’m off the phone.
“Sure, but you know I gotta ask now that I heard your woman saying she didn’t ask you too.” He snorts out a laugh, though in the background I hear the sound of his fingers flying over keys.
“Someone broke into Kat’s studio, trashed the whole place,” I tell him.
“Dagger,” Katrina snaps. “You need to stop talking before I kick you. This isn’t anyone’s business but mine.”
That’s where she’s wrong.
“I’ll dig into this and get back to you. You go handle your woman.” Cy chuckles.
“Right,” I grunt and hang up, shove my phone back in my pocket, and close the space between the two of us, hooking an arm around her waist once again.
“You being mine makes what happens here my business. I don’t give a shit about the money you make or how you do it.
What I do care about is that while you’re here, you’re safe.
No one, and I mean no one, fucks with you and gets away with it.
Whoever was behind this will get what’s coming to them. ”
Fury rages in Katrina’s eyes, but I don’t miss that there’s something else in them.
I get she’s not used to having someone at her back, taking care to see that she’s good.
That’s not in me, though, to let her handle things on her own.
It just wasn’t happening. She can do things her way, but I was gonna have her back, and she’d know I was there to see that she could do what she loves without thinking twice about it.
“I can handle this. All of it. I won’t be intimidated by them wrecking the place. I don’t care who is behind this because they’re not worth me thinking twice about.”
I can’t help but stare at Katrina as if she’d grown a second head, thanks to her logic. She needs to be careful about who was behind this shit. “You could have been here when they did this. Could have been hurt.”
“But I wasn’t here. I wasn’t hurt. Whoever did this, did it because they knew they could get away with it.
I wasn’t here, so they saw an opportunity and took it,” she snaps and wraps her arms around herself.
“They didn’t want to get caught destroying this place, so they wouldn’t have done it with me here. ”
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“Dagger, this isn’t the first time someone has threatened me in such a way. It won’t be the last. People think they can use force to get what they want. Threats don’t work on me. I won’t bend to anyone’s will, not even you.”
“I didn’t want you to bend to me. I simply want you safe. I want you in a safe place where you can do your thing. I didn’t suggest you move. Or demand you leave. All I’m doing is watching your back and seeing to the potential danger.”
“And what you think is Mr. Weasel-Dick is a threat?” she scoffs.
“Could be.” I nod. “Could be the people he’s working for. That’s why I’m having him looked into. We don’t know, and it’s best to find out what we’re up against than sit on our asses and wait for them to show their faces.”
“This isn’t yours to worry about,” she protests, shoving against my chest.
I hold firm, keeping her close and slide my free hand up her back and into her hair.
“You need to get this, Katrina. You’re mine.
You and this baby both are. Being mine, you’re a part of the club.
I’ve claimed you, and there’s no going back.
The club protects what’s theirs and sees to it that those who have our protection stay safe.
Meaning, we’re gonna find who did this and make them pay for it.
They’re gonna pay in blood and money for the damages and threats they’ve left behind. ”
“Dagger . . .”
I don’t let her speak further. I couldn’t, there was no way I could handle fighting further about this. Not when I know what’s at stake here. I’ve witnessed many times already, and I wasn’t about to do it again.
Kissing her seemed the best course of action in the moment.
I kiss her deeply, turning from a hard, firm kiss to a heated and hungry one.
If I didn’t have her soon, I was going to die of blue ball syndrome.
But taking her here at the studio, with the way it was fucked up, is not where I’m fucking get it.
It’s going to have to wait until later when I get back to the house and in her bed.
The very same bed, I’ve held her every night for weeks.