Chapter Twelve
“That’s impossible,” Chloe denied with a whisper. She continued on with that whisper but injected a goodly amount of horror. “Human trafficking.”
I glanced at Pete, then Fallon, and finally Gavin.
All three were making a study of Chloe’s fast, jerky shakes of her head.
Gavin looked like he wanted to intervene but was holding himself back.
And I got that; Gavin had a soft touch with women.
This had a lot to do with having five sisters.
From a young age, it had been drilled into him to take care of them, which he’d done.
Something his asshole parents thought he’d failed at.
He’d been disowned and cast out, then those same assholes had poisoned his sisters against him.
Boiling that down, he carried so much guilt it bled out in many ways.
One of those ways was his compulsion to coddle and care for any woman in his orbit.
So, yeah, I got why he looked like he was coming out of his skin holding himself back from going to Chloe.
The man wasn’t overprotective—he was five steps up from that in a way that made the rest of us look lackadaisical when we were anything but.
However, Chloe wasn’t his to protect.
She was mine.
And the fuck of it was, in an effort to protect her, I had to burst Chloe’s bubble of naivety.
Anger swelled, knowing that once that innocence was lost, it was gone forever.
There was a difference between being generally aware, and taking precautions to keep yourself safe, and straight-up knowing this shit was happening—especially when it was happening in close proximity and the realization hit that the possibility of danger was upgraded to a probability.
“We’ve got three missing women that says otherwise,” I told her, delaying getting into specifics, still holding out hope she’d agree to quit before I had to lay the heavy on her.
“Poppy works there,” she unnecessarily announced. “She’s been there awhile. There’s no way something like that is going on there or she’d know.”
Sweet, naive Chloe.
“No, baby, she wouldn’t know. Assholes don’t advertise their felonious bullshit. They hide it, and they hide it well.”
“She’d know if—”
Before I could correct her erroneous assumption, Pete got in there and reaffirmed, “She wouldn’t know.”
“Poppy’s smart,” Chloe argued. “There’s no way.”
“How many women do you suppose Poppy’s pulled out of the back of a boxcar in Indonesia?
” I asked. “When was the last time she fought back vomiting as she picked a lock to free an abused little girl from a cage, who was too afraid to leave that fucking cage because that was the only place she felt safe?” I ignored Chloe’s wide eyes and continued.
“Poppy’s a full-time student and a part-time server.
She doesn’t know jack shit. She wouldn’t see a goddamn thing.
” The frustrated breath I blew out did nothing to calm my irritation. “Chloe, you working there isn’t safe.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Fallon interjected while staring at his phone.
“Jack texted. Poppy’s freaking out. Not only about Cynthia, but she’s been trying to call Chloe for the last hour and she’s not picking up or returning calls.
Poppy went to worse case and had a full-on panic attack thinking Chloe had been taken and it was all her fault. So Chloe needs to call her.”
I liked Poppy. She was a hard worker, always showed up on time with a smile, was great with customers and her coworkers.
Beyond all of that she was just cool to be around, funny, caring, loyal, and always in a good mood.
So I felt like an asshole, but it couldn’t be denied hearing she’d had a panic attack, thinking her friend was missing, was welcomed.
“Shit,” Chloe said, popping up off the couch. “My phone’s in your truck.”
“I’ll get it,” Fallon offered. “Keys?”
Keys.
Right.
I’d tossed them in the general vicinity of the side table by the front door. Where they landed I had no clue.
Gavin obviously did. “Floor, behind the couch.”
Chloe shot me a murderous glare before she gingerly sat back down.
Pete didn’t let the lull go to waste; he rejoined and restarted his questioning. “What do you know about Sterling Blackwell?”
Without missing a beat, Chloe answered, “He’s the alpha dog in his circle. An apex predator. Why do you ask?”
I felt the back of my neck start to tingle.
“Why do you think that?” Pete pushed.
“For one, he’s sharp, and I mean that as in he can read people and do that on the fly.
He understands with a deep appreciation that life’s a game, and he was either taught how to play it or he was born with a finely tuned bullshit meter.
But even if he knows it and can outplay those around him, he’s quiet about it.
He doesn’t show off his wealth or his superior intellect.
He’s a man who likes to be underestimated. Now, why do you ask?”
“In other words, you know him well,” Gavin put in, and that tingling turned into pinpricks.
“I’ve seen him three times and served him once.”
“You got all of that from serving him drinks . . . once?”
“I’ve worked in a lot of bars,” she told me.
“I can call a dickhead snob as soon as I approach a table, I don’t even need them to speak.
It’s in the way they present themselves, the way they sit, the way they look around the room waiting to see who notices them.
And if they were able to hide that, as soon as they order, I know.
It’ll be the most expensive liquor, but it will also be a brand that’s recognizable so everyone around them will know just how expensive.
And they’ll be dismissive to the help. New money especially.
Then there are the ones like Mr. Blackwell who have it but don’t feel the need to shove it in your face—but only because they hide the dickhead within under the guise of being down to earth.
They’re overly nice to the help, because, you know, they’re good guys who happen to have money.
And they order just below top shelf because they think it’s trending not to overly indulgent.
Just to say, he was drinking Hirsch bourbon. ”
Depending on the bar, Hirsch was a hundred and fifty a pour. Not cheap by any stretch, but a man of Sterling’s affluence could afford something more exclusive.
“Did you get anything else from him?” Pete asked, with more than a hint of respect.
“Anything? Like what?” Her gaze bounced between me and Pete.
But instead of looking curious, she looked cautious.
“Did he hit on you?”
I didn’t need to see Gavin’s smirk to know my question came out as an accusation, but seeing it coupled with Chloe’s narrowed eyes was confirmation.
“I don’t see how that’s your business,” she snapped.
Right.
I had the woman’s panties in my pocket. I’d fucked her, wrung multiple orgasms out of her, and she’d pulled a mammoth one out of me.
Not to mention, when that happened, there’d been nothing between us, no condom, no pulling out, which meant right then she was sitting on my couch pantyless with my come still inside her.
So, considering all that, she was fucking crazy if she thought it wasn’t my business.
Before I could remind her of this, Fallon came back in with Chloe’s purse dangling from the crook of his arm, my phone and a can of Red Bull in one hand, and my keys in the other.
“Can someone please explain to me why women’s purses always weigh a ton?” he asked the room, then Chloe. “What the hell are you packin’, woman? A week’s worth of provisions?”
Chloe rolled her eyes, the way women did when men made stupid comments, then put a voice to her thoughts. “Can someone please explain to me why men always feel the need to question the contents of a woman’s bag?”
Fallon shrugged. “Mainly so we have something to give a woman shit about, since they’re always shoveling it our way.”
“It sounds to me like you surround yourself with the wrong kind of woman. And just to say, because I feel it’s my duty to stick up for the sisterhood, not all women shovel shit.”
And that was the truth of it—Fallon had shit taste in women.
It’s said that some women pick men who are like their fathers.
In Fallon’s case the reverse was true—he picked women who were like his mother—bitches who had an opinion about everything, and to communicate their opinion, they busted his balls and expected Fallon to snap to and get with their program.
Fallon handed Chloe her purse and tossed me my phone. I didn’t bother checking it before I leaned back and shoved it into my pocket.
“Shit.” Chloe popped back to standing. “I . . . um . . . have to make a call.”
The way she sounded, the steel that infused her spine, making her back ramrod straight, and the tension that had drawn her shoulders back did not communicate concern Poppy had been blowing up her phone.
That wouldn’t’ve been a surprise, since that was the reason her purse had been retrieved. This was something entirely different.
“Chloe—”
“I’ll be right back.”
Then without giving me another shot to ascertain the urgency, she bolted.
I gave it a beat, considering her obvious need for privacy and how she’d feel about me intruding.
But I only needed that beat to conclude I didn’t give the first fuck if she wanted privacy.
The stiffness and the swiftness of her departure, not to mention the look on her face, was enough to propel me to my feet.
“Before you go check on her, you need to know I ran her,” Fallon told me.
Meaning he’d done a background check and pulled her credit. He wouldn’t have had time to do a deep dive.
I jerked my chin. He caught my request to hurry and didn’t delay.
“Ten months ago, Chloe stopped depositing money into her savings account. Eight months ago she started taking monthly withdraws, and in the last nine months she’s worked five different part-time jobs, three of them lasted only a month, another had lasted two months.
The longest, lasting four months, was cleaning office buildings after hours.
“She has seventeen dollars left in her savings account. But in the last week her checking account balance had gone from under nine hundred to over three grand. All cash deposits.”
Over two thousand in deposits in the last week.
I now understood her reluctance quitting a job where she made that kind of cake.
Too bad for her, she was still quitting.
Kidnapping her and taking her to Alaska wasn’t only still on the table, with three missing women and her stubbornness, it was a strong possibility.
If Fallon had more to report, he didn’t get a chance to before Chloe blew back into the living room, wide-eyed and frantic.
“I have to go,” she announced. “I ordered an Uber. It’ll be here—”
“Cancel the Uber. I’ll take you,” I told her and looked back at Fallon. “Keys.”
“Table.”
I moved that way.
Chloe shook her head. “It’s fine. I have—”
“Cancel the Uber, Chloe,” I mostly repeated.
As seemed to be a theme in the last twenty-four hours, those pretty hazel eyes of hers turned into slits. What she didn’t do was pull out her phone and cancel the rideshare.
“I’m not—”
“Fuck it.” I stalked to her, dipped down, gently planted my shoulder into her belly, and stood. “Pay the Uber driver when he gets here,” I called out as I walked out the front door with her over my shoulder.
“That’s not how it works, you big dummy,” Chloe said and smacked my ass.
“Baby, if you wanna grab my ass, that can be arranged, but I get the sense you got someplace important you gotta be. And next time—”
“Grr,” she growled, and instead of smacking me again, she curled her fingers around the waistband of my cargoes.
I didn’t bother wasting time shutting the front door.
When I got to my truck, I planted her ass into the seat, caged her in, and told her, “You get out of this truck and make me chase you, it’ll piss me off.”
Chloe let out an adorable harrumphing noise, and just in case I missed her irritation, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me.