12. Char
CHAR
“She knew you slept with Dallas?” Abbie asked.
I nodded mindlessly as tears slipped down my cheeks. “She did. That was the conversation where I knew without a shadow of a doubt that something was wrong.”
“Is Dallas the only one you’re sleeping with?”
“No.”
“Who else?”
“Gauge and Deac.”
Abbie’s pen kept moving. She didn’t look up. Didn’t flinch. Just wrote. And something about watching the scratch of that pen against paper unraveled something in me, because I felt my throat tighten before I even opened my mouth again.
“Dallas makes me feel wanted,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Not just in the obvious way. In the way where he looks at me like I walked into a room he didn’t know he was waiting in.
Like his whole face changes. Like he was holding his breath and didn’t even realize it until I walked through the door. ”
The pen kept moving.
“Gauge makes me feel safe. He’s so…” I trailed off, searching for a word big enough.
“He’s massive. And quiet. And when he wraps his arms around me it’s like—the rest of the world stops being so goddamn loud for a second.
Like nothing can get to me when he’s there.
Not Marcie. Not the past. Not any of it. ”
“And Deacon…”
I had to close my eyes on that one. Because Deacon wasn’t something I could explain in a tidy sentence. Deacon was the thing that happened to you when you stopped believing things could happen to you.
“He makes me feel like I matter,” I finally said. “Not as a means to an end. Not as something useful. Just… me. Charlotte. Like I’m the most important thing in any room he walks into, and he’d burn the room down before he let anything touch me.”
The scratch of the pen stopped.
I opened my eyes and found Abbie watching me. Not writing. Just… watching.
“And all three of them together?” she asked quietly.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding since they dragged me out of that apartment. “Whole,” I said simply. “All three of them together make me feel whole. Like every part of me that was ever missing finally knows where it belongs.”
Abbie held my gaze for a long moment before she nodded once and picked her pen back up.
She nodded and continued writing, but didn’t say anything. “Okay, so what happened after that first conversation in your apartment?”
The words just kept coming. I talked until my throat went dry and early dinner turned into actual dinner.
The clock struck six-thirty and my ass was more than numb.
That food still sat in front of me, my drink watered down by melting ice.
And yet I couldn’t bring myself to touch either.
Despite it being well over a day since I’d last eaten, my stomach didn’t even growl any longer.
Nothing felt real or right.
Everything was turned so upside down.
The bad guys were the good guys.
The good guys were murderers.
Somehow the guys running guns were good, and I was in love with them.
Oh Jesus fuck, I’m in love with all of them.
“Well, if you don’t mind my saying so, congratulations,” Abbie said.
Her voice pulled me out of the recesses of my mind. “What?”
She placed her pen down on top of her closed notebook. “On a day well done. You’ve sat for hours talking with me, and that takes a lot. Congratulations.”
It didn’t feel like a celebratory moment. “Thanks.”
“Do you want to take a break? Or do you want to go over our next steps?”
I shrugged. “Whatever we need to do.”
If she started talking, though, I didn’t hear her.
I watched her lips move, so I knew she was talking, and I knew I needed to pay attention.
But I simply couldn’t. Her voice faded into nothingness.
Her hand motions while she spoke became a blur as my gaze unfocused.
I wondered what Deacon was up to. Was he sleeping?
Was he scrambling? I wondered if Gauge kept that anger of his in check.
He was so cautious around me with it, but I knew it was in there.
Brewing, all the time, behind his heart in his chest. And Dallas.
Oh my Dallas. My sweet, sensitive, smiling Dallas.
I wondered if anyone made him smile at all over the last twenty-four or so hours.
I hoped that they knew. Somehow, by some stroke of luck, I hoped they were staying out of trouble. I hoped they were keeping their heads down while I figured out a way to protect them. I hoped they knew that I had to keep Marcie from them. I had to finish this.
I prayed to any God listening that they knew I was still trying to protect them.
Because when they were reckless…
“Please don’t,” I whispered.
“What was that?” Abbie asked.
Oh God, I missed the way Dallas kissed me.
The burning intensity behind it. The way his hands always knew their journey, even before they touched my body.
I missed the way Gauge wrapped me up in his arms. How his mountainous muscles draped over me like a weighted blanket, cloaking me away from the rest of the world.
I wanted nothing more than to crawl into his lap, curl up into a ball, and cry into his chest. I wanted to feel his heart beating against my cheek. Strong and valiant.
And alive.
“Oh,” I said breathlessly.
It hurt. The memories hurt. My heart constricted in my chest as I thought back to the last time I looked up into Deacon’s beautiful, brooding brown eyes.
The specks of amber in them always left me breathless.
The way his brow unfurled every time I smiled up at him made my heart skip a beat.
I wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around him.
I wanted to jump into his embrace and feel him pin me to the wall while his lips attached to my neck.
They made me so happy. They filled me with joy and purpose.
They showed me how men should treat the women they enjoy.
Not even love, just enjoy. They had standards higher than any man I had ever dealt with.
They were better than any federal agent I could come into contact with.
“Hey there,” a soothing voice said.
Were those… tears… dripping down my face?
“It’s okay, you’re safe here,” the foreign voice said.
When I came to, I found myself looking at the chair. The chair I had once occupied. Why the hell wasn’t I in my chair?
“I—I-I-I?—”
“Shhhhhh,” the voice said softly, “it’s okay. You’re just fine. Take some deep breaths.”
I looked down and found that I had my arms tightly wrapped around my body.
The harsh carpet of the floor graced the skin on the backs of my legs as I found my knees pulled as close to my chest as possible.
Tears dripped onto the tops of my knees.
The skirt they changed me into gave way, exposing the stubble of hair along my calves.
And as I sat there on the floor, shivering with tears streaming down my neck, that disembodied voice happened again.
A white-haired man sat cross-legged on the floor in front of me.
“Hey there, good to see you back with us,” he said.
It was Commander Hadley. Of all the people sitting on that floor with me, it was him. I searched his steel gray eyes, looking for any signs of something that I could interpret. But just like my lawyer, he was a fucking vault. Or maybe my brain just shut down that much. I didn’t know any longer.
All I knew was that the look on that man’s face wasn’t familiar to me.
“Hey there. Let me know when you hear me, okay?” he asked.
I was tired of talking. I was tired of interacting. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to answer the questions of any man who couldn’t see through his own team’s bullshit.
“Miss Char?” Sheriff Nielson said from some corner of the room I couldn’t see. “Can you hear us?”
I just blinked, though. I blinked and I stared off at the wall past Commander Hadley’s shoulder. I didn’t do it for a ruse, though. I didn’t do it for attention, or to seal the deal on anything.
I did it because I had no energy to do anything else.
“Can I get you anything?” the commander asked.
Where did Abbie go? When was she coming back? I didn’t feel comfortable around the commander. I wanted her back.
Why did she leave?
“All right,” Hadley said as he grunted, pushing himself up from the floor.
I flinched away as he leaned forward, trying to gain leverage to pick his ass up. Hope filled my chest, though. For a split second, I thought he was leaving. Or maybe exchanging places with my lawyer. But instead, he dropped right back down beside me.
I leaned away from him in the opposing direction.
“I’m sorry if I frighten you,” he said softly.
The statement shocked me so much that I whipped my gaze up at his. I tightened my brow as it furrowed, and immediately I wondered what in the hell that man’s endgame was.
“There you are,” he said as he smiled softly down at me, “we were wondering where you went off to.”
The fuck was this man’s game?
“They can’t get to you here,” Commander Hadley said softly. “We have the entire building surrounded. You’re safe here.”
My lower lip quivered as I turned my gaze back toward the wall.
He was right. I knew he was. I’d never see my men again until this was all over, and it shattered my heart in my chest. The tears flowed endlessly as my chest jumped.
My body shivered all over again as I physically scooted away from the commander again.
I didn’t want to be anywhere near those federal agents.
As far as I was concerned, they were all guilty.
“Sheriff!” he barked.
I flinched at the harsh sound and scooped my knees even closer to my chest.
“I’m sorry for the volume, I’ll give you a warning this time. Plug your ears,” he said as his voice lowered.
What in the absolute hell was happening? Why did he apologize?
“Sheriff Nielson!” he exclaimed.
I clapped my hands over my ears and squeezed my watery eyes shut. I didn’t want to hear anything else. I didn’t want to be near anyone else. And when the booming sounds stopped, I slid my hands away from my ears.
Only to hear the most amazing words ever come from the commander himself.
“Sheriff, get us a doctor in here, please. We need to have her evaluated.”
The game was officially afoot.