Chapter 5
CAL
Iwoke to find Lauren dressed.
“What are you doing?”
“Going home.”
“No.”
She stopped folding her shirt and looked at me. “Try that again.”
“That’s exactly where Andersen will expect you to go.”
“He doesn’t know where I live.”
“He took your phone, and he’s a cop. He can get your address in five minutes.”
“Oh. Yeah, right.”
“You’re not going home.”
“That sounds a lot like my ex.”
The words landed exactly where she intended them to.
I got out of bed and pulled on my jeans. My first instinct was to take her car keys and tell TK she was staying at the cabin.
That would keep her here.
It would also turn the place she’d felt safe into another prison.
Lauren zipped her bag. “I have a job, a house and people who’ll notice if I stay gone much longer. I need to get back to my life.”
“You could have died.”
“But I didn’t.”
“We don’t have enough evidence to take Andersen down.”
“And hiding here won’t find any.”
“It keeps him from getting another chance to hurt you.”
“For how long?”
I didn’t have an answer.
“I won’t hide forever,” she said. “He already took days from me and left me afraid of my own memory. I’m not giving him everything else too.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and forced myself to think instead of react.
She wasn’t asking whether returning home was safe. She knew it wasn’t.
She was telling me the risk belonged to her.
“I hate this,” I said.
“You’re allowed.”
“If you go home, I’m taking you.”
“I can drive.”
“Please?” I said. “The club will watch the house from a distance. Nobody enters unless you agree.”
“Cal.”
“You won’t see them. Andersen won’t either.”
She studied me. “No one tells me where I can go.”
“Agreed.”
“And you don’t take my keys.”
“I thought about it.”
“I know.” She was smiling when she said it.
“I didn’t do it.”
“That’s why we’re still having this conversation.”
I stood and took her bag, but I left the car keys on the dresser for her to pick up herself.
“Your house, your decision,” I said. “But let me help keep you alive.”
Lauren took the keys.
“Okay.”
I still wanted to tell her no.
To protect her, I stayed silent.
Lauren
Cal drove my RAV4 back to Lexington with Tommy stretched across the back seat. One of his brothers would collect Cal’s truck, trailer and Harley from the cabin later.
On the way, we stopped so I could replace my missing phone and keep my old number.
Cal didn’t like that either.
“Andersen probably has your number,” he said.
“I need to call my boss and tell people I’m back.”
“Use a new number.”
“I’m not changing my entire life to make things harder for him.”
Cal gripped the steering wheel but let the subject go.
When we reached my neighborhood, he drove past my house without stopping.
“You missed it.”
“I’m checking the street.”
“For what?”
“Anything that doesn’t belong.”
He circled the block and parked in my driveway. When I reached for the door, he stopped me.
“Wait here.”
I raised an eyebrow.
His jaw shifted. “Will you wait here while I check the house?”
I kept looking at him.
“Please?”
“Better.”
Cal drew his gun and went inside. He returned several minutes later.
“No sign anyone’s been in there.”
When I got inside, everything looked exactly as I’d left it. A coffee mug sat in the sink, a sweatshirt hung over the couch and a stack of mail had been pushed through the slot in the front door.
Normal had never looked so good.
While Cal carried my gear inside, I noticed a gray pickup parked two houses down. The driver wore a baseball cap, but it didn’t hide his beard.
“Is that Briggs?”
Cal looked through the window. “You weren’t supposed to notice him.”
“He’s the size of a refrigerator.”
“He’s being discreet.”
“He’s sitting in a truck staring at my house.”
“He’s staring at his phone.”
A second man appeared briefly at the end of the alley behind my house.
I turned to Cal. “How many of them are out there?”
“Two.”
“You said the club would watch from a distance.”
“They are.”
“One of them could throw a rock through my window.”
“But he won’t.”
“Are they armed?”
Cal raised an eyebrow.
“Stupid question,” I muttered.
“They won’t follow you or tell you where you can go. They’re watching for Andersen, not watching you.”
I wanted to stay angry, but these men barely knew me. They were sitting outside my house because Cal had asked them to protect me.
“They’d do this for anybody?” I asked.
“For anyone one of us cares about.”
My eyes moved to his. “Is that what I am?”
Cal didn’t hesitate.
“Yeah.”
The surveillance still irritated me.
The reason for it didn’t.
My new phone buzzed while I was standing in the kitchen.
The number wasn’t saved.
The photograph had been taken from across the street. My RAV4 sat in the driveway, and the living room curtains were open behind it.
The picture was recent. The porch light hadn’t been on when we arrived.
A message appeared beneath it.
Don’t make a fatal mistake.
My fingers went numb.
“Cal.”
He came into the kitchen carrying Tommy’s water bowl. One look at my face and he set it down.
“What happened?”
I handed him the phone.
He read the message, enlarged the photograph and studied every part of it before walking to the front window.
“Stay back.”
He looked outside while he called Briggs.
I stayed exactly where I was.
“Bro. Anybody come through since we arrived?”
I couldn’t hear the response.
“What kind of car?”
Another pause.
“You get a plate?”
“Stay on it,” he said, before ending the call.
“What did he see?” I asked.
“A dark sedan passed twice. It didn’t stop.”
“Andersen?”
“Could’ve been.”
He took screenshots of the message, then forwarded everything to TK.
“Don’t delete the original,” he said.
“I know.”
“Did you give this number to anyone?”
“My boss. The phone company transferred my old number.”
“Andersen had your other phone. He already knew it.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“He was here,” I said.
“He drove past. That doesn’t mean he’s still nearby.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
Cal checked the back door, then every window in the house. His movements were controlled, but I could see the anger in the way he held himself.
“Why send the message?” I asked. “If he wanted me dead, why warn me?”
“He’s trying to scare you into staying quiet.”
“It’s working.”
Cal stopped in front of me.
“He doesn’t get inside this house.”
“He got close enough to take that picture with two of your brothers outside.”
“That won’t happen again.”
“How can you promise that?”
“I can’t.”
It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but at least he hadn’t lied to me.
His phone rang. He listened to TK for less than a minute before ending the call.
Then he took my overnight bag from the closet and placed it on the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“Pack what you need.”
“For where?”
“The clubhouse.”
“I’m not going to the clubhouse.”
Cal stopped beside the bed. “I wasn’t asking.”
“That sentence ended my marriage.”
“This isn’t about your marriage.”
“It’s about a man deciding he knows what’s best for me.”
“Andersen sent you a picture of your house.”
“I saw it.”
“He threatened to kill you.”
“I read the message, Cal.”
“Then why are we arguing?”
“Because you pulled out my bag and decided I was leaving without asking me.”
His control finally broke.
“I don’t give a fuck about the bag!” His voice filled the room. “That man beat you unconscious and dumped you like garbage. Now he knows where you live, and you want me to stand here while you pretend this house is safe?”
“I’m not pretending anything.”
“Good. Get your things.”
“No.”
Tommy retreated into the hall.
“The clubhouse has cameras, locked gates and armed men,” Cal said. “Andersen couldn’t get near you.”
“So I stay there for how long?”
“Until he’s handled.”
“And who decides when that is? You? TK?”
“Does it matter if you’re alive?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me.
“My ex made every decision sound reasonable,” I said. “Where we lived was about money. Missing my friends’ birthdays was about saving time. Quitting a job I loved was better for both of us.”
“I’m not your ex-husband.”
“Then stop acting like him.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“And you think that makes every choice you take away from me acceptable.”
His jaw tightened.
“You brought your club into this without asking,” I continued. “You put men outside my house. Now you’ve decided where I’m going to live.”
“Every one of those decisions protected you.”
“They also told me you don’t trust me to make my own.”
“You want to risk your life just to prove nobody controls you?”
“I shouldn’t have to prove it. My life belongs to me.”
Cal turned away and braced both hands against the dresser.
I could see the fear beneath his anger. I knew why he wanted walls, gates and armed men around me.
That didn’t mean I could let him build another cage.
“Protecting me isn’t the same as owning me,” I said. “If you want to be part of my life, you have to make room for my choices.”
Cal stood there for several seconds.
Then he walked out of the bedroom. A moment later, the front door closed quietly.
Cal
I stood on the porch until the anger burned itself out.
Briggs sat in his truck down the street, pretending not to watch me. Somewhere behind the house, another brother guarded the alley.
Men following my orders.
That was the problem.
Every solution I’d come up with involved making Lauren do what I wanted. Keep her at the cabin. Move her to the clubhouse. Let the club decide when she was safe enough to have her life back.
I knew what it felt like to have no control over where I went or when a door opened.
I’d nearly done the same thing to her and called it protection.
When I went back inside, Lauren stood in the living room with her arms folded.
“I was wrong,” I said.
She blinked. “That was fast.”
“Don’t make me say it twice.”
“I might need to record it.”
“I’m trying here.”
Her expression softened, but she didn’t move toward me.
“I still think the clubhouse is the safest place for you,” I said. “But I don’t get to drag you there.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Care about somebody and not try to put myself between them and everything that could hurt them.”
“You could start by asking what they want.”
“I will.”
I stepped closer.
“The truth is, I’m falling for you, Lauren.”
She stared at me.
“I know it’s fast,” I said. “I know we met because somebody attacked you, and none of this is normal. I don’t care.”
“Cal…”
“I’m fucking terrified I’m going to lose you before we get a chance to find out what this could be. That’s why I lost my shit. It doesn’t excuse it.”
She unfolded her arms.
“I’m falling for you too,” she said.
For a second, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly.
“You are?”
“I think it started when you put the water on the floor so I wouldn’t have to come near you.”
I moved in front of her and rested my hands lightly on her waist.
“You could’ve mentioned this earlier.”
“You were busy ordering me around.”
“Fair.”
She touched my face. “I lo—like you a whole lot, but I won’t disappear inside your life.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“And I’m not hiding forever.”
I nodded. “Then tell me what you want to do.”
“I want Andersen stopped.”
“So do I.”
“Not while I sit behind a locked gate. I want to help.”
Every instinct told me to refuse.
This time, I didn’t.
“We’ll make the plan together,” I said.