Chapter Nine
Lucas
Charlie was staring at me like she wanted to lick me from head to toe.
This was not the time.
It wasn't easy, but I tried to ignore the heat in her blue eyes and focus on cleaning her face. Blood dripped from a raw patch on her temple where the attacker had ripped out more than a few strands of hair.
She'd hit the ground hard, leaving an ugly, raw scrape on her cheek, tearing the shoulder of her T-shirt, and probably bruising the fuck out of her hip and shoulder.
Goddammit.
I didn't get scared. I'd learned a long time ago that fear is the enemy of rational thought. In my line of work, I had to think clearly and make smart decisions.
I did not get scared. Not for me. Not for anyone. Ever.
So I didn't know how to explain the ice in my gut when I'd seen Charlie go down.
One second, I was sitting in the cab of my dark truck, texting the client for the night's job before I went in and watching Charlie walk down the street, her bag of take-out swinging from one hand.
I got distracted from my text at the thought of all the things I was going to do to her after I changed and knocked on her back door, when out of nowhere, a figure erupted from the trees and launched itself at Charlie, taking her to the ground in a hit so hard I imagined I could feel it from twenty feet away.
Rage had flooded my brain.
Rage and fear.
Images kaleidoscoped through my head—all the things the attacker could be doing to Charlie.
Did he have a knife? A gun?
I couldn't see them anymore from my position in the truck, but I was moving before the thought was complete.
Diving out of the truck, I raced around the back to see indistinct dark figures rolling in the scrubby grass.
Charlie somehow broke free and stood frozen for a heartbeat before taking off toward the neighbor's front door.
Smart girl.
I went after her attacker. I was on him, had a grip on his neck with one hand, when I heard her scream.
If it had been a job, I might've handled it differently. But Charlie wasn't a job. I called her name. No answer. Her attacker struggled beneath me, grunting and kicking. I called Charlie's name again. Still no answer.
"Goddammit," I'd shouted, pissed at the asshole trying to get away and at Charlie for disappearing. I didn't have any restraints in my tux, no way to secure the attacker and still go after Charlie.
"Goddammit," I repeated under my breath.
I should have been calm. Deliberate. Calculating.
An hour before, I'd been at a benefit ball in a Buckhead mansion, had made small talk, disappeared, disabled the security system, hacked into the owner's computer, downloaded his protected files, and strolled out.
My heart rate had never risen above normal. Now, it raced in my chest.
I let go of the attacker and surged to my feet, striding across the yard to where I'd seen Charlie go down. I almost tripped in a hole in the grass when I saw her white shirt.
All white. No blood. That was a good sign.
She said my name, her voice weak and shaking. I needed to get her in the house and figure out how badly she was injured.
I got her inside, cleared the house, and went to work on her face. At the sight of her smooth skin scraped raw, I wanted to find the asshole who'd jumped her and beat the shit out of him.
Why the fuck would someone be after Charlie?
Her eyes cleared gradually, shock from the attack wearing off as she took in the sight of me in my tux.
At the look on her face, I wanted to strip her naked and take her to bed, but that would have to wait till later.
"Why are you dressed like that?" she asked.
I thought about messing with her, telling her I'd been at the party for fun, but I found myself saying, "I had a job."
"What kind of job?"
"Ma?tre d’?" I said, unable to resist teasing her just a little.
She didn't buy it, raising one eyebrow and waiting patiently for the truth. I shrugged one shoulder.
"A confidential kind of job."
"A confidential job for a client who required you to wear a tux?" she probed.
"Exactly. Almost all of my work is confidential," I said.
"You sound like the Sinclairs," she said. "They never tell any of the good stuff."
"Same line of work, but I freelance. Still, same principles. You don't get a lot of repeat clients if you talk about the job."
"I get that. Is it dangerous?"
"Sometimes. Tonight, not as dangerous as your walk home."
"I guess not."
Keeping my voice carefully neutral, I asked, "Any idea who it was?"
"I don't know for sure," she said slowly. "I couldn't see them in the dark. But there's been some stuff going on . . ."
She trailed off, either not sure how to explain or uncertain if she wanted to.
Tough luck. I wanted answers and I was going to get them.
"What kind of stuff?" I asked.
She shrugged one shoulder—the one she hadn't landed on—and said, "Well, for the last few months, some nut bag has been sending pictures of my aunt and uncle's deaths to different people in the family. Not to me . . . yet."
"Anyone attacked? Anything direct, like this? Or just leaving pictures?"
"Just pictures," she said. "So far, only for Jacob and Vance."
"Anything else?" I asked.
"A former client of Winters Inc. threatened me a few weeks ago," she admitted, squeezing her eyes shut as I went to work on the raw spot at her temple.
"Sorry," I said, hating that I was hurting her. "You got dirt in here."
"It's okay," she whispered. "Thank you."
I ignored her thanks and said, "What kind of threats?"
"Nothing specific," she said. "I was responsible for reporting his company to the FBI for fraud and he was pretty pissed off about it."
"Is that why Aiden fired you?"
"He says not. But I don't know. Maybe he thought if he fired me, Hayward would think I'd been punished."
"Could this have been him? Hayward?" I asked, lowering the washcloth.
"It could," she said. "It was dark and it happened so fast. I didn't really see him after I hit the ground, and then you were there . . ."
"If this guy is after you, what the fuck are you doing living in this house by yourself with no security? You barely even have working locks, for Christ's sake."
I tossed the washcloth on the floor and glared at her. She looked away for a second before her spine stiffened and she glared back.
Why did I like it so much when she went head to head with me? I should have been annoyed. Instead, I didn't know if I wanted to kiss her or keep arguing with her.
"I do have locks on the doors," she said. "And I didn't know anyone was after me. A few weeks ago, Hayward said he was going to 'get me'. But he's been busy with the FBI and he hasn't done anything. He hasn't called. He hasn't come by. Nothing. We don't even know that this was him."
"Is there anyone else who might want to attack you in the dark?" I demanded.
"No, of course not. I don't know what's going on, okay? Maybe it was Hayward, maybe not. I don't know."
I was too pissed at her to respond. Some guy was threatening her and she thought the best response was to move out of her fortress of a home into this completely unsecured, barely habitable house?
Life is dangerous enough without throwing yourself in the path of trouble. What would've happened to her if I hadn't been there?
I didn't want to think about it.
Didn't want to consider what her attacker's plan had been. She was lucky the worst of it was a scraped cheek, some missing hair, and a handful of bruises.
Charlie might not be so lucky the next time.
"You realize we have to call the police," I said, waiting for her to argue. She didn't disappoint.
"We can't call the police." Her jaw set, she crossed her arms tightly over her chest.
"Why the fuck not?" I demanded.
"Because it would be all over the news in about five seconds," she said. "I'm not doing that. I'm not going to be their bug under a microscope. Nothing happened. I'm fine. I'm getting a security system tomorrow, and everything will be all right."
"You're deluded," I said, facing her down. "For one thing, if it is this guy who threatened you, he'll come back for more. You need to establish a pattern of attacks at the beginning so you can press charges and we can make it stick when we catch the guy."
"No."
She wouldn't meet my eyes. Probably because I was glaring at her and she knew I was right.
"What if I can promise you it won't get out?" I asked.
"You can't promise me that, Lucas," she said, sounding exhausted.
Charlie was being obstinate, but she wasn't wrong. At least not about the press. If we called 911, the press would be all over her and the attention would be relentless.
She might be pretending she was a normal girl with a normal life, but she wasn't. She was Charlotte Winters, the crown princess of the Winters clan.
Her departure from Winters Inc. hadn't hit the news yet, but it would, eventually.
Even sooner if the attack got out.
It was too juicy a story, and we both knew the media would gnaw on it for weeks.
She wouldn't be able to walk down the street.
She wouldn't be able to leave her house.
She'd have to move home, a prisoner in Winters House, until the attention died down.
"I promise you it'll be quiet. Will you trust me?"
"Are you going to call my brother? Or one of the Sinclairs?" she asked, not trying to hide the hope in her voice.
"No. I'm going to call a detective I've worked with on another case. He can keep his mouth shut, and he'll take your statement and get the attack on record, but do it under the radar."
"And he won't call my brother?"
Charlie stared me down, raising an eyebrow. I might've thought she was being paranoid, but I knew how these things worked.
Aiden Winters had his finger on the pulse of Atlanta, at almost every level. There was no cop in town who would process a police report involving Charlotte Winters and not call Aiden.
Except, possibly, Detective Ryan Brennan.
"Brennan won't rat you out," I promised, "but we'll have to tell Sinclair Security before they put in your system."