Chapter Four
Diana's hands were shaking.
Vice noticed because he noticed everything about her—the rapid pulse visible at her throat, the shallow breathing she was trying to control, the way she gripped the passenger door handle like she might need to bolt at any second.
Her body was running on pure adrenaline, burning through reserves she probably didn't have left.
He pulled the SUV away from the curb and hit the button for his earpiece.
"Blaster. I need the south safehouse prepped. One guest, female, civilian. She's rattled but not injured."
"Copy. How hot?"
Vice checked his mirrors. Two blocks back, a black sedan had pulled out of a side street and was maintaining distance. Casual. Professional. The kind of tail that knew what it was doing.
"Getting warmer. ETA twenty minutes if I can shake the company."
"I'll have it ready. Blaster out."
Diana's head turned toward him. "Company?"
"Black sedan. Two blocks back." He kept his voice calm, matter-of-fact. "They probably had someone watching the daycare, saw Phelps and his boys run out bloody. Now they want to know who did it."
"Oh God." Her breathing went ragged. "Oh God, they're following us?"
"They're trying." Vice hooked a right onto a residential street, cutting between two rows of modest houses with lights glowing warm in their windows. Normal families. Normal lives. No idea what was happening on their quiet street tonight. "They won't succeed."
The sedan followed. He'd expected that.
Vice made a mental map of the neighborhood—he'd grown up on the east side, knew these streets like his own heartbeat. The grid pattern broke down three blocks ahead, older development giving way to a maze of cul-de-sacs and dead ends that would swallow anyone who didn't know the area.
"Hold on."
He punched the accelerator, shooting through a yellow light and hooking hard left onto Archer Street. Diana grabbed the oh-shit handle as the SUV's tires squealed, but she didn't scream. Didn't panic. Just held on and let him drive.
Good girl.
The thought came unbidden, and Vice filed it away to examine later. Right now, he had work to do.
Another right. A quick jog through an alley that wasn't technically meant for vehicles but fit the SUV if you didn't mind losing a side mirror.
Left onto Blackwood, then immediately right into the Riverside subdivision—a warren of identical houses built in the eighties, all the same beige siding and confused street layout.
Vice watched his mirrors. The sedan had fallen back at the alley, probably unwilling to risk the tight squeeze. They'd be circling now, trying to pick up his trail on the main roads.
They wouldn't find it.
He wound through Riverside at a reasonable pace, just another SUV heading home after a long day. Left on Willow. Right on Oak. Through the four-way stop where kids from the elementary school crossed every morning, past the little park with the rusted swings, out the back entrance onto Miller Road.
The sedan was nowhere in sight.
Vice let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and eased off the accelerator.
"We're clear."
Diana's grip on the door handle didn't loosen. "How do you know?"
"Because I grew up here. And they didn't." He glanced at her, noting the color slowly returning to her face. "Nobody finds you in Riverside unless you want to be found."
"You grew up on the east side?"
"Born and raised. Left for the Army at eighteen, came back ten years later." He shrugged. "Some things you don't forget."
Diana was quiet for a moment, processing. He could practically see her mind working—fitting pieces together, trying to make sense of the man who'd just driven through an alley at forty miles an hour to keep her safe.
"Where are we going?" she asked finally.
"Safehouse. Club property, south side of town. Nobody knows about it except brothers." He checked his mirrors again—habit, even though they were clear. "You'll be safe there."
"For how long?"
"Long as it takes."
She turned to look at him fully, and Vice felt the weight of her attention like a physical thing. Brown eyes, still scared but sharpening now. The fog of shock burning off, replaced by something harder.
"And what exactly is it going to take? To end this?"
"Finding out who's behind it. Why they want your building bad enough to destroy your life for it." His hands tightened on the wheel. "Then making them stop."
"Making them stop," she repeated. "Like you made Phelps stop?"
"If necessary."
Diana was silent for a long moment. The streetlights flashed across her face as they drove—light, shadow, light again—and Vice found himself cataloging every detail.
The stubborn set of her jaw. The way she held herself even when she was exhausted.
The fire that hadn't gone out despite weeks of attacks she couldn't fight.
"I'm not going to pretend I understand your world," she said finally. "The club, the violence, any of it. But those men walked into my daycare like they owned it. Like the children who play there every day meant nothing. Like I was just an obstacle to remove."
Her voice hardened.
"I won't let anyone threaten those kids. Whatever it takes to keep them safe—I'm in."
Something shifted in Vice's chest. Something that felt dangerously like admiration.
"Whatever it takes?"
"Whatever it takes."
He nodded slowly. "Then we understand each other."
The safehouse appeared ten minutes later—a modest ranch house on a quiet street, indistinguishable from its neighbors except for the reinforced door frame and the security cameras disguised as porch lights.
Vice pulled into the garage and hit the button to close the door behind them, sealing them into darkness before the overhead light flickered on.
"Come on." He killed the engine and came around to open her door before she could reach for the handle. "Let's get you inside."
Diana stepped out of the SUV, and Vice's hand found her lower back again without conscious thought. Guiding her. Claiming her. Keeping her close because the alternative—letting her out of arm's reach when there were men hunting her—wasn't something his brain could accept.
The house was small but functional. Living room with a sagging couch and ancient TV. Kitchen stocked with non-perishables and instant coffee. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, everything clean but impersonal. A place to hide, not to live.
Diana stood in the middle of the living room, arms wrapped around herself, taking it all in.
"Blaster—one of my brothers—stocked the kitchen yesterday," Vice said. "There's food if you're hungry. Bathroom's down the hall. Bedroom on the left has clean sheets."
She nodded but didn't move toward any of those things.
"The children," she said quietly.
Vice went still.
"What happens to them?" Diana turned to face him, and he saw the fear she'd been holding back finally break through.
Not fear for herself—fear for them. Always for them.
"Monday morning, twelve kids are going to show up at Little Sprouts expecting me to be there.
Expecting story time and finger painting and someone to kiss their scraped knees. What happens when I'm not?"
"Diana—"
"Their parents trust me. They drop off their babies and go to work because they believe I'll keep them safe." Her voice cracked. "How do I tell them I can't open? How do I explain that someone threatened their children and I just... disappeared?"
Vice crossed the room in three strides. His hands found her shoulders, turning her to face him, tilting her chin up so she couldn't look away.
"You didn't disappear. You made a strategic retreat so you could survive long enough to fight back.
" His thumbs traced circles on her shoulders, soothing even as he held her in place.
"The kids will be okay. We'll figure out a plan—Martha and Beth can cover Monday, tell the parents there's a family emergency. You'll be back before the week is out."
"You can't promise that."
"No," he admitted. "I can't promise timing.
But I can promise you'll go back. I can promise that whoever's doing this won't succeed.
" He leaned closer, his voice dropping. "And I can promise that as long as you're with me, nobody touches you.
Nobody threatens you. Nobody even looks at you wrong without going through me first."
Diana stared up at him, eyes wide, breathing unsteady. This close, he could see the amber flecks in her brown irises, count the freckles scattered across her nose, catalog every micro-expression that crossed her face.
Fear. Confusion. And underneath it all, something warmer.
"Why?" she whispered. "You barely know me. Why are you doing all this?"
Vice thought about lying. Thought about giving her the same line he'd given Jenna—twelve kids, protecting innocents, doing what needed to be done.
But Diana deserved better than comfortable lies.
"Because you walked into that daycare four years ago and built something worth protecting," he said. "Because you've been fighting alone for weeks and you're still standing. Because when Phelps threatened those kids, you didn't cower—you told him to get out."
His hand slid from her shoulder to the side of her neck, feeling her pulse race under his palm.
"And because something in me recognized something in you. The part that won't quit. The part that would burn down the world to protect the people who need you."
Diana's breath caught.
"I have that same part," Vice said quietly. "Took me a long time to find something worth using it for. Now I have."
He should step back. Give her space to process, time to rest, room to breathe without him crowding her. She'd been through hell tonight, and the last thing she needed was him making claims he had no right to make.
But his hand stayed on her neck. His body stayed close to hers. And when Diana leaned into his touch instead of pulling away, something primitive and possessive roared to life in his chest.
Mine.
The thought was ridiculous. He'd known her less than a week. She was a civilian caught in something ugly, not a woman who belonged in his world.
But the thought remained, settling into his bones like it had always been there.
Mine to protect. Mine to keep safe. Mine.
"You should rest," he heard himself say. "Tomorrow we start figuring out who Barron is and what he wants with your building."
Diana nodded slowly, but she didn't move away. Her hand came up to rest on his chest, right over his heart, and Vice felt the touch like a brand.
"Thank you," she said. "For coming tonight. For being there."
"I'll always be there."
The words came out before he could stop them. A promise he had no business making to a woman he barely knew.
But Vice meant every syllable.
Diana held his gaze for another long moment, then stepped back. His hand fell away from her neck, and the loss of contact felt like a physical wound.
"Goodnight, Vice."
"Goodnight, Diana."
She disappeared down the hallway toward the bedroom, and Vice stood in the middle of the safehouse living room, listening to her footsteps fade.
Twelve kids, she'd said. What happens to the children?
Not what happens to me. Not am I going to die. Not any of the thousand questions a normal person would ask after being threatened by violent criminals and chased through the streets.
What happens to the children.
Vice sank onto the sagging couch and pulled out his phone, already composing the message to Titan. They needed intel on Nick Barron. They needed to know what was worth destroying a daycare to acquire.
But underneath the tactical planning, something else burned.
A woman who cared about twelve kids more than her own survival.
A woman worth protecting.
A woman who might just be worth everything.