Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 155798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 779(@200wpm)___ 623(@250wpm)___ 519(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 779(@200wpm)___ 623(@250wpm)___ 519(@300wpm)
“I want to talk to Detective Dickhead.” Brett had stopped trying to lift me away, but he was barely contained. His arm was like cement in front of me, and I held onto it, my fingers tightening around him.
“You mean Officer Dove? You have his number—”
“No. You call him. You can get his ass here quicker.”
“And if he’s in the middle of something?”
“Then I’m taking Billie, and I’m making some phone calls to old friends.” His tone was ominous. “I’m not fucking around. Get him here, or I’m returning to my roots.”
She frowned, not understanding that last statement, but Brett didn’t care. He twisted, lifting me in a surprisingly gentle hold as he carried me back through the gate, hitting the button so it’d lock. When we got back into the house, he put me down, but only to bend in front of me so he could throw me over his shoulder.
“Brett!”
“Just easier this way.” He took the stairs three at a time, going into his bedroom, where he set me on his bed. He disappeared into his closet, bringing out a bag.
“What are you doing?”
He put the bag on the bed, unzipped it, and went to his dresser. “I meant what I said. These fucks know who this guy is and they haven’t told you?” He waited one second for me to affirm.
I nodded warily. “He wouldn’t.”
He pulled open the top drawer, taking out my clothes. He tossed them onto the bag, opening the second drawer. “That’s what I figured.”
“Brett.” I reached for the bag, holding it to me. “What are you doing?”
He stopped, his gaze wild, his jaw clenched in a way I’d never seen before. He was livid. “We don’t need their protection. I know people. You can disappear, and if this fucker wants to get to you, the only way is through me. If they don’t share—”
“Which one are you going to call? Channing Monroe or Mattis Naveah?” a voice asked from the doorway, a strange voice that I’d never heard from Travis.
His gaze was hooded, his jaw clenched.
Brett’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe one, maybe both. I know others too.”
“That’s right. You know all sorts of people. What’d you say to Howard again? ‘I’m in the NFL Honors. Guys like to talk to me.’ Or something like that? Am I getting that wrong?”
Brett grew still.
The tension in the room thickened.
“Who’s the guy trying to kill Billie?” Brett asked.
Travis’ jaw could cut glass. “That is information I cannot share, nor should I have said in the first place.”
“Bullshit. You wanted her to know. You told her all about the profile. You wanted to share the details about the theory on who this guy is—”
“Profiles work. That’s why we use them.”
“So Billie gets to know all about this guy’s fucked-up head, but not who he is? She’s not given a picture in case something happens and she sees him before he sees her? Does he have computer skills? Is that in the profile?”
Travis’ eyebrows dipped. His head tilted to the side. “Why would you ask that?”
“Is that in the profile?” Brett ground out.
He didn’t answer at first. “Yes. We believe he has or used to have a high-level computer job.”
“I thought you knew who he was?”
Travis’ face was like stone again, giving nothing away. His eyes flicked to me as he answered me, “We have a name. We don’t have anything else. It’s not enough, even to you.”
Brett seemed to know what that meant, but I didn’t.
His eyes closed, and his hands balled into fists, one of them still holding a pair of my leggings.
“What?” I looked between the two of them. Neither would look my way. “What does that mean?”
Travis grimaced, raking a hand through his hair before he turned toward the hallway.
“Brett.” I waited.
He wouldn’t look at me.
“Brett!”
His eyes lifted, and a tsunami of anger, regret, and fear mixed in there together.
My voice quieted. “Tell me what that means.”
“Don’t,” Travis warned, still not looking at me.
“Means he’s government or he was government.”
My heart lurched. “What specifically does that mean?”
“That means,” Travis rejoined the conversation, his head turning to lock eyes with me. “He has skills that we’re probably not accounting for.”
“Thought you said he was a fighter,” Brett remarked.
“It fits,” he shot back. “He knows how to fight. He didn’t engage with you because he didn’t have time. Also accounts for why he was comfortable enough to even try at the gas station with such a short window.”
Brett wanted to hurt Travis. I could see it in the way he watched him. That darkness was there, needing violence. I knew it now, seeing it on his face when he slammed my attacker to the ground. It was there on his face again, but lurking. Hidden.
I saw it because there was a part of me that could feel him inside me. My own darkness stirred, rising up, matching what was already in Brett. It was more than knowing how to handle himself or how to shove against a guy on the football line. This was deep. Did it come from his childhood? Or his own brother? He’d not gone into great detail, and I wanted to know. I wanted to know so badly that I could taste it, but yeah, whatever had created the darkness in him, I knew it was there because I had it too.