Elaina let Alex persuade her to reassemble their clothes, and she filled in the blanks with non-ripped replacements. The shattered pieces of their relationship weren’t so easy to put back together.
She’d trusted that he’d use his money and influence to keep her safe, and he’d obviously been busy doing just that—at least in his mind. Yes, she’d said she wanted to be free from worry, but they’d never talked about how to make that happen. Or more importantly, how far she was willing to go.
Maybe it was a good thing to delay the rest of the conversation. At least until she had a better handle on what her options were.
The great sex they’d just shared—when he wasn’t holding himself back and being distant—showed once again how perfect they could be for each other. If it weren’t for the “dragons can’t love” issue and the fact that they’d both been lying to each other for the past two months, their relationship would be ideal. Luckily, they had days before that reporter’s article could bring her father here.
Decent again, she followed Alex to the knocking on the bedroom door. Baxter, his security manager, stood in the doorway.
“Sorry to disturb you, ah...” Baxter’s eyes bugged out and focused behind them.
She and Alex twisted around. Behind them, the mattress listed off the foundation, both nightstands lay toppled, and one of the drapes hung limply, half-ripped from the curtain rod with her claw marks scoring the wall. The disheveled result of Alex’s flying scramble to tackle her turned her on all over again.
Alex cleared his throat. “You couldn’t reach me by phone, I take it.”
That was probably a good guess. The house phone had been torn from the wall, and Alex’s cell phone lay in pieces, as though it had crashed into the far wall and popped the battery from the case.
She gave Alex a grin, hoping he got the message that if they figured out a way to stay together, she wanted to repeat the experience. Maybe someday he’d believe her about how much she liked his aggressiveness. The stronger he was, the less she worried about hurting him.
Alex’s brows furrowed, and then he regarded Baxter. “Why did you need me?”
Baxter glowered at her before answering. “We caught an intruder.”
All business, Alex ushered them into the hallway. “Tell me everything.”
Baxter scrutinized her again. A shiver fluttered in her chest. What did his attention imply? Was this simply about his dislike of her, or did the intruder have something to do with her?
Alex led them through the mansion’s hallways and clarified, “Tell us everything.”
“We caught him skulking around the grounds. Normally, we’d have turned him over to the police, but I don’t think this guy is a paparazzo.” Baxter stopped them outside the door of the security office. “We found a gun on him.”
Alex jerked back. “A gun?”
At Alex’s reaction, she had to stop her arm from instinctively reaching for his hand. Bullets couldn’t hurt her any more than knives, but Alex was vulnerable to human weapons.
She turned to Baxter for a distraction from her forgot-she-was-supposed-to-be-mad-at-Alex impulse. “Why does that mean he’s not part of the paparazzi?”
Baxter looked inclined to ignore her question, but Alex gave him a pointed stare. Her ribs squeezed, and she dropped her gaze. Yep, Baxter’s reaction was all about not liking her presence here.
Even after two months, she still hadn’t won over most of the house staff. Their loss, right?
Baxter cleared his throat. “It’s difficult to carry a concealed weapon legally in Illinois.”
Alex grumbled under his breath, “Because criminals would never break those laws.”
“Yes, but paparazzi would have no reason to risk a weapons violation.” Baxter stepped back from the door. “We can call the police if you’d rather not get involved, but you asked me to inform you of any unusual security issues.”
She answered Alex’s unspoken question. “My father would have no reason to carry a gun. It’s not him.”
“All right. Let’s find out who he is.”
Baxter opened the door. The two guards inside scoped out their group and then returned their attention to a dumpy-looking, middle-aged man in a chair. The guy’s eyes landed on her and widened.
Uh-oh. Did that reaction mean this intruder did have something to do with her? It had probably been a bad idea to let him see her. Too late now.
She scanned the room, the various sources of metal making an impression on her heightened awareness. Handcuffs locked the guy’s wrists behind his back. His gun sat securely in the small safe under Baxter’s desk. And a metal blade was in his shoe.
“Have you checked his shoes for weapons?”
Baxter twitched and stared at her. “What?”
Alex crossed his arms. “Take his shoes.”
While the other guards loomed over the man, Baxter removed the guy’s shoes and found the catch that released the blade. He clicked his tongue and met her eyes for a millisecond. “Good call.”
She subtly signaled Alex that the guy was now clean. He grabbed another chair and straddled it backward, challenging the man. “Who are you, and why are you here?”
The man didn’t answer, so Baxter tapped his foot. “Mr. Wyatt can make things easier or much, much harder for you with the police, so I’d suggest you cooperate.”
The guy remained silent. Obviously, he wasn’t going to play nice.
Time to make him uncomfortable. Maybe Baxter’s pressure would then be more effective.
Non-precious metals used to be difficult for her to manipulate. Before, she had to be close to the material, like the bolts in her office door. Now, the ruby pendant around her neck acted as a direct conduit to the energy of her entire hoard.
At her mental instruction, the steel handcuffs around the guy’s wrists warped, biting into his skin.
He gasped, and his eyes locked onto her. “Okay, okay, I’ll talk.”
His reaction told her almost everything she needed to know. He knew who—and to some extent, what—she was. “Who sent you?”
“I don’t know their names.” An East Coast accent flavored his voice. “Some mafia goons maybe. I know I shouldn’t have gotten involved with them, but they were offering a lot of money, and with the economy, my P.I. business ain’t what it used to be.”
“You’re a private investigator?” Baxter’s tone scolded the man, as though he should have known better.
“Yeah, Douglas Watkins.” He shifted in his seat. “Believe you me, I’m not happy about being here either.”
Alex leaned over the back of his chair. “What did they want you to do for them?”
“They wanted me to track down this lady.” His chin tipped in her direction. “They’ve paid me for a couple of years actually, even though I never found shit until the other month.” He shrugged. “It was easy money. I ran a few searches and took their cash.”
Alex nearly growled. “Then what happened?”
“Her name popped up in a search. I told my contacts. I figured that would be the end of it because the search results showed her in the Chicago area—not my stomping grounds. But my contacts wanted me to come out here anyway and check it out. They said their client wouldn’t be happy if it turned out to be a dead end.”
Ringing sounded in her ears, and she fought back her panic. “Did they say who this client was?”
“Some guy in Russia, I think. Or maybe Eastern Europe. They acted like the guy was very, very powerful. Not someone to mess with. At that point, I was ready to bow out. The last thing I wanted to do was get myself in deeper. ’Specially once they told me to be careful around her if she was the real deal.”
She wanted to ask him more questions, but she couldn’t risk exposing the truth to Baxter and the guards. What she knew was bad enough that a part of her wanted to deny it. Wanted to deny that Douglas’s contacts knew the truth because the “client” had told them. Wanted to deny that her father had discovered a way to lengthen his reach.
But the temptation to dig up dirt on her was likely too much for Baxter to resist. “What did they tell you?”
Douglas paled, and beads of sweat erupted on his forehead. “That she wouldn’t even need to touch me to kill me.”
The world no longer contained the sense of up or down, and her limbs crumpled under her.