by Aliyah Burke
Nice houses and he shook his head. This was the life for some, not him. He just needed to get back to Seattle, recover his bag, and get back to his quiet world. He’d done well staying away from the drink, other than the beer in the bar she’d worked at, but the urge was riding him hard. The urge to drink and forget. To lose the memories and the pain. To have it all be nothing but a blur.
PTSD, the doctors said. Yes, he wasn’t an idiot—he knew that. He also knew that alcohol worked just fine in keeping those memories at bay. A lot cheaper than therapy and paying for medication. Tasted better, too.
He pulled up a drive and parked the vehicle behind a shiny white Audi. Slanting his gaze to his passenger, he sighed when she merely opened the door and stepped free of the car’s interior. He killed the engine and got out. Together, they headed up to the front door.
The back of Dorian’s neck prickled, and he scoped the area. Nothing he could see, but the Ranger in him found a good deal of hiding places in the area where a tango could be hiding. He shook his head. They weren’t tangos; they would be considered perps, now. He was no longer in a war zone—technically.
They climbed the brick steps, and he reached out and pressed the doorbell. Tilting his head to Sakharre, he hated the look of resignation on her face. The moment the handle began turning, her face was wiped clean of any and all emotion. Leaving the blank slate he’d first seen on her in the bar.
A woman in a maid’s uniform stood there. “Yes?”
“We’re here to see Louis,” he replied.
“Who may I say is calling?” She tucked some dyed blonde hair behind her ear from where it had escaped the bun.
“His sister,” Sakharre said.
“One moment, please.” The door closed, and they were alone, again. Each with their own thoughts.
Dorian wanted to reassure her things would be fine. He had no doubt that Tyler’s men would keep her safe. You know you should stay with her, his conscience reprimanded him. No, this wasn’t what he did. Tyler’s men were professional at this.
“I’m not a solider, anymore,” he said, turning her toward him. “You understand that, right? I don’t protect people, anymore.”
Pain flashed before it was masked by an icy sheen. “No one asked you to. In fact, why don’t you leave now so you can get back to whatever is so damn important for you to do?”
Damn it, he wanted to explain it to her. The words wouldn’t come. Besides, if she were upset with him, perhaps it would be easier on him to leave her.
“Mr. Dare’s men will be by soon. We just got here sooner than expected.”
She dismissed him with a glance. “Makes no difference to me.”
The door opened, and they were face to face with a large man. Damn, he’s big on television but bigger in person. She’d not been lying when she said he was over three hundred pounds. He’d put the man between three-twenty to three-forty. It wasn’t fat with him, but solid muscle. Wouldn’t want that on the other side of the ball coming after me.
His expression was serious until he laid his eyes on Sakharre. He smiled and looked like a little boy.
“Sakharre!” he boomed. “I was so worried about you.” He picked her up like a doll and hugged her.
“Louis,” she said, voice muffled by his size. “Put me down, please.”
Dorian could see the reluctance from Louis as he did as she’d requested. She tugged on her shirt hem once her feet had been returned to the ground. Louis looked at Dorian and stuck out his hand.
“Louis Reiss. Thank you so much for finding her and bringing her home. You’ll see, Sakharre, all will be better, now. Mr. Dare has his brother on it. That guy won’t be able to breathe in your direction. Please come in. Mr. West, surely I can get you something to eat and drink. In fact, since you’re here early, I insist you both stay the night. I have plenty of room and practice is done for the day, so I’m not going out.”
“I can—”
“Stay here? Wonderful.” Louis’ smile was one that told Dorian he had expected to have his wishes met.
They were escorted inside the cool house, and he was grateful to be out of the heat. There was a reason he lived in the north. He preferred the cold to heat. The winters where they were snowed in, he reveled in. After all his time in the desert, he’d come to hate heat and sand. The purity of snow made him smile.
“Mr. West?”
He snapped back to the conversation at hand. “I’m sorry. Please call me Dorian.”
Louis nodded. “Can I have May get you anything to drink? Water, tea, lemonade, beer or, hell, something stronger, if you’d like.”
Beer was something he wanted, but it wasn’t time. “Tea or lemonade is fine.”
May smiled and slipped away. Louis clapped his hands together and hugged his sister, again.
“We’ll grill out tonight in celebration of you being home. I’d love to know what you’ve been doing for the past two years.”
Even Dorian picked up on the admonishment in his tone. Sakharre merely shrugged and led the way to a living room where she sat on a leather love seat. Dorian took a recliner where he could see both her and Louis. Their drinks were brought swiftly, and he took a grateful sip of the lemonade.
“The grill is heating up so we’ll be grilling soon.” Louis leaned back on his couch. “Tell me.”
αβ
Louis loved his sister—that much was obvious. At the end of dinner, they continued to sit outside, the night having cooled off a bit. Dorian was full of perfectly done steak and sides. Louis manned the grill himself and did a damn good job.
He’d been silent most of the meal while Louis talked to Sakharre. He’d learned a bit more about her over the course of their dinner. May had brought them some chocolate dessert, also amazing.
“I think I’ll go lay down,” Sakharre said, rising to her feet. She kissed Louis on the cheek and nodded in Dorian’s direction. “Mr. West.”
It grated on his nerves that that was how she addressed him. Hell, they knew one another on a personal, intimate level, and she couldn’t use his first name. She sure as hell could scream it to the room. Biting back his response, he replied, “Sakharre.”
She went inside and Dorian reached for his glass and drank more lemonade.
“What the hell happened while you were on your way back here?”
All of Dorian’s protective instincts went into full alert. This tone wasn’t the gentle one the sister got. This was all alpha male who made his living beating up others.
“We ran into a bit of trouble.”
“As in?”
“She was kidnapped by some human traffickers.”
“Why wasn’t I told about that?” Louis flattened the beer can in his hand with the ease of popping a zit.
“We’d resolved the situation and didn’t feel it necessary to divulge to you. No point in worrying you more.”
“This is my sister we’re discussing. Not some stranger off the street.”
Dorian leaned forward. “We know. And she is safe. Was safe. Now, she’s here, and Mr. Dare will have a detail for her tomorrow.”
“What was she doing when you found her?” Louis cracked his neck.
“Working as a bartender and a very good one.”
He sighed heavily. “At least she wasn’t stripping.” He rose and began pacing. “You know her mother was a stripper. Even when she came to be with my father, she couldn’t let it go. She craved the attention it gave her. Loved all the men looking at her. I’d hoped that she wouldn’t follow in her mother’s steps, but I was worried. I mean, she’s not got the body for it, but she’d probably be able to work in a lower-end place.”
Dorian narrowed his gaze. “How could you talk about your sister like that?” Lord, he wanted to punch him in the face.
“She’s not exactly built like a stripper.”
He recognized he was being baited and pulled back, choosing not to say anything, no matter how it gnawed at him. “Not really a relative point since she wasn’t strip
ping.”
“Right, she was bartending. Is that where she got snatched?”
“No, it was at a bus station. Professional crew. A woman tagged her in the restroom, and when she collapsed, the other two were working as paramedics.”
“She’s older than me, you know.” Louis reclaimed his seat. “But she’s always been a bookworm, and I had to protect her. Or try. She wasn’t exactly fond of me. Some days, I’m not sure she is even now. I think she merely tolerates me. When I signed here, I asked her to come down. She did and got in the university. She would come to a few games and some practices but tended to avoid what I did. I wanted her happy, so I encouraged her to go out with some of the guys. That never ended well. She didn’t hold any grudges, but I couldn’t stand to think of any of them touching her.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face and reached for another beer. “Then, came Clay. Actually, a man who I hadn’t introduced her to and one who, for all intents and purposes, appeared interested in her. Unfortunately, it was to her detriment. He is insane. Nearly got her kicked out of the university. He’s broken into her place numerous times, and then, came the threatening letters.”
“Why didn’t someone go to another precinct if the man had friends in one?”
“That’s on me,” he said, voice tortured. “I didn’t believe her until I found one of the threatening letters. I couldn’t believe someone would stalk her.”
“Because of her weight?”
Shame filled his features. “Yes. I was thinking she should be happy someone was paying her attention. It was wrong, I know this. I spend my days surrounded by the cheerleaders and skinny women who can have almost any man they choose. My sister was dumpy next to them. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, you weren’t. And, when you realized she wasn’t lying, it was too late.” Dorian’s tone rang with disappointment.
“Exactly. She’d already run away. I’d gone to her place and found nothing but a bag of papers. At the bottom, I found one of the letters. It talked about how, since she’d ignored the previous letters, he would have to get more drastic. He mentioned taking her to a place where it can just be the two of them.” He made a fist. “Then, he went in great detail on what he was going to do to her.” His face hardened, anger etched along the planes. “I’m going to kill him if I ever get my hands on him.”
“That won’t do anyone any good. You have a job to do, let Mr. Dare do his.” I’m going to kill him first for doing what he did, so you don’t have to worry about it. Dorian pushed to his feet. “Thank you for dinner. I am going to get a few hours of sleep, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Thank you, for bringing my sister back home.”
“Just doing my job,” he said and walked up to his room.
αβ
Sakharre stood out on the balcony of her room, the thick night air oddly soothing as she listened to the familiar sounds of the city. Tomorrow, she would meet the men assigned to keep her safe, and Dorian would be out of her life forever.
News that should make her happy, but it was the exact opposite. An enormous sense of loss filled her, and she couldn’t explain why. She and Dorian didn’t have a deep, meaningful relationship. It had been intense, brief, and passionate. Nothing which would create a bond.
Unless you counted on the gunfire, that he came for her, and what they shared in bed. To her, that was deeply meaningful.
“Suck it up,” she muttered, disgusted with her behavior.
Walking back inside, she curled up in the large chair in the corner, legs tucked beneath her. She rested her head back and tried to think about her life as normal. Could she go back and finish her Masters? Hell, did she want to? While bartending wasn’t her favorite thing she’d done, working with the dogs at the training facility she cleaned kennels for had been something she’d enjoyed.
All those years in school perhaps for nothing. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
She woke to the feel of something hard behind her. Opening her eyes, she found the room swathed in darkness and shifted. The chair’s arm dug into her as she lay slumped over.
“I have a perfectly good bed a few feet away, and I’m hanging over the chair like a crazy person.”
Stiff, she hobbled to the bed and flopped face first on the mattress. A groan escaped as she succumbed to the sleep that gnawed at her ankles, much like a hungry dog did a bone. A knock on the door woke her next time.
She pushed up and stared through blurred eyes. “Come.” Her voice belonged at the bottom of a bottle as rough and unpleasant as it was.
Her brother poked his head in. “Afternoon. The men will be here in a few minutes. I thought you may want some time to get cleaned up.”
“Thanks.” She rolled off the bed and staggered to the waiting bathroom.
Ten minutes later, dressed and clean, she headed downstairs to meet the men who would keep her safe. Her eyes first went to Dorian, who stood off to the side, talking to one man. When she walked in the room, he lifted his head and pinned that gray-blue gaze on her. In a flash, she was transported back to the time they had together on the way down here.
When he looked away with about as much interest as a kid has in Brussel sprouts, her heart sank. It had all been in her head. He’d used her desire for him to keep her close, and, bully for him, it had worked. Ice coated the walls he’d thawed, and she averted her gaze, taking in the two other men in the room.
“Sakharre,” Dorian said, moving toward her. “Tyler couldn’t make it, but these men have been briefed on their duties.”
“Fine.”
Louis stood behind her as she sat on a low-backed chair and rested his hands on her shoulders. “It won’t be too long before this is over. You should stay here.”
“No, I’m not putting you in danger, either.” She appreciated his concern, but honestly, she wished everyone would leave her alone. “I’m sure all will be fine. They seem very capable.”
Dorian narrowed his gaze and beckoned to her. It took two tries before she unfurled herself from the chair and made her way to his side.
“What?” She kept her tone modulated, refusing to allow him to see how much his earlier dismissal bothered her.
“Listen to them. Let them do their job.”
“I don’t need a lecture. I will be no problem for them. You should leave. As you’ve so eloquently stated, your job was to get me here. That’s been accomplished. Go home to wherever you’re from.”
“Maine.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Maine. I live in Maine.”
“Fine, whatever. I wasn’t asking. I’m sure I’ll get along with these guys just as well as I did you.” She raked her gaze up and down his body before doing the same to the men waiting across the room. “Perhaps even better.” She walked back to the trio waiting for her. “Thanks for doing your job, Mr. West,” she tossed over her shoulder.
Sakharre sat in a wingback near one of the men and watched Dorian. A tic in his jaw was the only sign he may have been the tiniest bit upset by what she’d implied. As Louis went to him, she turned to the first man Dorian had been talking to and put herself in the mindset of having more shadows. Will I ever get to the point in my life where I don’t have grown men following me around because they’re being paid to do so?
As much as she hated the idea, these men were doing this as a favor to her brother’s boss. She wasn’t going to do anything to make their job more difficult. Nor did she wish to appear ungrateful for the trouble they were going through to help her get back to a semblance of a normal life. So, when he began to speak, she ignored her heart and paid attention to the man who’d introduced himself as Rick Devlin.
αβ
Two months later, Sakharre hurried out of the building to where her car sat parked. She’d just left Double Down Security with her heartfelt thanks and, for the first time since returning to Miami, without shadows. Not that the men were bad, but she wished she’d not had to have them around all the time.
&n
bsp; Clay had been picked up and subsequently charged and jailed for his crimes. She was still on edge and nervous. She expected his law enforcement buddies to swoop in and make her life hell. So far, however, they hadn’t.
Louis had dumped a huge amount of money in her bank account and offered to get her an extremely nice upscale apartment. While appreciative of the offer, she ended up taking a smaller one bedroom. He’d already stopped by numerous times, trying to bring her things.
She unlocked her Camry and slid behind the wheel. Starting the engine, she froze. Off to her left, she swore she spied Dorian leaning against a light pole. Her heart skipped a few beats until she sighed.
“I’m losing what few cookies I have left. Why would he be there? I’m sure he’s long back in Maine.” The state’s name fell from her mouth in a sneer. “What’s there, anyway? Forest. Wild animals and flannel.”
Sakharre swore and smacked the wheel. “He’s gone. Did his job, took the money, and ran. I was nothing more than dollar signs to him.”
Even still, she stole another look, remaining equal parts angry and disappointed by the fact he wasn’t there. In gear, she drove away, trying to decide on what to have for supper.
An hour later, she unlocked her apartment and let herself in, bags in hand, one containing her Indian meal. Her stomach growled, and her mouth watered. Curry cured many ailments, and since she couldn’t cook a damn—despite having worked in a restaurant—she’d been eating at this place a lot.
Bags on the table, she went to her bedroom and changed. Barefoot and in her cami and shorts, she opened her Surface then dumped her food into a bowl. Seated, she picked up her chopsticks and dug into her lamb biryani.
She’d not gone back to the university as of yet, and tonight, she was going over what she had left on her Masters. It wasn’t much, and she should be able to finish in no time.
“Then, what?” she asked the air, chewing on the lamb.
Logically speaking, she’d be able to begin her life wherever she wished. She could move away and start fresh. Louis might be heartily against it, but she had to do what was best for her. Maybe more travel. She wrote some notes to discuss with her advisor.