He slid all the way over and covered me as he looked at my face and head. “Motherfucker!”
His right hand still had his gun drawn and pointed upward to react to threats from any direction. His fingers touched a sensitive area near my temple and I cried out. The pain of it brought tears to my eyes. When Holden turned my head to look at him, I noticed blood on the edge of the seat. Holden gave me a nod and positioned himself in a protective crouch, gun pointed in the direction of the commotion earlier.
There was a pounding on the window again.
“Holden!” a voice said.
Holden got out of his crouch and opened the backdoor on the left. “Dylan.”
“Shit man. Looks like you can’t even drive a simple car without getting into some armed conflict.”
“Save it Dylan! Where is Jake, and where the hell is Trevor? Where’s your vehicle?”
“Truck is right here. The area is clear. They took off as soon as we rolled in. Jake and Trev have someone they’re loading into the van. Guess he didn’t get the memo his buddies were leaving his ass. That was nasty man.”
“We’re about to get a lot of attention if we don’t get moving. Let’s get her out of here.”
Holden reached down to help me up from the floor.
Dylan opened his mouth to say something and a large hand shoved him out of the way.
“Olivia!” Aiden was halfway in the car before Holden had me up on the seat. “Jesus, Olivia. Dylan get the truck started! We’re taking her back to the house.”
I looked in to his eyes. There was a mixer of concern and anger. Mostly anger.
“Aiden, I’m okay,” I said weakly.
“Like hell you are! We’re going to get you a doctor. Now!”
With that, Aiden helped by grabbing me under the arm and sliding me across the seat like I weighed absolutely nothing. When we were outside, Holden pressed his side against me while holding the gun out in the opposite direction. Between both men, I had nearly maximum coverage on our way to the truck.
Aiden picked me up and gently slid me into the back seat of a suburban. The tinted windows reminded me of the Benz. I knew it must be another vehicle they used in the security detail that Holden had mentioned earlier. Holden and Dylan were in the front seats. I felt safe again as Aiden got in the truck beside me. He immediately began running his large hands over my arms and legs.
The intensity of his gaze as he checked every inch of me, looked panicked.
The truck started moving and Holden was on the phone again talking quietly.
“Aiden, I’m okay. Really.”
Holden ended his call. “Logan is going to meet us at the house and Jake has the situation under control at the scene. We’ll have the car handled and out of there soon.”
“I want a report as soon as we get there Holden,” Aiden barked. “I want to know why the hell Trevor was so far behind you and I want some answers from our guest. No one is to enter or leave without authorization from me. I also need someone to check on Olivia’s roommate. If we need more men then start making those calls now. We obviously missed something if they were able to get that close.”
“Agreed sir, I take full responsibility. I’ll pull in our other groups for canvassing support and have them contact Miss White.”
I was confused. “What was all that and why do you need to contact Julia? Is she okay? What’s going on?”
Ignoring me, Aiden turned his gaze back to my torso and rubbed my arms. I guess he was finally assured that I wasn’t hurt anywhere else because he finally looked at my temple. “Baby, your head is bleeding. Think you might have hit it against something. Are you in pain?”
I watched as his eyes changed from a look of anger to concern, then back again. It was like he didn’t know what to do and the frustration showed with the change of emotions on his face. I was sure he’d have a meltdown if I told him anything but no.
Time to stop all that worrying.
“Aiden Latimer!” I paused and turned toward the front seat. “Dylan what is Aiden’s middle name?”
Dylan chuckled. “Lucas, Miss Dawkins.”
I turned back to a surprised looking Aiden.
“Aiden Lucas Latimer! Stop looking at me like I’m about to die. I don’t have any broken bones. I’m a perfectly healthy, twenty-five-year-old woman with a scratch on my head. I’m not going to break, and I’ve had worse.”
That last statement was probably not the thing I should have said in hindsight. I saw Aiden’s face shut down and his eyes go hard.
“What do you mean by worse?! What the hell was WORSE?!”
I thought for a second while chewing on my lip. I heard Holden let out a low whistle and Dylan clear his throat.
I could tell this man what was worse. I could tell him about Brandon hitting me. I could tell him the truth of my brutal relationship, but I didn’t. There were things a woman hid from other people. Things that lurked deep in the body, that settled in for the duration, and never saw the light of day.
I didn’t know Aiden well enough to tell him right now. I didn’t even know how I really felt about him. We hadn’t known each other for, what? A few days? It seemed like a month already.
So, I said the next best thing.
“Stop shouting, bossy. I broke my pinkie once playing on the monkey bars.” I held up a slightly crooked pinkie on my left hand and wiggled it. “It seriously fucking hurt Aiden. That was worse than a little scratch. I have a slight headache. That’s slight, Aiden. Not crazy bad like running into a door while you’re not looking. So, no more yelling or trying to feel me up. I’ve had a bad day.”
Aiden’s lips twitched as he rubbed a hand down his face and across the stubble on his jaw. He looked like he wanted to laugh. Instead, he grabbed my waist, tucked me under his arm, and pressed me in to the warmth of his body.
My hand naturally went to his chest and I felt his heat through the suit. I buried my face against his jacket. His smell was comforting and I remembered his kiss again.
He lifted my chin so that I was facing him. “I was not feeling you up. I had to make sure you weren’t hurt anywhere else.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and smacked him on the leg. “Shut it Aiden. You palmed some boob. Now tell me why you need to check on Julia.”
Dylan made a sound like a muffled laugh.
Aiden glared at the back of his head. “Dylan, learn how to not hear, man.”
“Sorry sir. Didn’t hear a thing. I had something in my throat.”
Holden cleared his throat.
Aiden gave me an off kilter look and nodded toward Dylan and Holden like he was indicating he wanted to hit them.
I rolled my eyes. “Aiden?”
“Baby, I’ll tell you everything later. I promise. We need to talk about it but I have some things I need to talk to my guys about first. I’m just making sure that Julia is safe too. We’re headed to my house where my physician can check your head and make sure you don’t need stitches.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. Did he just say he had a personal physician at his house?
I wanted to know why I had gotten in the wreck in the first place. “Is this something you have to deal with normally? I mean, I don’t normally have car wrecks in armored cars with armed security on a regular basis. So, is this normal for you?”
Aiden laughed and cupped the side of my face. “No, it isn’t normal. Well, not so normal here anyway. I won’t say I haven’t been in a car wreck before.”
I frowned. “You mean in Lakefield?”
Aiden gave me a sympathetic look. “Princess, there’s a reason I have all the armored cars and the security. I do business in a lot of cities around the world. We have different people in different places that are ready to help with things that come up.”
“So, car wrecks with shootings are just a part of the complete package?”
Aiden blinked and looked like he was choosing his words carefully. “I will explain some things to you later. I’m just glad that you were
in that car today. I can’t even think about what could have happened.”
He set his hand back on his leg and made a fist like he was going to hit something
Holden interrupted them. “We’re nearly there. I’ve sent someone to their house. Looks like Julia’s already at the clinic. Lucky for us she’s already monitored there. I’ll have Logan talk to her unless you’d like me to.”
“Logan can handle it.”
I looked questionably at Aiden. “What do you mean she’s monitored?”
Aiden looked down at me. “She works at the veteran’s rehabilitation center. Logan, my physician, is the head of the clinic. You may know him as Dr. Matthews. It’s a private center. I own it.”
“How many places do you own Aiden?”
“Quite a few. Do you mean here in Lakefield?”
I thought for a moment. “Sure, start with those. And please tell me that you don’t use any animal testing. Julia and I really don’t like that sort of thing.”
Aiden chuckled and some of the tension eased out of me as I look at his face. The anger was still there but he was starting to relax a bit more.
“I heard about that. Do not ever do that again, Olivia. I don’t use animal testing. Although we do run a rather large kennel in Pennsylvania that helps rehabilitate dogs used by emergency agencies.”
“Like helps them do yoga while listening to self-help dog books?”
Aiden sighed and pulled me closer. “What am I going to do with you?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. So, what else?”
“Well my father was very invested in helping the city but he was also interested in making money, so the company owned most of the buildings downtown at one point. We still own most of them but we’ve branched off into other projects.”
“Like?”
“My buddy Cade manages Muse Bar and Grill for instance. But he’s also managing several other places like that in other cities. You might have seen him at the meeting the other day. You know what Logan and Holden do so that should be obvious. And then there’s Brock.”
“What’s a Brock?”
Aiden paused before explaining. “Brock is basically my logistics guy. He makes sure that all of our subsidiary groups and businesses are running smoothly. Investments look good. Just think of Brock as the mind behind most of this madness. I have individual boards with shareholders and a lot of very smart people who look out for my interests. Brock works at my tech firm and keeps them all coordinated. He also does a lot of monitoring. It’s a little complicated.”
I chewed my lip as I processed the information. Aiden sounded like he was an extremely busy man. What would a relationship even look like with him? Would he even have time for one?
One thought really bothered me about all that. I wondered if he had relationships in all of those cities he travelled to. I wasn’t looking for one with him, but I also didn’t believe he was a man who lacked companionship, at least sexually.
Not that I cared. I chanted that in my head a few times.
The SUV had been traveling through some of the older and more affluent parts of the city. When I looked through the side window, I noticed that the houses were some of the largest houses in the city.
They were spaced out on rolling lawns and separated by privacy fences. There were trees everywhere. The land they had been built upon, was next to several acres of forest and one of the many small lakes located in the area. The neighborhood was quiet, with several gated driveways that you would have to enter before you began to get close to the houses. We went past all of them and kept going further out than I anticipated. The land was dense with trees and looked undeveloped.
We pulled up to a gate at last, with the letter “L” in wrought iron on the fence.
Dylan leaned out of the window, pressed several buttons and looked directly into a camera. There was a crackling noise and a voice said, “Clear.”
The gates opened and the truck rolled down a wide, paved driveway. I expected the house to appear much sooner than it did. It was set on what looked like the back of the property.
It wasn’t what I expected.
It was a one story, very long, brick house painted pale yellow. It sat among several large trees that seemed to shade the house. The front had a large open porch, surrounded by a waist high wall made of bricks. There was an individual gate that you had to enter to approach the front door. The pale yellow helped the house blend into the scenery. Oddly though, the house also looked like it had another part to it.
As we pulled up to the brick wall that surrounded the huge front porch, I thought I saw more of the house in the back but couldn’t tell if it was attached or another building.
There were men standing outside near the front door. All of them looked like they were scoping around and very alert. They weren’t dressed in suits like Dylan and Holden were. They had on black fatigues, olive green shirts and sunglasses. I could see that they were armed by the holsters at their hips.
Holden and Dylan got out of the truck and headed toward the men.
I eyed Aiden. It all made sense. He must be in the fucking mob. As in, Godfather, guns and goons.
Chapter Seven
“Time to go sweetheart.” Aiden opened the door, stepped out, and turned back to me.
I slid over toward him, but rather than letting me step out, he reached in and lifted me out of the truck. My hands slipped around his neck as he swung my legs up into his arms. He carried me through the gate and up the porch towards the front door. His arms cradled me gently but he pressed me close to his body like I was precious cargo.
The door opened and he headed through his foyer. We passed through a living room with dark leather couches, chairs, a red paneled wall, a walnut coffee table, and various paintings on the walls. He didn’t stop as he turned and went down a long hall.
I didn’t see much, but what I did see was that his taste in décor was warm, inviting, and much like some of the pictures I had seen in magazines of ranch style homes.
This wasn’t what I expected. At all. Who was this guy?
He opened a door at the end of the hallway by kicking it open with his foot. We entered a large bedroom with the same types of earthy colors.
It smelled like Aiden and I surmised that it must be his room.
The room was simple, with very few furnishings. The bed was massive and the top of the mattress sat at least four feet off the ground. It had a thick wooden frame with slats in the headboard. His comforter was a rich red wine color. There were two matching nightstands with lamps. Looking further into the room, there was a bay window at the end with a brown leather couch and table facing it. I could imagine Aiden sitting there looking at the trees in the distance and the wide-open fields in between.
Aiden set me on the bed gently, took off his suit jacket and tossed it over the footboard.
“Is this your room?” I asked, already knowing that it was.
“Yeah babe, this is my room.” He looked at me like he was trying to read my face.
I smiled at him. “It’s beautiful.”
He didn’t respond as he crouched to take my shoes off. His hand slid around each ankle causing me to jerk slightly as he removed them one at a time.
He held up my heels and looked at them with a grin. “Nice. Love these heels babe.”
They weren’t particularly nice shoes but they were tall and made me look tall in them.
I mumbled, “Deviant.”
He grinned, set the heels down and slid his hands up and down on my ankles, massaging gently. He lifted one up and kissed the side. The tingles I had felt from his kiss a few days ago were nothing like the ones that slid down my spine and through my hips in that moment.
My breathing got faster as I watched him slide his large hands up my calves. His long fingers cupped the curves and paused when he got to the hem of my skirt.
He looked up at me, grinning, and lifted an eyebrow.
Oh God. Panty dropper look.
Someone cle
ared their throat at the door.
Aiden growled.
I looked up to see another of Aiden’s crew from the bar standing at the door.
He addressed me when he spoke. “Sorry to interrupt but I need to look at your head. I’m Dr. Matthews. Call me Logan.” He looked down at Aiden with a teasing grin. “Aiden quit molesting my patient.”
Aiden stood up and glared at the doctor. Lesser men would have burst into flames.
I giggled.
The doctor looked at me with a grin. “Well it looks like you’re at least in good humor, so I won’t have to tell you raunchy bedside jokes to relax.”
Aiden stalked toward the bay window. “Don’t even think about anything raunchy with her Logan.”
Logan looked at me and whispered, “If you’re wondering the answer is, yes, he gets very testy sometimes.”
I giggled again. “Hadn’t noticed doc. Just the overbearing, annoying bossy stuff. Is there medication for that or is it a permanent mental illness?”
Logan laughed as he came over to the bed and sat beside me. “I see why he likes you.”
He had a small bag that he set down on the nightstand and pulled out some things. He had some gauze out with a bottle of something that smelled medicinal when he opened the lid. He turned toward me and started poking around at some tender areas with the wet piece of gauze.
I looked up at him as he worked. He had a square jaw, dark black hair and a thin nose. He was Holden’s size and looked very fit. Not overly muscled but you could tell he was solid all the same. His eyes were dark blue and very alert as he prodded gently. He was a very beautiful man. Not in the way Aiden was, with his rough looks and overwhelming sex appeal. But great looking all the same.
“Why are you the second person that’s told me that? I have no idea why I’m here. Are you guys in the mob? Have I been kidnapped in some sort of move to piss off some other family? Because I think you have me confused with someone else.”
He touched the sore spot that hurt the most and I cried out. “Oh!” Tears instantly came to my eyes.
Aiden stormed across the room and looked like he was ready to murder someone.
Run (Lakefield Book 1) Page 6