I’d left my phone in my purse where I’d dumped it when I’d come through the door.
Trying not to disturb Ollie, I carefully peeled his arm from me and slid out from his hold, keeping my footsteps quieted as I tiptoed across the floor and out the door.
Once I clicked the door shut behind me, I quickened my pace, rushing for my phone that was ringing again. Both praying and terrified that it would be my sister.
Dropping to my knees, I fumbled through my purse, hands shaking when I grabbed it and spun it around to find the number on the screen.
Not Sammie.
Brenna.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered, quick to accept the call and press it to my ear. “Brenna, what’s happening?”
My attention darted to the kitchen so I could look at the time on the microwave.
Three twenty-seven a.m.
Not good.
Panicked cries echoed from the other end of the line, and she rambled something I couldn’t make out.
“Brenna, calm down. Tell me what’s happening.”
Staggered breaths ripped from her. She tried to suck them down. Keep them contained. “Caleb . . . he keeps texting me. Telling me he’s going to take Kyle from me if I don’t go back to his place.”
That little asshole.
“I think he might be outside,” she all but whispered, as if he could hear her.
I pushed down the anger that surged and gave it my all to remain professional, searching inside myself for the right advice. “You need to hang up and call 9-1-1. Right now. I’ll be over as fast as I can. Don’t go outside.”
There I was. Crossing more lines that weren’t supposed to be crossed. But what was I supposed to do?
“Okay,” she agreed, and the line went dead.
I started to push back to my feet when I felt the surge of energy blast me from behind.
Potent.
Intense.
That power alone was enough to shift me around to face him.
A magnet.
“Ollie.”
“Who was that?” he grated.
I’d realized earlier I wanted this man to hold all of me. Have all of me. My body and my secrets and my heart.
Even if it was foolish. Filled with risk and danger and peril.
But I refused to be the girl who was too scared to live her life.
I needed him.
Wanted him.
And I was taking this chance.
“That was Brenna. The girl you saw me with at the ice-cream shop the other day. Her ex-boyfriend keeps texting her and threatening to take their little boy if she doesn’t cave to him.”
Ollie’s hands clenched. “Piece of shit.”
Ollie had it spot on.
For a moment, I wavered before I lowered my voice. “I think he might be the one who broke into my apartment. I was with her the first time she called the cops on him. He was angry. Called me a bitch. There were two notes left on the windshield of my car over the last week that basically said the same thing.”
Rage blistered across his handsome face. “What? Someone’s been following you? Fuck, Nikki. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t have proof, and I didn’t know what you would do.”
His jaw clenched, and those sapphire eyes flashed. “I think you knew exactly what I would do.”
It was true.
It was exactly why I was afraid to tell him.
I nodded, then started toward him so I could move down the hall. “You’re right. I was afraid of what you might do and what that might mean. We can talk about that later. But right now, Brenna needs me, and I need to get over there.”
I let my fingertips brush across his bare abdomen as I passed.
He shuddered.
Fire rippled and danced.
I’d almost made it to the guest bedroom when his voice boomed in the enclosed hall, and I froze in the doorway. “I’m coming with you.”
Of course, he was. I wasn’t even going to argue it. I glanced at him from over my shoulder and gave him a nod before I rushed inside and pulled on some jeans and a tee and slipped my feet into some shoes.
Five minutes later, we were flying down the road in Ollie’s Mustang, taking the corners fast.
Intensity bound the air. Worry and fear and fury.
I felt it radiating from Ollie’s flesh. Dripping from his pores.
His protection of me. Maybe the protection of a girl he didn’t even know.
“Take a right here,” I told him.
The tires squealed as he took a sharp turn.
Two seconds later, Brenna’s mother’s house came into view.
My stomach dropped to the floorboards.
Caleb was in the driveway, shouting at Brenna, who was cowering against the back of her car.
Dread spiraled through my senses. “Oh my God, I told her to stay inside.”
Quick to release the seatbelt, I sat forward, hand already on the doorlatch as Ollie screeched to a stop.
“What the fuck?” Ollie growled. “It’s that little fucker who sold me the car.” His arm flew out in front of my chest, his body ridged in hard lines, muscles bristling as he took in the scene. “Don’t move out of that seat, Nikki.”
His door flew open, voice low. “I mean it.”
I didn’t pause.
Didn’t listen.
I jumped out of the car.
Caleb whirled around when he felt me approaching him. “You bitch. You’re responsible for all of this. Telling her not to be with me.”
No, Caleb. You’re responsible. You twat.
I didn’t say it.
Not wanting to incite him more.
It didn’t matter because he started for me as if this time he was going to take his anger out on me.
His warnings never so glaring than right then.
A tremble of fear rocked through me as I prepared for him to hit me.
A blur of movements had me taking a shocked step back.
Before I could process it, Ollie had an arm hooked around Caleb’s neck from behind, his hold cinched tight.
No fear.
No reservation.
Brenna shrieked, and Ollie wrangled Caleb, who clawed at his arm, flailed and kicked and shouted as if he might wrestle out of his hold.
I doubted it took a whole lot of exertion on Ollie’s part to keep Caleb restrained. Ollie had the scrawny kid in a lock that there was no chance he could break free of.
Once he knew he had him contained, Ollie sent me an angry glare. “Told you to stay in the car.”
“Since when do you get to tell me what to do?” I shot at him.
He scoffed and pretty much rolled his eyes while he kept a tight hold on Caleb who continued to flail and kick. “And you say I’m impossible,” he said.
“You, asshole. Let me go, you piece of shit. You’re gonna regret it,” Caleb ranted.
Ollie tightened his hold. “Pretty sure it’s not gonna be me who’s feelin’ the regret, fucker. You really think I was gonna let you play us all? Is that what you thought? You thought wrong.”
Confusion wound through my mind, Ollie’s words making absolutely no sense. But my only concern right then was Brenna. Brenna who started sobbing when I pulled her into my arms.
She clutched me and buried her face in my shirt. “Nikki . . . you’re here.”
“I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
Sirens rode on the night, a quiet toll that grew closer and closer with every second that passed. “The police are on their way. You’re safe. You’re safe.”
Her fingers curled in my shirt. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. But he was trying to get inside to take Kyle. I couldn’t let him take him. I won’t let him take him.”
“Shh . . . I know. I know. It’s okay.”
Kyle’s cries lifted on the dense air, fearful and distraught, and I peeked over to where Brenna’s mother was holding him, her wary attention darting between all of us.
“That’s my son,�
�� Caleb shouted. “My girlfriend. You can’t keep them from me. They’re my family.”
He thrashed against Ollie’s restraint, and Ollie was hauling him farther back, out into the street.
Away.
But I could hear him. The low warning he uttered at Caleb’s ear. “Shut the fuck up, asshole. You don’t get to claim someone as your family when you threaten them. When you hurt them. That’s not what family is. You think you can mess with her? Take advantage of her? I’ll end you if you even look at her again. You hear me, asshole?”
Two cruisers rounded the corner, lights reflecting off the darkened sky. I knew neighbors were peering out, could feel the eyes of morbid curiosity, but the only thing I cared about was Brenna.
That she was safe.
Four officers slipped out of their cruisers, their guns drawn. Thank God, one was Seth.
“Don’t move,” one of them shouted.
“Stand down,” Seth ordered, pushing a hand out at the officers as he moved toward Ollie and Caleb, cuffs out.
“On the ground,” he told Caleb.
Ollie released him, and Caleb dove to the pavement.
“Motherfucker,” he gritted, face in the ground.
“Motherfucker is right,” Ollie spat, backing away and letting Seth read Caleb his rights as he cuffed him and patted him down.
Seth hauled him to his feet, looking between Ollie and me. “This him?” he asked me.
I nodded. “That’s him.”
Ollie roughed an agitated hand through his hair that flashed with the colors of the lights that spun through the night, his face lit up.
So bold and striking I lost more of my breath.
My beast.
“Asshole came into Roke’s this afternoon with an old car that used to belong to Nikki’s grandparents. Nikki told me about the notes. He has to have been stalking her. Finding out who her family was and trying to get close.”
Caleb flailed and tried to jerk free from Seth, the guy so clearly high he looked deranged. “What the fuck are you talking about? That’s bullshit, man. I haven’t been stalking that stupid bitch. I don’t want anything to do with her. That car was on the straight.”
“Save it. You can make your statement at the station.” Seth led him to the back of one of the cruisers and placed him in the backseat.
Brenna breathed out another cry, but this one was made of relief.
I looked over at Ollie and mouthed, Thank you.
He just stared back as if he were promising he wouldn’t be anywhere else.
Inside, Seth took both Brenna and her mother’s statements. First and foremost, Caleb had violated his restraining order. More charges might be coming. Ones related to me and my apartment.
They were still waiting for prints to come back.
Seth was going to put a rush on them, hoping we got something to substantiate our suspicions.
Seth left promising he’d be calling soon.
“Thank you so much,” Brenna told him as she showed him to the door.
“Take care of yourself,” he told her. “Unfortunately, he’ll probably make bail in the morning since he didn’t cause any bodily harm. It’d be good for you to have someone with you at all times.”
Slipping out, he let his eyes move to Ollie and me in some kind of warning before he disappeared down the walk.
From behind, we watched as Brenna tremored with a fresh round of fear.
Ollie stood.
Gruff and rugged but his voice was soft. “Think it’d be good for you to come to my place tonight until we get this sorted out?”
Brenna turned around, her fingertips pressed to her mouth. “You’d do that for me?”
Ollie rocked in discomfort. I saw it for what it was. The way he wanted to protect the world from horrible people. From the type of man we were sure had stolen Sydney from us.
He dropped his gaze when he finally said, “Don’t have a lot to offer people, Brenna . . . but if I can offer this? Take care of you and your son for a little bit?” He looked up. “There’s nothing I’d want more.”
* * *
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you did tonight.” Brenna spread her hand over the comforter in the guest bedroom, clearly needing something to busy herself.
“You keep telling me that,” I told her with a soft smile where I sat next to her with my knees hugged to my chest.
“But I really mean it.” Carefully, she peeked up at me. “You know when he started texting me, the first person I thought to call was you. You have a way of making me feel safe.”
“I want you to both feel it and live it, Brenna. You don’t have to live in fear. We’ll make sure of that.”
Silence moved through the space, and I could feel her reservations, a new kind of heaviness moving through her heart. “You really think he did that to your apartment?”
I studied her face. “You don’t?” I asked carefully.
She lifted a shoulder. “The drugs changed him. He was so sweet to me when we first started dating.”
Her voice had turned wistful. Filled with longing of that time. She shook her head. “He’s just fine when he’s not using, but when he does? He becomes rash and impulsive, and a lot of times it translates to aggression.”
She blinked at me. “It’s hard for me to imagine him thinking to go to your place to scare you that way. Leaving those notes.”
I set my hand on her knee. “People do crazy things when they’re desperate, Brenna. It’s part of the problem. The spiral. They dig themselves deeper and deeper until they can’t see a way out, and then they’re doing everything they can to fight it—change it—all the while they’re making the worst choices all over again.”
“I just wish he’d go back to bein’ the person he was when he asked me to the dance in ninth grade.” Her bottom lip trembled. “I know you think it’s stupid. That we’re young. But there was a time when he really loved me and I loved him. We messed up. Did things too young. It got away from us. But we did love each other.”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “I don’t think it’s stupid. Not at all. Don’t ever let someone tell you young love isn’t real. But sometimes things change. Things we can’t control. All we can control is the here and now—and right now—you and that little boy deserve so much more than what Caleb has been giving you.”
“I know that.”
“Good.” I blew out the strain that weighed heavily and stood. “What do you say I go get your little cutie so you two can get some rest?”
“Tell me that man of yours didn’t feed him sugar,” she said, voice turning wry.
“Man of mine?” I challenged, lifting my brow with a smirk. “I already told you he was a friend.”
“Oh, come on, Miss Nikki. You pretty much have drool dripping from the corner of your mouth every time you look his way.”
“Is that so?”
“Uh-huh. And every time he looks at you, I’m pretty sure he’s picturing ripping off your clothes with his teeth.” She grinned and wiggled her brows. “I have to say, with a man who looks like that? I wouldn’t mind all that much having him fantasizing about me, either.”
My mouth dropped open. “Hey, don’t go making any moves on my man.”
She laughed. “See, told you so.”
A giggle slipped out. It should have been impossible with everything that’d happened tonight.
But I thought maybe . . . maybe some good things were finally coming together.
“I’ll be right back,” I told her before I eased out the door and down the hall.
Ollie had insisted he would get Kyle a snack while I helped Brenna get settled in the guest room. I’d left them with Kyle sitting on one of the high-backed stools, babbling something Ollie was clearly pretending he understood.
Now I slowed, inching forward when I noticed all the lights had been doused, the open living space only illuminated by the lights that poured in from the windows.
I peeked my head out at the end of the
hall.
My chest squeezed and my heart expanded.
Oh God.
This man.
He was absolutely undoing me.
He was sitting on the couch, Kyle fast asleep in his arms. The little boy’s thumb was in his mouth and his cheek was pressed to Ollie’s chest as Ollie softly patted his back, tattooed arms wrapped so protectively around Kyle’s tiny body.
Tears pricked at the back of my eyes, and that old, old love burst free.
No longer held.
No longer bottled.
“Hey,” I whispered as I inched out, keeping quiet so as not to startle Kyle.
Ollie’s eyes popped open.
And he smiled.
He smiled the softest smile and it moved right through the center of me.
“Hey,” he said. “He started to get fussy, so I walked him a bit before he fell asleep.”
I nodded at him, unable to speak around the lump that formed in my throat. I moved that way and carefully pulled Kyle from his arms.
Ollie stood behind me, and I walked down the hall, my knock quiet before I pushed open the door and brought Kyle to Brenna who was fixing a spot for him to sleep.
I passed him to her. She gazed down at him, adoration on her face.
And I felt it all around me.
Adoration.
Love.
“Sleep well,” I told her.
She just nodded, and I moved back out, Ollie waiting for me right on the other side of the door.
He took my hand, and I followed him back to his room.
He flipped on the bedside lamp, and I went directly into his bathroom. I washed my face, peeled off my jeans, and moved back out to where he lay on the bed.
Wearing only his underwear.
His big body sculpted of muscle. Covered in ink.
But those eyes. They pierced me from across the room.
I started for him, only to falter a step when my attention caught on what was on the other side of his room.
A wall covered in pictures.
Not just any pictures.
It was pictures and newspaper articles and prints tacked everywhere.
Layer upon layer.
Sucking in a ragged breath, my eyes narrowed as I inched that way.
Horrified.
And somehow in awe.
Sydney’s smiling face beamed from all of the pictures, her expression so free and full of belief.
Fight for Me: The Complete Collection Page 87