A low growl wrung from him as he cried out, “Are you kidding me?”

She paused, caught in the headlights of his glare. Then she swallowed tightly.

“You’re in a safe house of a guy you know has mob connections and you’re being snide about seeing him kill another man?” His eyes flashed in fury. “What part of that sentence is ludicrous? The. Whole. Thing! Think about it, Theresa!”

She frowned at him.

“You’ve always known who Carter was to me. I owe him my life, Theresa. My life! But that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. He’s been good to me and I will always be grateful to him for everything he’s done, but you’re talking about him like he’s five. He is a killer and she’s spelling it out to you. She’s leading you down the damn road, but you have to stop and think about what she’s not saying.” Noah stepped closer to her. He begged her, “Please let this go. Please, Theresa. He loves her. He snapped Scott’s neck because of her. What do you think he’ll do to you?” He reached for her hands and gripped them hard. Her tiny hands disappeared underneath his. “He’ll make you disappear and the only reason I’ll know about it is because of this conversation, right here. He’ll do it when you won’t be expecting it or it’ll look like an accident. I have no idea, but I know he’ll do it and it’ll happen because you’re threatening her life. Don’t you get that?” He lowered his head so he eye-level with her. “Please get that, please, please get that, Theresa. Stop. Talking. About it. Just stop. That’s all you have to do.”

“But,” she opened her mouth as tears flowed down. Nothing came out. Her eyes jumped to mine, and I didn’t do anything. He was right. She needed to hear it. Then her mouth shut and she fell back into the counter. She would’ve fallen if Noah hadn’t been there.

He swept her up and turned to Carter. “She won’t say a word. I promise.”

Carter narrowed his eyes.

“I promise, Carter.”

He looked to me as if to ask if I should believe him. I didn’t do a thing. I couldn’t. I had no idea what Theresa would do or what she would think a month away, or even a year, or ten years, if she would remain silent. So I gave him no answer.

The corner of his lip curved as if to say ‘thanks a lot’, but his eyes were still flat.

“Carter?” Noah pushed.

He stepped back to let them through. That was the only response he gave to the unspoken plea from his friend. Noah’s shoulders sagged in defeat and he hurried them out the door. A car was outside.

When they shut the door behind them, I commented, “He thinks you’re going to kill the woman he loves.”

Carter watched me. “Should I?”

Twenty-four hours earlier and I would’ve been pleading for her life. She was innocent. She was pure. She meant no harm. But now I had changed. Theresa had become a friend, but everything shifted last night. Carter was my lover. He was my family. He was my only ally. And because of that, because she held a threat to his life, I told him, “I can’t lose you.”

Then I picked up the tongs again and turned off the stove. The bacon was burned by then so I removed the pan and left.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Carter never did anything with Theresa. I asked him one night what he intended to do. He had men watching her, but that was his only response. When I asked what would happen if she contacted the police, he shrugged. “I don’t see it coming to that. She cares about you and if she did anything, I’d take it to Noah first. I’m not completely heartless, Emma.”

She never did anything, which I had to admit made me relieved. After two weeks, nothing happened regarding Franco Dunvan either. He went missing and my gut told me that his body would never be found. There were no reports on the news about the upheaval that happened that night. It made me wonder how many other mob events happened that the general public had no idea about. I never asked about Franco, but I figured I was safe when Carter told me that I could go out with only two guards. That was fine by me. So much had changed, myself included. Work wasn’t the same. I had never chatted much with the other girls, but I chatted with them even less now. When I would go for coffee, I never looked to see who was in the breakroom. I got my coffee and returned to my office.

The new promotion was nice. I had more freedom over my hours and I didn’t have Mr. Hudson breathing down my neck. In fact, I was his boss now and he had to report to me. I was lenient with him, but I knew there’d be a day when I would enforce those duties. However, that day wasn’t now.

I worked closely with Theresa on the new account. Her excitement had waned, which made sense and I didn’t take offense to it. That meant that she had listened to Noah’s pleadings. One time I asked Carter if he still sparred with Noah in the mornings and he surprised me when he said he did. I thought their friendship would be strained, but it seemed like they went on as if nothing had happened.

It was the end of a week and I was about to leave. But as I stepped outside and saw the car waiting for me, I turned to Mike. He and Thomas stayed with me. They were the regulars. There were others, but I liked knowing who guarded my life the majority of time.

His hand fell away from the car door. “Maybe coffee today?”

I nodded and turned back inside. I went through the front lounge and headed for the café. Carter was gone again. Unlike the last couple times when he never told me where or why he was leaving, he explained to me the night before that he was going to Japan. He was brokering another business merger for a new website program. I nodded. I only cared about when he was coming back and I knew it would take at least a full day. It would be the longest we had been apart since the night he killed Scott Graham.

When I went inside the cafe, Amanda was behind the register. She signaled for someone to take her place and gestured towards a back booth. It was our old booth. When I saw that she grabbed two mugs and a coffee pot, warmth flooded me. It felt good to be falling back into our old routine. It made me feel like I still had one other friend.

“New threads?” she asked as she slid into the booth.

I waited as she filled both mugs. “I got a promotion. It requires better clothes.” That was half true, but I wore the clothes Carter bought for me when I first went to live with him. After making love one time, I asked where the clothes had come from since they all fitted me perfectly. He said he ordered them when I came to him at Octave. He had known even then that I would be with him. My response was to pull him back down to me and it hadn’t been long until he slid back inside of me.