Page 132 of Wife Number One

Gray hadn’t hurt me.

If anything, he’d been trying to warn me. Trying to keep me safe.

That made him no different, no more dangerous than the man who sat across the table from me now. If I could trust him, then I could give Gray a chance to explain.

At the same time, I could give Hawk something he clearly needed. If anyone needed this program, to be surrounded by medicine and healing, it was him.

If that was what inspired him to get his GED and take the next steps to chasing his dream, then that was what we’d do.

I was so sick of having dreams crushed. “I want to volunteer.”

He eyed me. “You want me to let you wander all over that hospital with some jackass doctor who thinks there’s a serial killer after you, while Josiah the Lord and Savior of fucking nothing is still out there, probably waiting to drag his wife back home by her hair and sell her into slavery? That’s what you’re asking me to do?”

It was that or I went back to sitting alone in that cabin, day after day, for how long? Forever? “That’s what I’m asking you to do,” I told him.

He sighed. “If you’re volunteering, then so am I. You aren’t doing it alone.”

I smiled down at my plate and put another bite of food into my mouth before he noticed what I’d done.

37

HAYDEN

Iknew better than to drive my truck right up to the Slayers’ gates and demand they let me see Kara. That would only result in a point-blank bullet to the brain.

So I’d spent days parking my truck on the main road and walking in on foot, slowly finding tracks through the woods around the compound until I could get in and out easily in about a forty-minute trek.

A few days ago, I’d caught a couple of glimpses of her from my hiding spot, which had made every step and every blister worth it. Like an addict, it hadn’t been enough. I kept coming back because I needed more.

But the fences rose tall all around the Slayers’ property, cameras covering the full expanse. They’d forced me to stay deep in the woods, just watching, getting more and more frustrated that my days were spent living my fucking dream, while my nights were spent being tortured by memories.

The restaurant was coming along. Luca’s guys had installed a state-of-the-art kitchen in under a week, and the thing was straight out of every daydream I’d ever had about becoming a chef. The front dining area had small square tables with black tablecloths and red cloth napkins. The bar had red pendant lights suspended over it. The entire theme of the place was sin and lust, from the furniture to the menus I’d designed with Luca hanging over my shoulder, telling me it needed to scream sex from the minute they walked in the door.

Day by day, I’d come around to his ideas.

It was all class out front, dirty and dangerous in the back. It had taken me a minute, but I could see it now. His vision. This would be the place to be. The venue that set a tone from the very minute you came in the door in your fancy dress and high heels, to the minute you left via the back, rumpled, well fucked, and completely damn satisfied. Everything bored, rich housewives wanted. Everything conceited, wealthy businessmen desired.

This wasn’t Psychos. This was all class and would attract the rich clientele we needed.

We’d be opening soon.

When we did, all these visits to the Slayers’ compound would have to stop.

So I just needed a look long enough to satisfy me that she was okay with Hawk and the rest of the assholes who called that club home.

Until I could make her mine.

Fuck, I was an arrogant prick, thinking I could waltz on into her life after all this time and make her happier than whichever lucky prick she’d walked down the aisle with.

Arrogant or a completely obsessed stalker. I wasn’t sure which was worse, but neither stopped me.

I trampled through the woods, following the barely-there path that was now familiar, the Slayers’ absurdly long gravel driveway running parallel maybe one hundred yards away. The flashlight on my phone lit the way, highlighting the tree roots and fallen twigs and branches I needed to avoid, but I’d have to turn it off in a few more steps.

My weeks of watching the place had told me the gates were the main source of action. The clubhouse itself and the other buildings were mostly deep inside their property, harder to see from the edges where I lurked.

A few more steps and the gates would be in view.

I always turned my flashlight off before I got that far.

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