Page 33 of Gilded Dreams

Brogan takes my hand and Ryder settles into the driver seat and pulls us out into the empty street.

Atlas settles me on his lap and his arms cocoon me in his warmth. I can feel his fear of what happened boiling just beneath the surface.

Over the next fifteen minutes I fill them in on my chaotic life over the last few weeks. My foray into dating, the nasty stalker, and my promotion.

The longer I talk the quieter they become. Atlas’ hands crunch the remains of my dress between his fingers and if Brogan’s expression is anything to go by, I’d say my SEALs are jealous of the fact I tried to move on.

City lights fade and before long, we wind along a backroad with sparsely-placed lamps.

“Where are we going?”

“To the mountains. We had a deal.”

I try to sit up, but Atlas and my ribs have other ideas. I cringe and make my stand while resting my head on his shoulder. “You’re shitting me, right? You still want to go to some cabin?”

“We have our reasons. We’ll discuss those later. We’ll also talk about you running off and not mentioning you had someone gunning for you later. And you forgot something back at the club.”

Atlas produces the slip of paper I left with his cufflinks.

It has my safe word scrawled over cream-colored stationary:

Butterfly

XOXO, Kandy

“It doesn’t count unless you speak the words.”

Can’t blame a girl for trying.

“For now, sleep, butterfly. You’re safe.”

Atlas turns to Brogan and Ryder. “When we get there, get on the phone with Seth and Jacob. We’re gonna need their help and all the information they have.”

“And a body bag,” Ryder adds darkly.

Eleven

Ryder

Kandy is sleeping upstairs. It took a couple of hours to arrive at our location and the second I shoved the SUV into park I set up our laptops and got on the phone with some buddies. Atlas took our girl and settled her in, and Brogan did a rations run.

Atlas walks in and plants his ass in a chair across from me. “Perimeter is clear. I checked the security cameras, and they are up and running.

I nod. “Unless Yogi Bear is out there, no one knows we are here, man. Lighten up.”

“Excuse the fuck out of me. Am I the only one who saw the bruises she’s wearing? And those are only on her face. I saw that fucker take potshots at her ribs before we got to her.”

I cross my arms and kick back in my chair. It was that or lash out at Atlas and he doesn’t deserve my wrath.

“Fuck it. Forget it. Starting over, okay? Any luck reaching anyone with answers?” Atlas jerks his chin at my phone.

“Not yet. Give it a little bit. No one is awake at this hour or if they are, they sure the hell aren’t answering. Don’t blame them. I’ll try again in a minute.”

“How the hell did we miss her having a stalker?”

“Too busy getting this place ready for one.” My fingers flex around my cell phone. “Think she’ll love it?”

“Depends if we can get her to trust us again. We really hurt her badly.”

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