Page 9 of Dark Horse

There’s a long pause, like he’s holding back other words he might say.

“Fine.” The man has a new favorite word.

“I’ll pay you back next month.” I hedge.

“You won’t. Not if things are bad like you say. And with the wedding, you’ll be working less, which means fewer tips,” he states sharply.

“So what do you want me to do then?” I pull the money I do have for him out and then lock the safe. He watches me as Iwalk toward him, holding out the stack of cash and raising a brow expectantly when he stays silent.

His eyes catch mine, and he studies me for a minute.

“If I was your brother, I’d just let it slide. But I guess since I have zero fucking reason to care, you’ll have to find another way to make it up to me.” He’s got the door open and is halfway down the hall before I’ve processed what he’s just said.

“What does that even mean?” I call after him.

“I’ll send a handyman over here Monday. I’ll text you the time later today. Try not to have lingerie scattered over half the fucking place when he comes!” He calls back down the hall. The door to the outside slams behind him, and I’m left pondering what the hell I’ve just walked myself into now.

FOUR

GRANT

By the timeI get to Dakota’s apartment, I’m pissed. She didn’t show up to meet the handyman, so he called me to see if I could let him in. I’d had to excuse myself mid-meeting with my floor and resort managers to figure out what the fuck was going on. I expected that she was just in the basement of the bar counting inventory or had stepped in the shower and forgotten to take her phone off silent. But now that I’m here, she’s nowhere to be found, and she’s still not answering her phone.

The handyman is standing against the wall, bag at his feet in the back hallway where Hayley had sent him when he arrived. She didn’t have any idea where Dakota was, either, and hadn’t seen her this morning, assuming she was still in bed after a late night.

I unlock the door and ease it open, calling her name out as I take one step inside. I don’t want her to come flying across the room, baseball bat in hand, trying to smash my face in because she couldn’t remember she was having maintenance this morning. But there’s no response, and the apartment seems quiet and empty.

“Just give me one minute to make sure she’s not asleep or something.” I turn back to the handyman.

“Sure.” He nods, and I step the rest of the way inside, closing the door behind me so that her cat, Vendetta, doesn’t get out. The damn thing dodges in and out of the shadows like she’s part of them, and I don’t want to be responsible for her being loose in the bar.

There’s plenty of light streaming in through the living room and bedroom windows, but otherwise, the place is dark—no lights, no TVs. However, the place is in disarray. The lingerie from the other night is gone, but a new set of lingerie and clothing is strewn over the couch and one of the chairs. Papers are scattered on the table and a couple of boxes sit out on the counter. Dakota wasn’t the neatest person I’d ever met, but the last couple of times I’ve been in here, it’s been messier than usual. Like she’s too busy to even stop and put things away.

“Hartfield?” I call out for her as I approach the half-open bedroom door. She doesn’t answer, and I gently press the handle to push it open.

The bed is empty and unmade. There’s more clothing lying about on the footstool at the end of the bed and hanging out of the drawers in the dresser. The place almost looks tossed from this angle. My heart skips a beat.

Dakota has a temper and a habit of not giving a shit about who she’s talking to when she runs her mouth. She says things to me no one but my family would dare even think in my presence. I mostly let it slide, though, given that her brother was likea brother to me and left her in my care when he died. She’s as much family as anyone in my eyes even if she isn’t keen on the association. But I’m not the only asshole she’s threatened and derided, and if she finally said the wrong thing to the wrong person…

I hate to go into her room and invade her privacy. I’ve done my best to give her a wide berth for the last decade. The six months she’d been my ward hadn’t gone well, and she’s hated me pretty much every day of her adult life. If it were up to her, I’d never step foot in this place again. But I promised her brother I’d make sure she was looked after. The second she got financially stable, bought a house, or got married, I’d be happy to shut the door and let her live her life. Unfortunately for both of us, stable has never been a word close to her heart.

I grumble quietly to myself about being stuck in this position as I ease the door open the rest of the way and step inside. I needed to be sure there weren’t more signs of a struggle or that she wasn’t passed out in the bathroom.

I edge inside, careful not to touch anything, and step over the clothing items scattered over the floor. I call her last name one more time before I open the bathroom door. It’s quiet. No running water or humming or any sort of noise to indicate she’s there, and I’m half relieved not to find her lying on the floor. At least until I look up on the bathroom counter and see a handful of toys charging.

“Fuck.” I scrub a hand over my face and make a quick glance around the rest of the bathroom to make sure I’m not missing any vital details before I hurry back out.

I definitely didn’t need to know what kind of toys she enjoys. I pinch the bridge of my nose, hoping there’s some way I can forget the size of the double-pronged vibrator and the delicate rose toy sitting next to it. The question of whether she’susing them alone or with one of her college boys crosses my mind. A thought I curse myself for even having.

“Everything all right?” the handyman calls from the hallway, and I chase out the images that begin flashing in my head and pull my shit together.

“Yep,” I answer, hurrying around the corner and shutting the doors behind me. He doesn’t need the same eyeful I got.

Dakota’s always sort of stayed a kid in my head, even though it’s been a decade since she was anything close to one. Fuck, even when she was my ward for those brief few months, she was unwilling to be treated like she was anything less than grown—insisting on being involved in all the tedious details of her brother’s small estate, wanting to be responsible for all the bills, and begging me to let her take over the bar as soon as she was legally able to do so.

I wave the handyman through the door and point out the sink and the problems to him so he can get started. Meanwhile, I’m still surveying the room, and the more I look, the more nervous I get. Her laptop’s still open on the coffee table, a cup of coffee sits half-finished next to it alongside a half-eaten piece of toast on the plate. The spot in front of it looks mussed, like she had been sitting there and then jumped up unexpectedly.

Whatever she left for came up quickly. It must have been important that she would take off without finishing her breakfast or closing her laptop. Her place was messy the other day, so it didn’t shock me that some things were lying around, but this seems borderline chaotic. Like someone else was rushing her out.

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