Page 17 of Savage Protector

Jack hadn’t left, not that I expected him to. He visibly relaxed behind the wheel of his Cadillac when he caught sight of me entering the garage. I nodded before glancing over my shoulder to be sure I wasn’t followed. I realized I’d do a lot of that in the coming days and weeks since Scarlet wasn’t the only one now with a target on her back.

I could only hope it was worth it, and somehow, I could make up for keeping silent that fateful night of the fire and the explosion which followed.

How was I supposed to know Paul Garibaldi wasn’t alone in the house my father had set ablaze as payback for his best friend’s betrayal?

“It’s done?” Jack asked, gruff, once he rolled down his window.

“It’s done,” I confirmed, and now my plan was in motion. The dye had been cast, and there was no going back. I would switch cars and meet Scarlet only once I was sure nobody was on my tail.

After that? The future was foggy.

“Good luck, kid.” Jack’s jaw tightened, and he swallowed hard before rolling up the window and backing out of his parking spot.

Yes. We would both need luck, wouldn’t we? Scarlet and me.

8

SCARLET

This motel was a bit nicer, at least. More up-to-date, comfortable. The pillows weren’t lumpy, and the mattress was nice and firm without a groove worn into it by countless other bodies. There was a convenience store on the other side of the parking lot where they sold fresh sandwiches and fried chicken and an endless array of snacks and treats for me to gorge on and soothe my nerves. Really, things could have been worse.

It was amazing the things I’d tell myself to make up for the anxiety tearing me apart.

It had only been one full day. That was it. I called Grayson on arrival, the way he told me to, and now I waited. How did the old song go? The waiting was the hardest part. Ain’t that the truth.

I picked up a few magazines at the store, but I’d already read them cover to cover. I had a tablet with plenty of books downloaded on it, but I was afraid to turn it on. Could somebody track it the way they could track my phone? I didn’t think to ask Grayson, and I didn’t want to call with a question like that. He might get annoyed. I needed him too badly to risk pissing him off. It wouldn’t be too much longer before he came back. I could wait until then.

But what if he didn’t? What if Dominic stopped him somehow?

As always, the question made my stomach ache. It didn’t matter how I told myself not to think about it or to even entertain a possibility. It was always there, lurking, waiting to catch me unaware.

There was nothing to do but wait with a wad of cash in the motel room’s safe, trying to distract myself to pass the time waiting on a man. Just like Mom always used to.

The thought made me wince at my reflection in the mirror over the bathroom sink, my brush pausing midway through running down the length of my still-unfamiliar brown locks. They were darker thanks to my recent shower, still hanging wet around my face. If it weren’t for the box color changing my appearance, I could have been looking at her.

She was always waiting for a man to save her. She never needed to say it out loud for me to understand. I might not have when I was a kid, only vaguely aware of how sad and lost grown-ups could be.

When I got older, I understood the pattern better. The days or even weeks of joy—brighter spirits, music playing in the morning while she ran the vacuum, the way she would sing softly while washing dishes. She would walk around the house with hot rollers in her hair, telling me she was getting ready for a special date that night. The very late nights or even early mornings when she would come home smelling like alcohol and a man’s cologne.

And then the late nights would be fewer and farther between. Sometimes, she would get ready to go out but never leave, holding fierce, whispered conversations behind her closed bedroom door. The damn thing was so thin I could hear every word…

“But you promised. That’s not what you said. What am I supposed to do now?”

The tears.

That was when things went well, when they ended amicably. More than once, it hadn’t been that way. Like the morning I got up for school to find her holding an ice pack over a black eye.

Always, the pattern would repeat itself. After a few months of hearing her swear off men forever, I would come home to find her humming, playing music, almost dancing around the house. I would know she found somebody new, and I would make a bet with myself on how long the good times would last.

How did I wind up repeating her mistake? It had only happened once, but once was more than enough to leave me here, miles from home, sitting on a bed in a motel in the middle of nowhere, waiting to be rescued by a stranger whose violence terrified me almost as much as my arousal did. Because he did arouse me, much more intensely than Dominic could ever have dreamed of, and it scared the hell out of me.

“Would you be proud if you saw me now?” I whispered to the otherwise empty room, where an old movie played on the television and did nothing to soothe the ache in my stomach and chest.

The ringing of the burner phone startled me into almost falling off the bed. I must have drifted off because there was now a different movie playing, and the light beyond the closed curtains was almost nonexistent. How had that happened? Fumbling for the phone, I answered breathlessly. “Hello?”

“I’m a few minutes away,” Grayson informed me. The sound of his voice, or the obvious strain in it, made my skin prickle in apprehension. “What room are you in?”

“Room ten,” I said, scrambling off the bed and going to the window to peer out. It was almost nightfall. The road beyond the motel had been chock-full of cars earlier, but the traffic had thinned out some. “Is everything okay?”