Mercy’s smile was small, and crooked, and impossibly proud. “Just keep being you.”
Ava shot him a glare – one that melted into a gaze so affectionate that Leah felt compelled to look away.
~*~
“I’m sorry,” Carter said, hours later, when they lay side-by-side in the dark, in her bed, facing one another and still catching their breath. The sex had been vigorous, as always, but desperate, and tender, too. He’d been so sweet with her, even as he’d taken her apart completely. His chest still heaved, the sweat on it gleaming in the moonlight.
The worry of the moment was the only thing that gave her the awareness to keep from getting lost in the sight of him. “It’s not your fault.” She couldn’t resist touching, stroking a hand across his pecs. “You didn’t blow up a clubhouse.”
“But you wouldn’t have to know that if you weren’t with me.”
“Carter.” She sighed. “Haven’t we been through this?”
“Yeah.” He looped an arm around her, and pulled her in closer to his chest, despite the sweat on both of them. “Feels like I gotta sat it, though.”
She shifted, so her face rested in the hollow of his throat. He smelled like sex, and her laundry detergent, and he was an indescribable comfort. It made her brave enough to say, “Those missing girls. They’re not still in Tennessee, are they?”
“I doubt it.” His hand stroked up and down her back. “This is…worse than anything the club’s faced before.” It felt like an admission; like he was trusting her with a secret.
“Are you worried?” she asked.
His arm tightened. “Yeah. About you.” She scratched at his chest, and, a beat later, he said, “About a lot of things.”
She took a deep breath and heard – and felt – him echo it. “The Dogs always come out on top.”
“Yeah.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“Yeah.”
For good or for bad, she thought, she was tied to their fate, now.
The rewards outweighed the risks.
~*~
Despite Carter’s arms warm and strong around her, his knife and gun on the nightstand, the front door locked, Leah slept poorly. She spent most of Monday morning yawning into her coffee, and continually rubbing at her eyes, vision blurring, grateful she’d left off mascara and eye liner for the day.
“You alright?” Gabe, whose desk was closest to hers, kept asking, and she managed to dredge up a smile every time.
Rochelle brought her a fresh mug of coffee right before lunch. “You look like you could use it.”
“Thanks. I’m kinda running on E today.”
It was a cloudy day, beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of the office. The numbers kept sliding together on her computer, and so she found herself glancing mindlessly out at the street more and more. Her body was sore and heavy. She entertained fantasies of a bath, and a glass of wine, and Carter coming over, smiling, not at all worried about bombs and enemies and unstoppable crime organizations disguised as legitimate consulting firms.
She shivered, blamed it on the AC, and tried to throw herself back into work.
She was poring over the spreadsheet for one of the multi-acre, potential-subdivision plots of land the company was looking into buying when she heard the elevator arrive with a soft ding. The kid from the mail room, probably, with a fresh round of envelopes.
Behind her, Gabe said, “Leah.” His voice was wrong.
When she lifted her head, she saw one of the pressed and polished front desk staff from downstairs. Eric, she thought his name was. He didn’t look so polished now, his hair ruffled like he’d been running his hands through it, his tie crooked.
“Eric?” Isobel said. “What’s wrong? You look terrible.”
Eric swallowed before he answered, his throat bobbing. “There was a phone call – at the front desk. It – he – there’s a bomb in the building.”
