“Thanks for the ride, Paige.” Julian winked.
As I drove out of the parking garage, Parker looked at me.
“I saw you scrolling through that phone in the courtroom.”
I didn’t answer him.
“Damn it, Paige!” he shouted. “You killed a man and stole his phone.”
“He worked for Elias, and if I didn’t, he would have come after you. Make no mistake, Parker. Elias will send every one of his men to try and kill you. You won’t be safe until I take them all down. Elias doesn’t play around. If he thinks you know something, you’ll be eliminated.”
I pulled up to the stoplight that had just turned red. Unlocking my phone, I brought up the picture of the woman and shoved it in Parker’s face.
“He did that to her,” I said. “And if I hadn’t shown up, he would have killed her when he was done with her. God knows how many other women he did that to.”
“I hope she’s going to be okay,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s enough therapy in the world that can help her after what she’s been through.”
Chapter Eight
Parker
I walked into the house, set my briefcase down, and went upstairs to change for dinner. As beautiful as Paige was, and as much as I enjoyed our one night together, I wanted her out of my house and life. I didn’t do chaos, and that was exactly what Paige was.
As I was walking down the stairs, I stopped when I heard Paige talking to someone on the phone.
“There’s nothing on the phone. He must have had another one somewhere in the house. I will, Gabriel. I’ll be in touch later.”
When she ended the call, I continued walking down the stairs. Reaching the living room, I stopped and stared at her.
“Who’s Gabriel?”
She swallowed hard, her eyes staring into mine.
“Nobody.”
“Yeah, okay, Paige. I want you out of my house tonight.”
“I see what’s going on here. You can’t stand the thought of a woman protecting you. It emasculates you.”
“Emasculated? Is that what you think this is about?” I hissed. “This is about you lying to me, Paige. About you deciding what I get to know and what I don’t.”
She crossed her arms as her jaw tightened. “I’m protecting your life. Elias’s people are everywhere, Parker! They’ve already made two attempts?—”
“Two?” I shouted. “You mean one attempt. The attempt in the parking garage at the firm! Stop lying!”
“Fuck.” She slowly shook her head. “Go through the footage of your front door camera from last night around eleven p.m.”
I could feel my blood pressure rising as I pulled out my phone and brought up the camera footage. My heart raced out of my chest as I watched two men fall back on the porch after being shot in the head.
“If I hadn’t been here, they would have killed you,” Paige said. “Elias isn’t some petty thief. He’s precise, calculated, very dangerous, and he won’t stop until all threats to him are buried.”
I was visibly rattled, and all I wanted was for this nightmare to end. Paige took a few steps closer to me.
“Listen. I know this is tough, and all you want is for your life to go back to normal. And it will. Just let me do what I was sent to do. I couldn’t save your client’s life in time, but I can save yours.”
As I stared into her beautiful but cold eyes, the memory of our night together crashed over me. It wasn’t just the way her body felt against mine, or how perfectly we moved together against the sheets of my bed. I’d spent my entire adulthood having casual sex—temporary and forgettable. But that night with her lingered in my mind longer than it should have. I never planned on seeing her again, but here she was, in my home, protecting me against a man who wanted me dead.