Ruthless. HelenKay Dimon
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bombarding her brain, she was fading. Fatigue crept into her muscles, and the coffee in four pots might not be enough to keep her on her feet and functioning.
As if he read her mind, Connor poured another cup, skipped the sugar and extras, and downed it black. “I’ll get this worked out and then we can figure out our next steps.”
The words snapped her out of the haze that had started washing through her. The conversation replayed and she wondered if they even knew they talked in code. “And the this in that sentence would be what?”
She was treated to three blank stares and a sudden abundance of quiet. Even Pax did a twisty-turny thing to look up and give her eye contact, but no one said a thing. A wall clock ticked somewhere and garbled noises came from the earphones Joel now had around his neck.
If she’d known such a simple question would get their joint attention, she’d have asked one an hour ago.
Connor was the first to move. He sat across from Pax and on the other side of the table from her. “The scene at your store.”
“Is everyone okay?” Pax asked.
“All the good guys are.”
The men were off and running again on a topic other than the one she’d introduced. They offered a snippet of information, failed to explain anything and then moved on. She never knew how annoying that was until now.
She raised a finger, but that did nothing for the balls of anxiety bouncing around inside her stomach. “Um, excuse me?”
Connor smiled. He flashed his soft blues eyes and shot her the I’m-listening stare Pax tended to use on her. Clearly whatever group all these guys worked for taught the same facial expressions in a Pacify-the-Ladies class.
“Your customers and employees are fine,” Connor said. “They think there was a gas leak as cover for a burglary at another store, and you got caught up in it but are fine.”
Even though she heard that sort of thing on the news every night, it sounded ridiculous when applied to her life. Anyone who knew her would expect her store to stay open, or at least for her to be out on the street giving away the unused inventory. Not that all that many people knew her, not with her work hours.
But she didn’t purposely hide in her house. Not anymore.
“Who told people that story?” she asked.
“Me.”
She had a feeling Connor would be the one to pipe up with an answer. “Because that’s your job?”
Pax laid a hand on her closed fist and brought her around to the side of his chair. “Have you seen Sean in the past few weeks?”
She ripped her fingers out of Pax’s hand. As they all continued the male staring ring, her knees went soft and the ground beneath her moved in a rolling wave. Her brain tried to shut out any reference to her brother. At twenty-three he was three years younger and had spent more time than she could count in trouble.
She swallowed and cleared her throat, but the words would not come. It took a good minute before she could force out a question. “You mentioned him before. What exactly do you know about Sean?”
Pax didn’t flinch. Didn’t bother to look guilty or worried. He just sat there rubbing his leg. “Everything.”
“How?”
He made a noise, something dismissive and all male. “Not important.”
She slapped a palm on the conference table and watched his gaze move to it before bouncing back to her face.
She wasn’t trying to make noise. All she wanted was to hold her body upright. “It is to me.”
“Kelsey?”
Connor said her name, but she refused to look at him. She wanted Pax to tell her, to come clean and finally let her know what was happening and who he really was. “No.”
A thundering silence returned to the room. This time even the clock stayed silent.
That was fine with her. Balanced on the table, she could stand there all day. She would if that’s what it took to make her point.
After another moment of ticking tension, Pax exhaled in that women-are-so-tiresome way men did when pushed to talk about something they wanted to ignore. “That’s a shame. Finding him sooner rather than later would be safer for you.”
Yeah, he still didn’t get it. “I mean, no, we’re not going to play it this way.”
“Excuse me?” Pax’s eyebrow ticked up and the last signs of the charming guy with the love of black coffee disappeared.
“You know about me, and apparently my brother, and I don’t even want to know what else. Until I understand what’s happening and where you all fit in, I’m not saying another thing.”
“There’s a limit on what we can divulge,” Joel said from the relative safety of the other side of the room.
As if she was going to accept that nonsense excuse. “Then take me to the police. I’m sure they’ll want to question me about this supposed theft you made up.”
Pax’s cheeks rushed with color and his fingers dug deeper into the arms of his chair. “No, they don’t.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
The finger lock on his chair didn’t ease. “We were hired to watch over you.”
“By whom?”
Connor was already shaking his head. “We can’t tell you that, but we can say we’re the good guys and we’re here to keep you safe.”
“Because you would tell me if you were the bad guys?”
Joel chuckled. “We should check her injuries and Pax’s, maybe get her a change of clothes and some food.”
“I don’t need—”
“Good idea.” Pax struggled to his feet.
When his body started to fall again, she put an arm around his waist and held him up. A backache settled in a second later as she wrenched her muscles and locked her knees and arms to support him. He braced his hands against the table and leaned on her.
She looked up, thinking to ask Connor for help, and saw the strain across his face. More than that, worry. These men might work together, but their bond went deeper. She wanted to curse them all for making this situation so hard on her. They expected her blind faith and gave nothing in return.
She thought about it another second and decided that wasn’t true. They gave her protection, but she still wasn’t clear on why she needed it.
If Pax had just stood up without trouble or had the courtesy to stay seated, she would have kept fighting him. Thanks to the mention of her injuries, every muscle and cell inside her started to ache. Talk about the power of suggestion.
But the real problem was Pax.
Her gaze traveled over him. Over the way he kept weight off his right leg and the cut along his cheek. If the clenched jaw were any indication, he was in pain. She was confused and angry, but the guy who stormed in to save her, protected her from a crushing fall and killed for her looked unsteady on his feet and ready to drop.
It was the wake-up call she didn’t want but couldn’t ignore. She swallowed back the rest of her questions and fell deep into appreciation mode. She didn’t know him but she owed him.
She faced Connor and skipped over the stuff she wanted to know to the stray comment that caught her attention. “You have women’s clothes here?”
His white-knuckle grip on the edge of the table tightened. “My wife’s.”
Now, there was a bit of news she didn’t see coming that sent her gaze zipping to the thin band on Connor’s finger. “Where is she?”