Chapter 13

Dimitri POV

My fingers drum across the smooth surface of my desk as I stare down at my phone willing it to make a sound. Any sound. Frustration growing with each passing second that Bella doesn't text me back. It might have been a bit too forward of me to send Damien to her house. A bit too telling. Definitely too early to have her asking questions, but her safety was more important than all that.

"Anton!" I growled out the open door of my office, knowing my second would likely be within earshot. Within moments his frame filled the doorway, apprehension splattered across his usual stoic features. "Is there an update?" I grind out, shooting another sidelong glance at my useless block of a phone.

"None, sir," his voice was level. "She did leave the house with Tiers. Spent nearly two hours in the bookstore, and I have it on good authority she's still making her way back home on foot." Anton's eyes were drawn to where my fingers were still punishing the desktop with a persistent drumming. Of all my employees, Anton had the least the fear from me. We'd grown up as boys together. Even managed to befriend one another somehow despite the types of families we were brought up in. This life we led rarely came with genuine friends.

As I looked into the tense brown eyes of one of the only people I trusted, I couldn't help but to feel a bit regretful for my icy tone. "And that's it?" I implored further, just as Anton's phone began screaming out some obnoxious pop song. I watched as he checked the number, seeing if whoever was calling warranted answering the call in my presence.

"Damien." Anton breathed, answering the phone and bringing it to his ear. "Anton." He bit out, his typical manner of answering any call. I watched as his face twisted into the closest thing resembling fear that I believed Anton could manage, his eye darting briefly in my direction. "Boss is here, I'll put you on speaker." Anton took two quick strides across the room and set his phone down on the desk between us.

"Situation." I bit out, already pissed that Damien had seen fit to call Anton before myself. Something him and I would need to have a nice long conversation about later.

"Boss, Annabelle I fine. Nearly home in fact, according to the tail you had us put on her. Her ETA is about thirty minutes before she crosses the threshold." Damien blows out a breath that doesn't go unnoticed over the speakerphone. "But there was a slight issue shortly after she departed the bookstore."

"What kind of issue?" my eyes narrowed slightly, and I couldn't help the way my hand tightened around the armrest of my chair. My brain was scrambling. Thinking through every possible scenario that could have possibly happened on Bella's short walk from the bookstore to home. My palm slams into the top of the desk when Damien doesn't supply an immediate response, resulting in a stinging pain and loud crack that he surely heard on the other end of the line.

"The Irish kind." Damien's voice carried through the speakerphone, and I had no doubt his face likely matched the tense expression that Anton was trying his best to keep under control. "Byrne. Killian. It seems he orchestrated his own personal meet and greet with Bella, which resulted in her not only being knocked onto the pavement, but also held under threat with a weapon."

"Fuck." I hiss out, rising from my chair, and pacing across the room. "Shit. Fuck." I feel my hand drift to my left hip where my own gun sat ready and waiting at all times. The movement purposeless in itself. I slowly started unbuttoning the cuffs of my shirt, before pushing the sleeves up to my elbows. The usual series of movements I went through before someone got hurt. Really hurt. "Stay on her, Damien. You personally. I want updates every ten minutes." I say before ending the call and looking over at Anton. "Her house is about 20 minutes from the estate." I say, mostly to myself as I scoop the car keys for the red convertible out of my top desk drawer.

"Do you really think that's wise?" Anton questions, tracking me with his eyes as I move across the room, loosening and pulling my tie off and letting it fall to the ground as I pass by him. He was one of the only men near me who would ever deign to question my decisions. I respected him more for that.

"Seems like people are just full of unwise ideas today." I make quick work of the winding staircase that led to the front door. There were a plethora of uncertainties running through my mind, but the only thing I was absolutely sure of, was that Killian picked the wrong time to fuck with me.

Belle POV

My hands are still shaking when the roof of my house comes into eyeshot. Alec had been silent for most of our walk back to the house, and I silently thanked him for that. I wasn't sure I could handle another confrontation with him right now. Not after what happened outside the bookstore. Not since I learned how the cold kiss of metal felt pressed into my skin. And how was Dimitri involved? Why was I?

My pace slows until I come to a complete stop on the sidewalk, causing Alec's chest to collide with my back. "I don't want to go home." I say, partly to myself, and partly to Alec. Call it paranoia. Call me crazy. But I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. And if that truly was the case I couldn't in my right mind lead danger right to my doorstop. To where Harlow and Christopher slept.

My eyes dart up to find Alec had positioned himself in front of me, concern splattered across his face. "What do you mean?" he asks, as he cocks his head to the side and furrows his brow. The way he always did when he was working really hard to figure something out.

"I-I can't go home." I say more firmly and instinctively scan my surroundings, for what I wasn't sure. I wouldn't know the first thing to look for if I thought I was being followed.

"Hey," Alec breathes, placing his hands on my shoulders and forcing my gaze to return to him. "you're freaking me out." I barely notice his hands drifting up to rest on both sides of my face until he speaks again. "Talk to me, B." The concern on his face had turned into something closer to panic as his eyes search mine and only find fear.

"That guy," I swallow, trying to force the words from my mouth that suddenly felt way too dry. "He had a – a gun." I nodded my head, at what I wasn't sure, maybe my own way of trying to reassure myself that it was safe to even talk. "He, um – he knows Dimitri. Asked me to pass on a message." My own voice sounded hollow. Like it didn't belong to me. Like there was no way it was coming out of my body, but judging by the way Alec's face contorted into a rage I hadn't seen since we were kids, I knew he had heard me.

"What guy?" he asked, running his thumb comfortingly across my cheek, but even I could feel the tension lacing his touch. "The one you bumped into?" I nod in confirmation to his words. I try to speak, but my tongue feels like sandpaper in my mouth and I can't get the words out. "You don't have to go home," Alec breathes. "But we have to go back for my car. It's safer not to be out in the open." I silently nod in agreement.

I let Alec lead me the last few blocks to the house. His hand felt so familiar in my own, and gave me a certain level of comfort I hadn't felt from him in such a long time. Alec's steps come to an abrupt halt and his hand tightens almost painfully around my own when the house fully comes into eyeshot. Because parked next to Alec's police cruiser is a red convertible. My eyes drift from the outlandish vehicle to where Dimitri stood nonchalantly poised with his back against the driver's side door.

He looked too much like he'd been dropped out of some twistedly sexy magazine. His onyx hair was pulled half up. The sleeves of his white button down looked as though they'd been shoved quickly up to his elbows – showing off the same muscled forearms that cocooned me in sleep more nights than they haven't lately. When his piercing blue stare finally lands on me, he visibly straightens. And I kick myself for ogling the man who was clearly a walking red flag.

"Alec." I whisper, causing him to curse under his breath.

"Listen, to me," he says evenly, taking slow but sure steps towards the house, and pulling me along with him. "Don't engage with him. Don't make eye contact. Don't entertain a single word he says." His hand tightens around mine again, just briefly, making sure he has my attention. The keys to his cruiser jingle as he fishes them from his pocket with his free hand, and for some reason the sound of them calms me. "You go straight to the passenger seat. You lock the door." I nod, even though I was pretty sure he couldn't see me, so I opt for squeezing his hand in return as a reply.

When Dimitri is finally within earshot, I try my hardest to keep my eyes from turning to his. But, even from the corner of my eye I could make out his stoic gaze. Not a single hint of panic or worry. And something deep inside me knew that somehow Dimitri must have already known about what happened.

"Bella." Dimitri breathed, taking a few quick steps in my direction, and I nearly stopped in place. I would have, had it not been for Alec pressing his palm firmly into my lower back and giving me a shove towards the cruiser. "We don't require a middle man, Officer Tiers." Alec's words come out harsh, almost unrecognizable to me. But his tone doesn't surprise me near as much as the sarcastic smirk I see forming on Alec's face.

"No, I'm sure you don't," Alec replies smoothly, pressing the key fob to unlock the car doors just as my hand slides across the cold metal handle. "But you will need one hell of a lawyer if you want to get into shouting distance of Belle again." I pull open the door quickly, sliding into the seat and shoving the lock on the door down, just as Alec instructed. From this angle I can only see Alec's back through the driver's side window, but I could still see the tension rolling off him in waves.

My eyes drift slightly to find that Dimitri's face was now perfectly visible. And perfectly terrifying. His previously calm expression had morphed into something entirely different. His lips were pulled into a devilish smile, and it didn't escape my notice how his left hand drifted easily down to his left side. My breath caught in my throat when a flash of light glinted off a piece of metal I hadn't previously noticed.

For a moment I was frozen in absolute terror. Just one moment though. I shifted in my seat and pressed my hands firmly down on the center of the steering wheel, causing the horn to blow one long careening sound that turned both their bodies my way. I pounded my fist against the driver's window. My way of begging Alec to get in the car. To just get in the car and let us drive away. A message that didn't go unnoticed on his part.

I watch as Dimitri says something to Alec before turning his icy blue gaze back on me and shooting me what I would have considered a seductive smile just yesterday. Today I found it unnerving. I couldn't make out Dimitri's words from inside the car, but judging from the way Alec's hands strangled the steering wheel as he backed the cruiser up, I didn't want to know.

Dimitri's eyes stay locked on mine as we back out of my driveway.

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