He closed the door behind her. “What exactly do you mean?”
He had to ask. Sometimes when she talked she spoke in an odd geek speak he didn’t always understand. She could mean something entirely different, something innocuous.
God, he hoped this was a joke.
She turned, though her eyes went to anywhere but him. She looked around, seemingly curious about her surroundings. Given her wariness around him, it wasn’t surprising she’d never been in his condo. He’d been in hers the day they’d met. He’d dragged her out of it. It might not have been the most auspicious of beginnings. “I mean that I got a little bomb sent to my apartment.”
“What?” He managed not to shout.
She finally caught his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. I defused the sucker. I just thought maybe I should find someplace safer to sleep tonight. Whoever it is, he knows where I live. What’s your Internet like? Please tell me you have wireless.”
She was awfully calm for a woman who had just escaped being blown up. His heart, on the other hand, was thundering in his chest, his blood pressure ticking up ominously. “You need to repeat that for me and this time I would like the story in much greater detail.”
She turned those big green eyes on him, her bottom lip disappearing behind her teeth. It was a nervous habit. She was full of them. He’d catalogued every single one, from the way her good leg bounced when she was anxious to how often she braided and unbraided her hair when she was bored. “Simon, I know this seems weird, but I don’t have anywhere else to go. I can’t go to Charlotte’s. Ian would be up my ass in no time, and I don’t have anything to tell him yet. It would make Charlotte freak out, and I don’t need her to get any more overly protective. I can’t go to the others. They all have kids or they’re trying to have kids, except Jesse, who freaks me out a little.”
So he was her absolute rock-bottom last choice besides Jesse Murdoch, who sometimes became a raging lunatic ball of murder. That wasn’t so surprising. She turned away from him every chance she could. He hated the fact that every time she did it, it felt like a kick in his gut. “So you came here because you can’t go to Ian and I’m sure you want to avoid the police. Otherwise it would have been smarter to call them when you got a bloody bomb sent to your condo.”
“Oh, I didn’t have time to call,” she explained. “It was on a thirty-second timer. The minute I opened it, the timer began. Luckily it was a fairly simple setup. Still, I got pretty nervous when that sucker hit five seconds.”
She was going to give him a heart attack. “Where is the bomb?”
“I left it behind. I kind of just picked up my bug-out bag and came here.” She hefted the backpack off her shoulder and set it on the floor. It made her breasts move against her T-shirt. They were small, graceful and delicate. They would likely be very sensitive. He lay in bed at night and wondered if he could make her come just by sucking on her nipples.
He forced his brain off her tits. The fact that she even had a bug-out bag should scare the shit out of him. “Where’s your car?”
If someone had followed her, he needed to know about it. She likely hadn’t had time to check for locator devices.
Her eyes slid away from his. “I didn’t bring it with me. I hopped on a train and then I walked.”
She didn’t walk many places. Her leg gave her hell and she’d never done the work to strengthen it. A nasty suspicion took root in his gut. “Why?”
Her eyes slid away. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”
A lie. He couldn’t afford to put up with that. She was in trouble, and if she’d come to him then she was likely in serious trouble. He had no illusions that she would attempt to take control, and if he allowed her to, she would treat him like an employee. He had no intention of being her lackey. If she wanted his protection, she would accept that he was in charge. Of bloody everything.
He moved into her space, watching her every movement. He wondered if this wasn’t why he was so fascinated with her. He’d never watched a woman, taken such utter care in knowing how she reacted, the way he did with Chelsea. He’d spent hours simply studying her face, the expressions, the little lines she got when she was angry or sad. She tried to pretend nothing ever got to her, to pretend she wasn’t hurt or upset, but Simon knew what to look for and she was scared. It was there in the little tremble in her fingers.
“Chelsea, was there a bomb on your car?”
“Yeah,” she said, muttering under her breath. “I ran a mirror under it. It’s a force of habit. I spotted it and left it where it was. Hopefully whoever it is thinks I’m still at my place.”
He cursed and turned away because that wasn’t the likeliest scenario. “They were probably watching you. Chelsea, they very likely followed you here.”
Her eyes flared, her little chin coming up in a stubborn pout. “I was careful. I know how to get rid of a tail. They didn’t follow me. It’s not a big deal, Weston. If you don’t want me here, I can go find a motel. I have a couple of cards that shouldn’t be traceable.”
Because she always kept a few extra identities on her just in case she had to run on a moment’s notice, whether from the authorities or from her unsavory connections.
“This is because you lied to all of us and haven’t gotten out of the business.” Information brokering. It was how Chelsea had made her money for years.
“That’s not true. I haven’t done anything Satan didn’t ask me to do.”
Ian. When they’d been in Europe, he’d discovered Ian had requested that Chelsea keep up some of her connections on the Deep Web so he could find information. He and Ian were going to have a talk. It likely wouldn’t go well. The fact that he didn’t really have any right to complain nagged at him. Chelsea wasn’t his. By all rights, Ian had more right to protect her since she was his sister-in-law. “I want to know everyone you’ve talked to in the last six months. I want access to every record you have.”
Whoever it was, they’d taken no chances. They’d had a backup plan. Someone really wanted her in pieces.
She turned her chin up, a stubborn look settling in her eyes. “This was a mistake. Just tell my sister I’ll call her when I figure this shit out.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”