Destroy You (Destroy #3) (19 page)

“You look just like her,” he said, still smiling.

“Who?” I asked quietly.

Trent picked up on my fear and pulled me closer. The move must have alerted Zack, because he came up behind Trent and moved to cover my other side.

“You look like your mother. I’m an old friend.” He extended his hand, but I didn’t make a move to shake it. After an awkward couple of seconds, he pulled it back. “I’m Leo Maroni. Sorry if I frightened you. It’s been years, and you obviously don’t remember me, but I met you when you were young. How’re your parents?”

“Good. I’ll tell them you said hello. If you’ll excuse us,” I said quickly and led Trent back to his office.

My chest felt tight, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. Trent took me straight through the back and headed toward his apartment. Zack entered right after us and locked the door.

I felt dizzy and didn’t have the strength to stay on my feet. My legs buckled underneath me, and I sat down in the middle of the room.

“What happened?” I heard Zack ask.

“That guy downstairs stopped us. He said she looked like her mother. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I want to know who he is,” Trent replied.

It sounded like their voices were traveling through water, or maybe I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. Black spots danced across my vision, so I closed my eyes.

Chapter 25

Trent

“Toni! C’mon, Wildcat, don’t do this,” I begged.

Zack pulled out his phone and dialed for an ambulance. He hung up and patted my shoulder. “I need you to calm down for me.” His voice was full of authority. “Look at her. She’s breathing.”

“Why isn’t she waking up?” I asked, and my voice trembled.

“Toni had a panic attack. She must have hyperventilated and passed out. I need you to be calm and help me take care of her. Can you do that?”

I nodded. “Just tell me what to do. I have to do something.”

“Do you remember that guy’s name?”

“Uh, yeah. He said his name was Leo Maroni. How does this help her right now?” I demanded.

“Trent, you can’t freak out on me. Does Toni have an anxiety disorder?”

I shook my head. “She’s one of the strongest people I know.”

“Having an anxiety disorder wouldn’t make her weak, but I need to know if this panic attack is specific to this event or if something from meeting that man downstairs triggered an ongoing issue.”

There was a knock on the door, and Zack confirmed it was the paramedics before he opened it. It only took a few minutes for them to load her on the stretcher, but it took them a little longer to get her down the stairs.

“I want to go with her,” I told them.

“Are you family?” one asked.

I considered lying, but I found myself shaking my head.

“I’m sorry. You’ll have to drive yourself or get a ride with a friend,” he answered.

Zack was behind me. “Come on. I’ll drive us.”

I waited until they closed the doors on the ambulance that had parked in the alley before Zack and I ran through the bar to where he’d parked out front.

Melody saw me hurrying past and followed me.

“Call Jeremy and tell him to get Reed and come to the hospital. Toni passed out,” I shouted over my shoulder. I didn’t stop to answer her questions and kept running.

Zack beat me out to his car and had it started before I got there. “She’s going to be fine,” he reassured me.

I looked down the street and saw a guy standing on the corner smoking. He tossed his cigarette on the ground and looked right at me.

“Motherfucker,” I shouted.

“What’s wrong?” Zack asked and scanned the street quickly while trying to watch the road. He didn’t respond when I pointed to the guy I saw. Instead, he pulled out his cell and hit a number on speed dial. “Dispatch, this is Officer Zack Davis. I’m pulling out from the front of The Hitching Post, and I’d like to report a sighting of Miguel Santos in front of the building while Ms. Padilla was present. He appears to be loitering in view of the establishment’s front entrance.”

He paused for a moment to listen to the dispatcher. “No units required at this point. Please make an official note in the file and alert Detective Daniels. I’m en route to the hospital. Ms. Padilla had what appeared to be a panic attack from a possibly related situation and lost consciousness.”

He listened to the reply before hanging up. “Dispatch is going to send Daniels to meet us at the hospital. Every step we make has to go through all the official channels. I’m going to tell him what happened in the bar today. No encounter is to be treated as insignificant. Do you understand? If someone even looks at her too long, I want it written down and looked into.”

I looked out the window and saw the hospital up ahead. “Is this ever going to stop?”

He exhaled. “Stalking can be difficult to prove. Even if she had managed to get a restraining order, if this guy is determined enough, I doubt it would have stopped him.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it would have, either,” I agreed.

He pulled into a parking space and turned off the car but didn’t move to open the door. “You have to decide if you can handle this. She might not have a choice, but you do. If you can’t deal with this, you can still walk away. I bet she would even understand.”

“No. I can’t walk away from her. There’s no choice for me. I need her,” I said vehemently.

“Good answer. Now let’s go in and see if they have any news yet,” he said and got out of the car.

Zack pissed me off for a second by telling me I could walk away, but I quickly figured out he was testing me. I meant what I told him: leaving her was not an option for me. She is every beat of my heart, the air in my lungs, and basically the center of my universe. My life before I met her was empty, filled with nothing more than meaningless hookups. I could never go back to that now that I’d experienced what it meant to truly love someone.

The nurses didn’t have any news when we walked in, and the wait was making me nuts. Zack and I went to the waiting room, where Reed, Jeremy, and Daniels all joined us a few minutes later. We let them know there still wasn’t any news, and Reed took care of it by making a quick call to Kate, who entered the waiting room a few minutes later.

She smiled at me, but I could see the worry in her expression. “Give me a minute and I’ll have some answers,” she promised.

Aiden and Becca came in while we were all waiting for Kate to return. Aiden was carrying their son, Scott.

“Anything?” Becca asked.

“Not yet,” Reed answered for me.

Becca walked over to me and sat down. “She’ll be okay. Toni is the toughest person I know.”

“She’s not as tough as she lets on,” I said. It always bothered me that Becca and Kate believed the act Toni put on for everyone.

“I know that. I do see her, you know, but this is how she copes. When she’s ready to talk to me, I’m here, and she knows that.”

“I’m scared,” I admitted. “Not just because of this, but when she passed out, I thought my heart would stop. But how do I keep her safe against someone that won’t quit?”

Becca patted my hand. “We’re all scared, but we’ll stick together like we always do. Miguel won’t break us, and he won’t get her. I’m not sure how yet, but we’ll get rid of him.”

The way she said it sounded ominous. A dark look passed over her face, and she shuddered slightly. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, though. Some things are really hard to live with.”

I’d forgotten Becca and Kate had both taken a life in self-defense when they were forced to protect themselves. Becca had used a tire iron to kill one of the men that abducted her while trying to escape. Kate stabbed Reed’s stalker in the leg with a pen while he held her at gunpoint. I hoped that wouldn’t be a pattern with this group, because I didn’t want Toni to carry around the guilt I saw on Becca’s face.

Cameron entered the waiting room. I was surprised to see him, because he and Jeremy were still mostly avoiding each other. Becca bumped me with her shoulder and motioned toward Cameron with her chin. “See, I told you we stick together, even when it’s hard,” she whispered and got up to go help Aiden with their sleepy toddler.

Cameron rushed to Jeremy’s side and put his arm around him. “I came as soon as I heard.”

“Thank you. I…” Jeremy shook his head.

“What?” Cameron asked.

“Nothing, just thank you.”

“I’m sorry, for so much, but I’m here now. Maybe we can talk later?”

Jeremy shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I’ll probably need to cancel my date anyway.”

Cameron dropped his arm. “I hadn’t realized. I should have, but no one said. Shit.”

Ouch. This was painful to watch. They needed to work this out, preferably somewhere less awkward. “Jer, I can take care of Toni,” I offered. “I don’t think she’d want everyone to hover over her, anyway. That is, if we ever get to see her.”

Jeremy nodded. “I’ll wait to hear how she’s doing, and then Cam and I can go talk. Will you tell her to call me if she needs anything from me?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her,” I said. “Just go and take care of yourself for a change. She’d kick your ass if she found out you used her as an excuse to get out of talking this out.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

After an agonizing ten minutes, Kate finally returned. “She’s doing well. I’m going to bring Trent back to her room. She had a panic attack, but she’s awake now. They’ll keep her for a little while longer, but once the doctor confirms the medication he’s given her has calmed her down, she’ll be released.”

***

An hour later, we were back at the house, and I was pretty sure I was driving her nuts.

“Trent, I don’t need another pillow or blanket, I’m not hungry, and I don’t need tea. Can we finally let Daniels tell us what he’s been here waiting to talk to me about?” she asked.

“Are you sure you are ready to talk about this? I mean, maybe we should wait and talk tomorrow,” I pushed.

She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Detective Daniels—”

“Please call me Dan.”

“Your name is Dan Daniels?” she asked, scrunching her forehead.

He shrugged. “My parents were extremely unimaginative.”

Reed chuckled. “Man, I thought you never told me your first name because you didn’t want to socialize with anyone outside of work.”

Daniels’s eyes widened. “You seriously didn’t know my name? We were partners for a couple of years. You’ve read my reports, and all of them had my full name on them.”

Reed shook his head. “I just thought you were trying to keep everyone from finding out something embarrassing, like your name was Herbert or something.”

“You think having the same first and last name isn’t embarrassing?” Daniels asked in a sarcastic tone.

Toni cleared her throat. “This is all very interesting, really, but do you think we could move forward to what we’re actually here for?”

“I don’t have anything new to share, just some follow-up questions mostly. I didn’t want you to worry about Zack and Trent seeing Miguel outside the bar when they were leaving,” Daniels told her.

I winced. Toni slowly turned to look at me. She had a fake smile on her face, and I could tell by the long pause she was taking that I was in trouble. “You saw Miguel? Were you planning on telling me?”

I put my hands up defensively. “Now, Wildcat, don’t get mad at me. I was going to tell you tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure you had a good night’s sleep first.”

Daniels pressed his fingers firmly against his temple. “Well, that’s out of the bag. Anyway, I applied some pressure, played against the captain’s lingering guilt about how Reed was treated by the department, and managed to get him to agree to assign someone to you until we can gather enough evidence to finally get at least a restraining order against Miguel Santos.”

He assessed her for a moment. “Toni, if you feel up to it, I need you to talk to me about that guy from the bar.”

She swallowed hard. “What do you want to know?”

“Did you know him before he walked up to you?” Daniels asked.

She thought for a moment. “I had a weird sense of déjà vu as soon as I saw him, but I don’t really have a clear memory. He said he was a friend of my mother’s and that he met me when I was really little. Maybe that’s what it was, but I had a creepy feeling the entire time he was talking to me.”

Toni looked down at her lap and seemed to fold in on herself. Daniels moved to crouch down in front of her. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up. After everything you’ve gone through lately, I don’t doubt you for a second. If this guy gave you a creepy feeling, we are going to dig into him until we know everything there is to know about him.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Reed stood up and headed for the door. “Kate should be getting off work soon, and I’d like to be home when she gets there. She’s off tomorrow. Would you guys like to come over for dinner?”

Toni perked up. “I’d love to. You don’t need to be at the bar, do you?” she asked me.

I’d do anything to keep that smile on her face. “I do need to go in for a bit, but I can get it done while you’re in class.”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Are you sure, though? I haven’t been much help to you at the bar yet.”

I kissed her head. “Please don’t worry about it. You’ve got enough on your mind, and I can cover this.”

We sat together quietly while our friends let themselves out. After the door closed behind them, I got up and locked the doors with the new deadbolts Aiden’s head of security had installed and turned on the alarm.

“Let’s go to bed,” I said and extended my hand to her.

“I’ve been in bed nearly all day.”

“I need to hold you right now,” I insisted.

“That sounds nice,” she said and took my hand.

Slowly, we walked down the hall to the bedroom. I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face in her hair. The scent of her shampoo and the warmth of her body calmed the desperate fear I’d tried to control all night.

Last night, we were on fire for each other. It was passion at its greediest, but tonight was about reconnecting and reassurance. Toni slid her hands under my shirt and lazily rubbed them up my abdomen. I framed her face with my hands and slowly kissed her.