My heart is beating out of control. Oh my God.
“Was there anything else?” Tears are streaming down my face, and my hands are shaking so badly that I have no idea how I’m able to hold onto the phone.
“There’s a message,” she whispers back.
“And?”
“It said . . . God, it said that if you don’t deliver Adam or two hundred thousand dollars by the end of the month, they’re going to clear the debt owed in other ways. Dee! What the hell does that mean?!” By the time she finishes, she is sobbing.
I give myself a few minutes to freak out before trying to come up with a fix.
“Chelcie, listen to me. I want you to get your things and go straight home. Lock the door and do not answer for anyone. Pack as much as you can and get down here. I need to call Beck and let him know what’s going on, but I want you here where I know you will be safe.”
She’s silent for so long that I have to pull my phone away to make sure she didn’t disconnect.
“Chelc, do you understand?”
“Yeah, Dee. I’ll be there by tomorrow. Promise me you’re safe?”
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about you. Get down here, Chelcie. Everything’s going to be okay. Make sure you bring everything they mailed you and try not to touch it, okay?”
“I’ll be there.”
I quickly hang up the phone and immediately call Beck. After I fill him in, he tells me to check every door and stay away from the windows. I know he’s worried, but he’s trying to hide it so it doesn’t freak me out.
“I’m okay, Beck. I’m really okay. Just get home okay?” I don’t think I realized until that moment that I’m not as scared as I would have been months ago. I’m worried, but mainly for Chelcie. I know that Beck won’t let anything happen to me, and until she gets down here, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop the feeling that I have no way of controlling what happens here.
I check all the doors and make sure the alarm is active before making my way back upstairs. The only place that I know I’ll feel one hundred percent safe is in Beck’s bed, where I can pull the covers around me and let his scent surround me.
CHAPTER 20
Beck
The second that I hang up with Dee, I gather the rest of the guys in the office so I can fill them in on what’s going on.
“She doesn’t know if there’s more. The letter didn’t come here, which makes me think that he wants her to believe he knows more than he does. There’s a reason he sent it to Chelcie at the office and not here.”
Axel looks around for a second, thinking about all the facts that we have. Which is basically is a whole lot of nothing. “I don’t like this. How is it possible for this Adam shit to hide for this long?”
“We need the letter. Maybe we can pull something off of it. It’s a long shot, but right now, it’s all we have.” Coop sits down and for once doesn’t end a sentence with some smart-ass remark.
We’re all worried. This guy has us all by the balls, and it’s not sitting well with any of us.
“You need to get home to Dee. Let us worry about the shit we can do here.” Maddox pushes off the wall after giving me my marching orders and slams the newly replaced door against the wall in his haste to leave the room.
Greg leans forward from the seat in front of my desk, resting his elbows on his knees. “He’s right. We’ll handle shit here, and if anything new comes up, we’ll call. Just go make sure she’s okay. If you decide to come in tomorrow, then she comes with you.”
“You didn’t really think I was going to stay here today? Fuck you very much, Greg. All I had planned was filling you assholes in before I went home to my woman.” I start packing up my laptop and anything else I think I’ll need should I decide to start working out of my house until this shit is over. There’s only ten more days in the month, so regardless of what we figure out, there’s only a short amount of time before the deadline we’re working against runs out.
Greg goes to open his mouth, but I stop him as I round the desk to leave. “Don’t, okay? I get where you’re coming from and that’s fine, but don’t mistake my making sure you all knew what is going on as me not putting her first. Everything I do is to make sure that her happiness and wellbeing come before anything else.”
“Got it.”
I leave him still sitting in front of my desk and head out to the truck. I offer Sway a quick wave as I walk down the golden glitter filled sidewalk and pass by the salon. He smiles and waves in his usual flamboyant way, and as per normal with him, there is no way you can’t smile back. One thing with Sway, when things are starting to press in around you and your mood is as close to shit as it can get, Sway always makes the world a little bit brighter.
I throw my bags in the passenger seat and peel out of the lot, heading home to Dee as quickly as I can.