Page 19 of Beautiful Trauma

After taking in my appearance, he asked, “Hot date or work?”

Scowling, I replied, “You know as well as I do that I’m on at Bandia tonight.”

He gave an absentminded shake of his head. “Right. I forgot.”

Anxiety twisted through my chest. “Are Ava and Piper okay?”

In the last month, Dare’s world had been turned upside down when his ex-girlfriend, Ava, came back into his life after four years. Even though she’d left him because she’d discovered his involvement with the mafia, she was desperate enough to ask Dare to take care of her stalker ex-boyfriend.

Grimacing, he replied, “For the moment.”

“Fuck,” I muttered.

With a nod, he said, “I’ll fill you in on the way down.”

“Sounds good.”

As we started down the hallway, I cut my eyes over to Dare. “Considering you look like hell, don’t keep me in suspense.”

The corner of his lip quirked at my comment. “Feck you, mate.”

“Just calling it as I see it.”

When we stepped onto the elevator, Dare exhaled a ragged breath. “I took care of Ava’s bastard of an ex last night.”

I furrowed my brows at him. “If he’s out of the picture, what’s the problem?”

“During the torture session, he admitted to going on the dark web to find someone to hunt down Ava for him. While searching, he discovered people looking for her.”

“What people?”

“He didn’t know.” At my disbelieving look, he said, “Trust me. With everything I was doing to him, he would’ve sang like a canary if he’d known.”

I didn’t have to ask him what the people wanted with Ava. Those on the dark web were only interested in women for dark purposes like trafficking or revenge killings.

The elevator door dinged open, and we stepped into the lobby. It was then I noticed two more bodyguards stationed throughout the room. “More manpower, huh?”

Dare nodded. “Until I can figure out the threat, I’m amping it up here and at Ava’s house.”

“You don’t think it would be better to have her and Piper here until the threat can be neutralized,” I suggested.

“I don’t want to alarm Ava.” When I started to argue, he shook his head. “I can’t be a hundred percent certain that Wesley wasn’t fucking with me.”

“Let me guess. You have Gianni and his best men on it?”

Gianni Neretti was a genius at computer hacking. He also happened to be Callum’s brother-in-law. Since their marriage, we often called on his expertise.

“Absofuckinglutely,” Dare gritted out.

“What can I do?”

With a regretful sigh, Dare replied, “Nothing. I just wanted you to be aware of what was going on.”

“You don’t think it could be Korolova, do you?”

Just before Ava had come back into his life, an arranged marriage had been brokered between Annika Korlova and Dare. Her father was the pahkan of Philly. As far as I knew, Dare had yet to speak to Annika’s father, Danill about voiding the contract.

Dare snorted. “Korolova wouldn’t give two shits if he thought I was cheating on Annika. I mean, our contract clearly states that we don’t have to be exclusive. She can fuck all the women she wants, and so can I.”