Page 5

CHAPTER

FOUR

ZOEY

As I walk into the living room after taking a quick shower, I stall in my steps when I notice Elodie’s face glued to the front window. This is a new development, something so outside of her normal that it has me freaking out.

“Baby girl, what are you doing?” I ask, stumped because after standing back and observing, my concern has ramped up. Does she have an imaginary friend? Believe it or not, if she did, that would actually rein in some of my anxiety.

“Icer’s outside making silly faces at me,” she giggles, placing her fingers in her mouth, stretching it as wide as it’ll go and sticking her tongue out while crossing her eyes.

“What?” I ask, swiftly making my way over so I can peer over her shoulder. Sure enough, he’s outside the window comically making faces at my girl. This is not the man Harrison told me about earlier today. He’s a contradiction from the hardnosed man that was described to me. “Why is he here?” I wonder out loud.

“He’s here to play with me,” Elodie explains in a ‘duh’ tone.

“Of course he is,” I mumble, shaking my head. It takes a few minutes for me to gather my wits before stomping over to the front door, turning on the porch light, unlatching and unlocking everything before swinging it open and stalking out onto the front porch. Crossing my arms across my chest and tapping my foot, I look at him waiting for an explanation.

Now, here’s the weird thing about how this is playing out, usually this annoyed look I’m giving him has Elodie breaking out into a cold sweat, but Icer, he simply grins at me like a Cheshire cat.

Dropping my arms, I tilt my head to the side, scanning his facial features while trying to dissect him, but when his demeanor never changes and I can’t get a read on him, I decide to ask, “What on earth are you doing lurking in my front yard, Icer?”

I’d expect a sheepish look from him when I begin my interrogation, but no, his face grows hard and solemn when he explains, “I know.”

“You know,” I whisper, my head dropping as I immediately understand what it is he claims to‘know’.

Not in shame, but because I’m too damn tired to take a walk down memory lane. Especially one where the sidewalk is so damn cracked and weeds are growing through them that I don’t have the brainpower or energy to do any sort of landscaping. That shit is just going to have to grow wild and free for the night.

Clearing my throat to dissipate that thread of thought, I continue, “That doesn’t explain why you’re here, Icer, lurking in the shadows.”

“I’m here to make sure that for tonight, you’re safe,” he justifies. “If Indiana recognized you on sight, and we were out in public today where there were many spectators, there’s no telling who else identified you. I will not allow those Onyx bastards to lay another finger on you.” The last part of his statement was done with a growl. He then adds, “And they’ll never touch my princess!”

It took days before we went shopping for me to gain enough courage to step outside my doors, and what he just said has me backpedaling. My jaw drops as my heart rate speeds up. I can’t seem to find words to counter what he’s said because it’s true, I was all over that shopping center today and anyone could’ve seen me and remembered me.

“It’s been years, Icer,” I finally manage to choke out. “There’s no reason for them to want to track me down.”

“Isn’t there?” he presses, his head nodding in Elodie’s direction.

“Then they’d have to admit what part they took in my rape,” I divulge. “They wouldn’t want to incriminate themselves.”

“Men like that don’t go through legal channels, Zoey. They lie. They cheat. They steal,” he says with emphasis. The steal part of his argument is what has me hyperventilating.

“They wouldn’t, would they?” I gasp out.

“What’s stopping them?” he contends. “Jerome’s father is the sheriff; Patrick’s mother is the district attorney. Are you getting where I’m going with this?”

Jerome is the leader of the gang and Patrick is his secondhand man. They’re the ones who think they rule this town. Seeing that they’ve slid by on any charges placed against them with only a slap on the wrist and a fine, I’d say they are doing a damn good job staying on top.

“We’re trying to take them out, but our hands have been tied. With as many people who they’re connected to in the higher ups, we’re traipsing down a slippery slope. Zoey, we can’t protect you and Elodie if we don’t have eyes on you.”

“Mama!” Elodie hollers for me. She knows she’s not allowed outside without my specified permission. It’s harder than one would think it’d be to contain a five year old who wants all the freedoms other kids her age have.

“I need a few more minutes, munchkin. Mr. Icer and I are talking, why don’t you go brush your teeth and pick out a book for us to read before bedtime,” I suggest, needing her to be out of hearing range.

“Okay. Love you, Mr. Icer. Love you, Mama!”

“Love you too, baby girl.”

“Always my heart, princess.” And in that moment, with those words of admiration he sends my daughter, I know that he’ll always be her white knight so I step back and wave him into my house.

Icer holds up his finger and turns around. “Renegade, watch the house, I’m going in to help read my princess her bedtime story.” I see a large, burly man step out of the shadows and salute him. If he hadn’t exposed himself I would’ve never known he was there.

“How many of you are out there?” I ask as I step between the threshold and wait for Icer to follow.

“It’s just me and Renegade tonight,” he tells me.

“Tonight?” I query.

“We’re taking shifts,” he answers, squeezing my hand before ushering me further into the house and locking up. “You’re family, we took a vote.”

“You took a vote. About mine and Elodie’s welfare,” I murmur. Then ask out loud, “How is this even my life?”

“Indiana will explain what it means to be elected as a member of the Kings family. Can I go to the princess now?” His feet are shuffling and he’s looking uncomfortable. I get the feeling conversation is not his forte. Still, he’s bonded with my girl, and they’re able to communicate without any issues, so I’m not going to stress all that much.

“Sure. She’s in her room, second door on the right,” I state, pointing toward her bedroom. As he heads her way, I stop him. “Icer. Can you give me Harrison’s number? We forgot to exchange them today.”

A crooked smile graces his face as he rattles off Harrison’s digits. A huff of air escapes me because I didn’t expect him to know it off hand and I wasn’t prepared.

“Hold that thought,” I tell him as I rush into my room and grab my phone off the charger. Using the face recognition, I open the screen and hand it over to him. The entire time he’s adding Harrison to my phone, it’s done with a smirk. The reason for that is exposed when he hands it to me and saunters away. When I look down, a burst of laughter escapes me when I notice he’s labeled him as ‘Lucky Bastard’ in my address book.

Tiptoeing to Elodie’s door, which has respectfully been left open, I see Icer sprawled out on the floor with Elodie’s head tucked between his shoulderblade and the crook of his neck. He’s reading the book she chose to her and she’s enraptured in the storyline. I hold back a giggle when I hear him changing voices based on the characters and step away to let them continue their bonding. Satisfied that, for the moment, all is well, I head into the living room and hit the green dial button.

After a few short rings, a sleepy voice answers, “Lo.”

“You’ve got some explaining to do,” I huff out.

“Zoey?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I have a guest, an overnight one that I don’t see leaving anytime soon.”

He chuckles before stating, “I want us to have this specific talk face-to-face. I know you’re curious about everything going on, but you need to let it go for tonight. I promise, all of your questions will be answered.”

“I’ve composed a long list, Harrison,” I warn him.

“I remember those lists,” he says, reminiscing. “We’ll check off every bullet point. I swear, Zoey. Trust Icer and Renegade, they’ll keep you protected.”

“I’m sorry I disappeared,” I whisper. “At first, I was shell shocked about the event, then, I was angry and my life spiraled.”

Old memories try to well up but I tamp them down, unwilling to traipse through them right now with Icer in my house and Elodie still wide awake. Why? Because when they do hit, there’s often tears and sometimes broken items as I try to release the anger once again. My therapists were great, but one of the earlier ones told me that even though I was dealing with what happened, from time to time, something was likely to come back up even though for the most part, I could consider myself ‘healed’. As she said, when you experience something so horrific, while you can deal with the emotions and the damage that was done, your brain sometimes protects you from the worst of it until you’re strong enough to handle it, and then, you have to go through the process to resolve it in your mind.

“You don’t owe me any explanations, Zoey. Now that I know what happened, I get it. If I were in your shoes, I’d be looking for a safe place to recover too. But now that you’re back, I’m going to make sure it’s safe for you to stay here.”

“I can’t believe I’m still in danger from them. I honestly thought they’d forget about me after all this time, I wasn’t anything special to their group. I was an initiation, nothing more and nothing less. Coming back to Canton, I believed the only hardship I’d face would be the rumor mill and nefarious looks.”

“I want to make it clear, there hasn’t been a verbal threat against you, but we’re not taking any chances. My fear, Zoey, is that if they discover Elodie is biologically one of theirs, they’ll try to take her. She’s considered a princess in the hierarchy of things.”

Rage overtakes my prior emotions when he says that—there’s no fucking way any of those bastards will ever touch a hair on Elodie’s head. I’ll die myself to keep that from happening!

“I’ll rip every one of their dicks off before I let them get their hands on my girl,” I vow. “She’ll never be part of their family, Harrison.”

“Agreed. I promise you this here and now, Zoe. Anyone touches our girl, and they won’t live long enough to see another day.”

Something soft settles in my heart when he calls Elodie ‘our girl’. It’s something we wanted when we were talking about the future and knowing that he’s not going to hold her parentage against her is amazing to me. We literally just reconnected today, yet it’s as if no time has passed at all.

“I believe you. Night, Harrison.”

“Night, Zoe. See you in the morning.”