Page 29 of Rogue’s Path (Sweet Chaos #1)

Dylan

What has my life become that I’m looking to hire security?

I’m not a superstar or even a big-name author to end up with a stalker. How did this even happen?

The scenery changes as the cab makes a turn. The directions said it’s ten miles down this road. It is a road, right?

This feels like a massive driveway instead of a street that leads anywhere.

A cluster of motorcycles zoom by.

Would bikers work in my next novel? They could be ruthless killers with smoky eyes and… Stop making everything in the world about him. You didn’t come here to see Rogue again. You came here so you don’t end up murdered somewhere.

Though a ruthless motorcycle club that uses rallies to traffic women and guns would be interesting. They fly under the radar for decades until a group of do-gooder bikers try to take them out to save one of the women who has been trafficked.

Vigilante justice for the win.

Is that where this story is coming from? My desire for them to save me, a lone woman in distress.

You can handle this without them. Don’t walk in there feeling desperate. This is a business proposition, nothing else. You have options.

None that involve a permanent solution to my problem.

And there you are again, assuming because they’re bikers they’ll be willing to kill for you.

Stop obsessing and look around.

At what? The trees. Most of which are now completely bare of leaves, except the evergreens. I’m neither an arborist nor a botanist, but they are pretty in a bleak kind of way, especially with the light dusting of snow still on them.

Wait, is that a driveway or an access road for a forest ranger? They definitely need a ranger or six. It’s hard to imagine there’s this much dense woodland so close to Urbium.

Silent Valley has trees, but nothing like these.

The threat of fires would always be an issue if I lived out here. Though trees aren’t really the issue. It’s the underbrush that feeds the fires. That’s why rangers are always doing controlled burns.

There’s another access road. And another one. And another. They must be driveways, but who would want to live out here?

“Is this really where you wanna go?” the cab driver asks.

Huh? I turn my head to look forward. Um, what is that?

The massive chain-link fencing brings back memories from when I visited a few prisons. The big cement building does nothing to detract from that vibe.

Did I get the address wrong? I must have.

A big flag comes into view just as I lift my phone up. That’s the Children of Chaos’ emblem. It’s attached to the wall via stainless steel hatchets, which are insanely cool but also a little terrifying. Who had the strength to drive them into cement? “Yeah, it is.”

“You want me to wait for you? I’ll do it for no charge.”

A smart woman would say yes.

A woman with even the slightest bit of self-preservation would jump on that offer.

If I hadn’t seen them protect us against a group much larger than themselves, I wouldn’t be saying this. “No. I’m fine, but thank you.”

He stops at the gate and turns around, holding out a card. “I’m going to go back to Silent Valley and have an early dinner until about six. If you change your mind, call me.”

I won’t be. “Thank you.” His tip just got tripled. I step out of the car, and men with guns tucked into holsters on their belts appear.

The cabbie is even braver than I thought when he gets out and helps me take my bags out of the trunk.

“Who are you here to see?” A man with a small goatee and a large tattoo of a dragon climbing up his neck steps up to where the gate will open.

“Hello.” I smile at him. “I have an appointment to see Mr. Havoc.”

“No, you don’t.”

“If this is the Children of Chaos’ clubhouse—” That seems like such a childish thing to call it.

Like they’re eight-year-old boys making a club in their backyard tree house.

“—then yes, I do. Maddox arranged it. Would you please check with his secretary?” Do motorcycle club presidents have secretaries?

“Havoc doesn’t have a secretary. And he doesn’t have an appointment with a nerdy-looking woman.”

“I don’t look nerdy. This is a professional outfit.”

The man raises an eyebrow at me.

I am not a nerd. “Would you please confirm that I don’t have an appointment with Havoc? My name is Dylan Oliva, and this business meeting was arranged by Maddox Locke.”

“You’re Dylan?” He eyes me up and down, stopping for a second longer than would be appropriate on my boobs and hips. “Don’t think so. Dylan is a guy.”

“Women can have gender-neutral names.” Though mine isn’t quite that. “I can prove it.” I reach into my purse.

“If you plan on pulling a gun out of that thing, just know there are multiple weapons set to shoot back.”

“Good to know.” Maybe I can just hide out here for a few years writing while my stalker forgets who I am. “There’s no gun, just a driver’s license.” Which I hold out to him.

The man takes it, looks at it, looks back at it, holds it up to the light, and then twists it a few times before handing it back to me. “Let her in,” he seemingly says to himself, but the gate starts to open.

I turn and nod to the cabbie before reaching for my bags.

The man at the gate’s hand is there first.

“Thank you, mister—”

“It’s Integer, just Integer.”

“Like the math thing?” Wow, that sounded stupid.

“Yeah, like the math thing. I’m an actuary.”

A math geek is calling me a nerd? Though to be fair, he doesn’t look like a geek.

That toned body of his doesn’t say I live at my desk.

An actuary’s job interests me way more than it should.

“So you can predict when a person will die?” Wouldn’t it be wild if an actuary who was really bad at his job went around killing people to make his math look like it was correct?

“I can predict percentages in groups of people, not individuals.” He tips his head at me. “Why?”

“Have you ever tried?” Cause I so would have. I would have checked random strangers, but not friends.

He raises an eyebrow at me.

“You totally did. Were you correct? Because I think you were.” That would be so weird.

“What are you here to see Havoc about?”

“That’s private.”

Integer’s chuckle is kind of sexy. “One thing you gotta know is there aren’t any secrets in the MC. You tell it to one of us; you tell it to all of us.”

Havoc seems like too much of a gentleman to go spreading my business around. “So they all know you’ve figured out when they’re going to die?”

Integer’s eyes bug out.

“That’s what I thought.”

“You’re scary.”

“Thank you.” I think.

“Would you like to go out sometime?”

“You don’t want to do that. She’s Rogue’s.”

I turn to find Bear in the corner of the room we just stepped into.

With the size of this space, it’s easy to see how I missed him.

This place is larger than most ballrooms I’ve been in.

There are dozens of tables with chairs around them.

Little groupings of chairs and couches are dotted around.

There are no less than two bars with shelves full of bottles that would make a bartender smile.

The foosball tables, pool tables, dartboards, and video games scattered around make this a great place for people of all ages to hang out. “I don’t belong to any man.”

Integer takes two steps back like I have the plague.

Bear walks over, envelops me in a hug, and whispers, “You don’t know it yet, but you will soon.”

This is insanity. Complete and utter insanity.

Why did I even come here? These men both know Rogue has a significant other who is perfect for him, yet they’re ignoring that fact and acting like Rogue and I are together.

Nope. I shouldn’t have come. Definitely shouldn’t have come.

I’ll just deal with Taylor. Or hide in Dahlia’s fortified neighborhood forever.

I should see if there’s a house for sale.

“Dylan?” Havoc’s voice carries through the space.

The acoustics must be terrible in here when the room is full. They should pad the walls or something to keep the noise down.

Bear releases me and moves to the side.

Do I say present? Because it feels like I’m about to be brought to the principal’s office. Not that I ever went there in school.

“Come with me.”

Run. Run as far and as fast as you can. That man sounds irritated and confused. I turn towards where Integer pushed my bags against the wall.

“Don’t worry. No one will mess with your bags.” Bear nudges me to follow Havoc.

Like I’m worried about them. Life is never as simple as replacing a suitcase. If only I had hired Taylor.

Whatever happens, it’ll make for one great story.

The room we step into is slightly smaller, but they got the message on sound canceling.

The walls are covered. The floor is covered.

Even the ceiling is covered. “Do you murder people in this room? Though it would probably be better to torture people. You’d just need to cover the floor with something, so you don’t leave any evidence. ” Why did I just blurt that out?

Havoc smirks. “No torture or murder happens in this room. Though the floors are very easy to clean.”

Good to know. Kinda.

“Have a seat.”

No. I don’t wanna. Sitting makes it harder to run, which I do want to do. I sit down.

Havoc chooses the chair across from me. “Dylan, I have to say I’m a little confused about why you’re here and not at the Ivy Café, where Rogue is currently waiting for you. And why would you have Maddox Locke call me and not him?”

You guys are so deep in this standing up for a cheater thing, it’s impossible to comprehend. “I’m here to make a business contract with your club.”

“A contract?” Havoc’s slightly bushy eyebrows pinch in. He doesn’t manscape, it seems. Still with those little streaks of silver at his temples, no woman is going to notice.

“Yes. It’s where I pay you money and you do a service for me.”

He shakes his head. “I know what a contract is. What I still can’t understand is why you’re here talking to me and not Rogue.”

“My contract is with the club, not Rogue.”

“Rogue is part of the club.”

Like I don’t know that. It feels like we’re talking in circles. “This was probably a bad idea on my part.” Time to go. I stand up. “I’ll make other arrangements. Thank you for seeing me. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

“Sit down, Dylan.”

“You sound like my father when you say it that way. Do you have a kid?”

He rolls his eyes. “Just sit down and tell me what you need done.”

The insane part is I do just that. “I want to hire your club to protect me.”

He blinks twice. “What?”

“I am prepared to pay you your going rate—” Which hopefully I can afford. “—to protect me from my stalker.”

“Wait. Didn’t you tell Bear that you didn’t have one? I could have sworn he told me that it was just drunken paranoia on your part.”

Well. “I lied.”

“You lied to a man that was going to protect you?”

A man who I didn’t know anything about, but Havoc wouldn’t understand that. I shrug.

“And you didn’t think to tell Rogue about this stalker.

Not even wanting to try to make this man understand, I shrug again.

“How bad is this stalker?”

The urge to shrug and walk away intensifies. He’s going to brush me off like the cops have. Why did I do this?

“Dylan, answer the question.” He folds his hands together and leans forward.

This isn’t fair. I have no problem ignoring my own dad’s dad-voice. Though uncle-dad is harder to ignore because he mixes an air of disappointment in. “Pretty bad.”

“Expand on that statement.”

“The last time he sent me flowers, he hinted at murdering me and then committing suicide.”

“Murder?” His brows furrow together.

“So that we could live on together forever.”

Havoc starts tapping on the table. “How did he get the flowers to you?”

“The last ones were sent to the Ivy Café.”

“Ah… That makes sense.”

None of this makes a lick of sense. “So, will your club be willing to protect me?”

“Yes.”

I pull out my phone. “How much of a deposit will you need? Do you charge weekly or monthly?”

“A deposit?”

“Yes.” We went over what a contract was already. I seriously doubt Havoc doesn’t understand what it is.

He stands up. “You’re going to have to talk to Rogue about that.”

“I already told you—”

The door bursts open, and Rogue steps in carrying a bouquet of red roses.

“They said Peaches was in here with you.”

“This is a joke, right? A horrible, cruel, sick joke.” I race to the door, not quite sure what I’m going to do, but I need to get away from them.

Rogue latches an arm around me.

“LET ME GO!” I scream in his face. “Let me go. Just please let me go.”