Mine to Keep (NOLA Knights #3) - Rhenna Morgan Page 0,39
hand and dipped his head to the plastic tub he’d stowed in the backseat. “Yes.” He fired up the engine, checked each way and pulled into the street.
Silence filled the truck’s interior, broken only by the motor’s rumble and the drone of tires as they accelerated onto the highway. His preference was to contact Luke and get him on point at Bonnie’s apartment before those behind the attack could return, but Bonnie was already strung too tight. Even with her back flush against the seat, her posture was uncomfortably straight, her eyes locked dead ahead and her fists clenched tight on either thigh. She didn’t need more details rattling around in her head. Witnessing his capacity for violence had been more than enough.
Yes, the silence was better. Less riddled with conversational landmines. Though he found himself wishing the center console between them was nonexistent. Physical affection beyond a casual interlude here and there had never been his strong suit, but he found himself itching to touch her. To hold her and stroke her hair. An utterly foreign response he wasn’t entirely sure how to process.
He exited the highway onto St. Charles, slowly making his way along the northern edge of the Garden District toward the townhome he’d bought just a mile from Sergei’s estate.
Bonnie didn’t budge. Didn’t study her surroundings outside as she had the last time he’d driven her here or give any indication she was aware of her whereabouts at all. Just stared out the windshield, her lips tight and her eyes glazed as though a million memories replaced her sight.
He turned onto Eighth Street and drove the two blocks to his home. Built in the early ’80s, it kept with the same plantation style as most other homes in the Garden District, but had significantly less space than Sergei’s massive estate. Still, the four bedrooms and four baths were nothing to sneeze at. The exterior was simple—white walls and evergreen painted shutters—but the location and layout were perfect. From here, he could be at his pakhan’s home within minutes. More than that, there were very few angles that were indefensible should someone breach his personal haven.
Rounding the street in front of the house, he turned into the alley and punched the remote to the garage door. Whether it was the drastic change in surroundings or the loss of background noise when he killed the engine that pricked her awareness, he couldn’t be certain, but she shook her head as if shaking off the fog of sleep. “Where are we?”
“My home.” He pushed the button on his rearview mirror and the garage door trundled closed. He gave way to impulse and covered one of her fisted hands with his. “You will be safe here.”
She studied the unpacked boxes outside her door and the tools hung neatly on the peg board above his workbench. Despite the considering perusal, she still seemed uncustomarily detached. As if her brain was online and absorbing, but wasn’t quite sure how to generate a resulting action. A reasonable reaction given all she’d been through. An emotional armor of sorts he’d seen even the most hardened men employ when an event had pushed them too far beyond what they could safely process and remain sane.
He gave her fist a gentle squeeze before he released it. “Stay where you are. I’ll help you down.”
By the time he opened her door, she still hadn’t moved. Only stared down at her lap as if drained of any capacity to do anything save breathe and exist. Unwilling to ask her to endure any more than she already had, he slung her backpack over one shoulder and picked her up.
She startled at first, but settled as soon as she seemed to realize there was no threat and wearily rested her head against his shoulder. Her body was nearly deadweight as he carried her inside. As if all the fight that had been left inside her had slowly leaked onto the floor of his truck on the drive home, leaving nothing more than muscle, skin and bone behind.
In truth, he was oddly grateful. Both that, for a small moment, she was free of her worries, and that he’d been given time of his own to hold her. To ease the burden of ineptitude and self-recrimination he’d harbored all day through the simple, unexpected connection.
Only the most cursory lights glowed on the first floor—a small brushed steel pendent light over his sink in the updated kitchen and a lamp in the living