Something dark and lethal rose up inside me at that thought. When I’d promised her a few short hours ago to stand between her and whatever was in her past I had no idea it would be something like this, but knowing it only solidified my intent. I pulled up outside the diner a few minutes later. I figured she’d be upstairs but it was her father I needed to see first. I needed to get a feel for what the fuck had gone on, the things that hadn’t been in the report. I wasn’t sure if she’d be ready to talk to me about it but maybe he would.
He saw me coming and maybe the death glare in my eyes tipped him off that there was trouble because he left the counter where he’d been chatting with one of the regulars and headed towards me. “What is it?”
“Is there somewhere we can go to talk?” he took my elbow and led me towards the back where he kept his offices. As soon as the door was closed I started in. “I know what was done to her, well some of it anyway.” He sat down heavily and held his head in his hands. “I want to know what’s not in the report, I want to know everything he did to her.”
“Leave it alone son, trust me I wanted to go after this asshole more than you’ll ever know but the cops said my hands are tied. He has more rights apparently, rights that say if I go after him I might end up in jail. That’s a hard thing to swallow as a father.”
“I don’t understand that shit. It says he stalked her from the age of fourteen, four fucking years and they did nothing? She was a fucking kid when he started his sick fucking campaign…”
“I know boy, you think I don’t know? You think I don’t lay awake at night thinking up ways to remove him from the face of the earth? My child wakes up screaming sometimes and it tears at my heart but there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. He has more damn rights right now than we do don’t you understand? One wrong move and I’ll be behind bars for the rest of my life, then who’s gonna protect her. This is the best we can do for now, all I can do.” He shook his head like a broken man and that just added fuel to my fire.
Be a Steele. That refrain kept playing through my head over and over as I fought to overcome the feelings that threatened to overpower me. I was going in blind all across the board here, our relationship was new, my knowledge of the situation was literally a few hours old and I had no experience with this shit. My life up until a few months ago was one of high school ball and whatever hoorah mom came up with to make us kids happy. I knew nothing about the seedier side of things, nothing outside of having to put my foot in somebody’s ass for messing with me or my brother.
This was a whole new ballgame, this, as they say, is the big time. It looked like I wasn’t going to be allowed to tread the natural order in the dating game this go around. I’m being pushed into the deep end of the pool straight off the bat. I have to ask myself had I known all this was waiting for me would I have gone after her anyway? The truth was very simple when it came. I hadn’t gone after Kadyn Daniels; this thing between us was set in stone long before we ever laid eyes on each other. Something neither of us had any control over.
“I want to see everything you have on him.”
“What makes you so sure I have anything?” I just gave him a look to remind him that my birth certificate might say one thing but in my chest beat the heart of a man. And right now that man was in combat mode because some fuck had messed with his woman. Whether I’d had her for a year or a day, she was mine; time made no difference to a Steele, we laugh at that shit. The minute the decision was made it was a done fucking deal.
“You’re her father, you love her, you have everything I need. Your hands may be tied but mine aren’t.”
“No son leave it alone, if you want to be with my daughter then the best thing you can do for her right now is be there for her. She has problems still I know, that’s why she goes to doc Graves, but going after this guy might only open up a can of worms that’s best left uncovered. She’s doing a lot better since she came here…”