Chapter Twenty
Her door stood open about five or six inches. Splinters of wood covered the floor and in the middle of that lay what had been her door handle. That was all she could take in before a set of broad shoulders obscured her view.
Roman held a hand up for her to stop. Panic kicked in.
She wasn’t a woman that hid behind men, but at that particular moment she didn’t mind having a barrier between her and whoever decided they had a beef with her door. If they did to her what they did to that piece of wood, there wouldn’t be enough doctors to put her back together.
He turned to her and in a low voice asked, “Did you lock up before you came into work tonight, sweetheart?”
It took a gigantic amount of effort not to roll her eyes at the question. “Of course. I’m not so absentminded I’d forget to lock my front door.”
He nailed her with a mocking eyebrow hitched so high it almost blended with his hairline.
“Wait here,” he ordered when she would have followed him.
“Wait?” Not by herself and not in a darkened hallway. She’d seen that horror movie. “What are you doing?” When he didn’t stop, she uttered a growl.
“Until I know for certain that there’s no danger, wait the fuck here.”
He produced a gun from a holster beneath his suit jacket.
He toed the remnants of her door open in a slow squeak that forced her teeth together until her gums ached. She’d meant to oil that thing but never got to it.
“The light switch is directly to the left four and a half feet up.”
With quick movements, she kicked off her heels and palmed a good amount of her dress so she could move swiftly and follow behind him despite the warning. If there was someone on the inside, she had a fighting chance with Roman standing between them. Out there she was exposed and alone.
He shut the remnants of her door behind him, cutting her off before she could see the damage if any or follow.
Five minutes later he reemerged, a grim look contorting his face. He pulled a sleek black phone from his front pocket.
“Who are you calling? Did you find anything? Was anything taken?”
He tipped her chin up with a gentle finger. “Sevastyan will need to know what’s going on. No. And I don’t know, sweetheart, but you’re not going in there yet.” He dropped his hand only to wind it around her. He drew her to him and held her there. “I know you’re worked up, but you’re not alone. You have nothing to be afraid of while I’m with you.”
She didn’t know why but those words hit her hard in the chest. Not alone? But wasn’t she? Her brothers felt obligated to protect her. Their father damn near made it a family creed, but that didn’t make it done out of love. Did it? Maybe her father’s. Her father had also protected her and loved her in his own way. Money was the solution to everything in his world. He wanted her to feel like his princess. But deep down all she wanted was a father who wanted her and a family that valued her part in it.
Rhia pushed her chin high. “You will not call him. This makes me look so weak.” She cut the air between them with a firm slice of her hand.
“Seraphina,” he began, his expression hard. “This isn’t up for discussion,” he shot back when she tried to argue.
She hadn’t seen this side of him, and it gave a new light to the man she considered the laid back of the group. True, she knew them for all of a few hours, but she’d watched them from a distance for weeks.
“He doesn’t need to concern himself with this, honestly. Nor do you. Nothing the police can’t handle. Probably some punks that thought something of value was inside. I know it wasn’t Maya. She has a key. Is anything disturbed?” She tried to move around him, but he blocked the entire front entrance to her apartment.
Apparently, he didn’t like something she said. He let out a heavy breath of frustration and his mouth looked like he’d bit into a lemon.
She inched closer to the door and rose to the tips of her toes to see the damage. Pillows covered the floor, a few ripped with their stuffing discarded over her entire living room. Even if it wasn’t really her home, she still felt the invasion like a blow to the gut. For a second she felt her heart stop before it began again in an erratic tempo. The stuffing from the pillows led to the kitchen.
The papers. Ice ran through her veins. Torn between being frozen in place and burning to see if they were still tucked away in the kitchen, she opted to take several deep breaths and work for a calm she didn’t feel.
He raised a brow, which she found he did a lot. “You give your keys out to friends.” This time it wasn’t a question.
“Friend. Singular. Sometimes she doesn’t have a place and I let her crash here. Now can I get by? Please? I want to check and see if they took my computer and a few pieces of jewelry.”
He muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like a string of curses with utter shock wound around them and if she missed that, the anger in his eyes hadn’t dissipated in the slightest. “The men will lose their shit when they hear this.”
“Before you go calling anyone let me check, okay?” she said in a hushed voice, not wanting to wake the few neighbors she had. The last thing she needed was one of them getting nosy.