Chapter Seven
Hadley
The restof my shift goes by without incident. Though I’m still a bit strung tight after what had transpired with my stepfather earlier and find myself glancing over my shoulder more often than usual, I’m able to perform my job seamlessly enough, I think.
By the end of my shift, I’m finally starting to relax. I’ll be going home with Damon soon, and I already can’t wait to be in his arms again.
I open my locker at the back of the restaurant to retrieve my purse. I don’t carry much with me. Just my wallet and a few necessities. Tony provides all of us girls with a tiny locker space where we can lock our purses and any other belongings up when we’re working our shifts. He wants to eliminate the chance of any drama, such as a waitress losing her purse and crying that someone stole it. That’s why he makes sure to provide us with the lockers.
I frown when a little slip of paper falls out of my locker. It’s torn and looks like it was hastily ripped from another sheet.
I bend over to pick it up where it floated to the floor.
My hands begin to tremble when I read what’s scrawled on it.
I know who you’re living with. I know who is and what he was in prison for. If you don’t want him to go back, you’ll come home, and you’ll never run away again.
How did Randal find all this out? Yeah, he’d seen Damon in the restaurant earlier when Damon had threatened him, but how did he find out I was living with him? Better yet, how did he find out what he was in prison for? How did he get this note in here?
My blood seems to freeze within my veins when I realize what he’d said. If you don’t want him to go back… I don’t like what that implies. Is Randal saying that he would frame Damon somehow just to get him locked back up?
I think back on everything I know about Randal. He might be a piece of shit, but he’s actually friends with several cops. They’re probably dirty cops. They’d have to be to be friends with Randal, right?
I look back down at the note, and my heart crumbles within me.
I close my eyes and absently drop the note into my purse.
I can’t risk Damon getting locked back up because of me.
The tears start to roll down my face as I begin moving toward the back door of the restaurant to slip out the back where Damon can’t see me. He always waits for me out front.
My heart breaks when I think of Damon waiting for me only for me to not show up. I think of the confusion that’ll cloud his face. Will he think I just up and left him? As much as it hurts my heart to think that’s what he’ll conclude, that’s what I need him to think. For his own safety.
At least I shouldn’t have to worry about him coming after me. I never told him where I used to live, and I’d written his address on my application to Tony’s so he wouldn’t know the address of my childhood home.
I stick to the back alleys as I slowly begin to make my way back to the block my mom and stepdad live on.
I swore I’d never go back there, but I’d break my promise to myself to save Damon, the man I now know I love without a shadow of a doubt.
* * *
Damon
Something’s wrong. Hadley is never late coming off her shift. I wait exactly five minutes for in case she got held up in the bathroom or something before I barge through the restaurant and straight to the employee section in the back.
When I don’t see her anywhere, I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I check the women’s restroom to find it empty. A quick survey of the employee lounge shows it empty too.
I head to Tony’s office and walk in without announcing myself.
Tony looks up with a scowl until he sees it’s me, and then his face smooths over before he frowns himself when he sees what is undoubtedly a harried, worried look on my face.
“Damon, how can I—“
I cut him off with, “Have you seen Hadley?”
“She left the floor about fifteen minutes ago. I haven’t seen her since. I assumed she left a little early considering all that happened today, so I didn’t say anything about it.”