He raised a finger, pointing it at her face. “That is not what happened, but that doesn’t fucking matter—”

  “The hell it doesn’t,” she broke in.

  “Stop.” It had to be the obvious desperation in his voice that finally made her shut up.

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that I just saw that fucker Joseph Dubey slam Laila against a wall before manhandling her into his car.” He leaned in close. “So unless you condone that sort of shit, you will tell me where they live—now.”

  Rosamie drew back, her toasted-almond skin noticeably paling. “That’s not true.”

  Mason threw his hands in the air. “Would I be here if it wasn’t?”

  She absorbed his words in silence. And then she came to a decision, twisting to grab her purse from a nearby table. “All right, but I’m coming with you.”

  The drive was twenty minutes with traffic, but each one of those felt like an eternity. Rosamie talked the entire way—alternating between insults to Mason for making the entire story up to threatening bodily harm to Joseph Dubey if he wasn’t. She couldn’t make up her mind.

  But halfway through the drive, she caught his sense of urgency. Her voice took on a strained note. “If he’s touched a hair on her head, I’m gonna rip his balls off.”

  Coming from a woman, those words would have normally made Mason wince in sympathy, but as far as he was concerned, Dubey didn’t deserve any. “Not if I get to him first,” he growled.

  Rosamie gave him directions to a sleek high rise off Pico and Flower. Mason parked the car, snaking a slot across the street when a cab pulled out.

  “Joe has a suite on the top floor,” Rosamie said as she jaywalked across the street. “His dad pays the rent.”

  Mason locked the car and ran to overtake her, grabbing her arm and tugging her out of the path of oncoming traffic when it appeared as if she might not clear the distance in time.

  Angry horns sounded behind them, but they both ignored them as they rushed inside. It was a high-end building, with the additional security feature of an attendant at the front. The man was supposed to check off and announce visitors. He did a double-take when he saw Mason, but Rosamie waved to the man and he just let them on through.

  The suite was on the top floor. Luckily, there wasn’t a fingerprint scanner blocking access. Tamping down his anger, Mason decided to let Rosamie take the lead and knock. If Dubey answered the door, Mason might take him down, then and there.

  But no one answered.

  “Laila, it’s me,” Rosamie called, pounding this time. “Open the door.”

  There was a faint scrabbling, and Laila spoke through the wood. “Rosamie? C-can you come back later?”

  He could tell from Rosamie’s expression that this had never happened before.

  “No!” Rosamie tried the doorknob, jiggling it repeatedly. “I’m not leaving.”

  After an endless beat of silence, the door opened. “I was going to call you actually—it’s just that I need to…”

  Laila’s voice trailed off as she saw Mason hovering behind her friend.

  Her eyes were red and puffy, her hair mussed. But the thing that made his vision nearly blackout with rage was her lips. The bottom one was split. The wound was fresh, too, and it was still swelling up.

  “It’s true,” Rosamie spit, blinking fiercely. “He hit you.”

  Laila didn’t even look at her friend. Her huge honey-brown eyes welled with tears. “Mason, what are you doing here?”

  Before he could answer, Rosamie beat him to it. “He saw you in the parking lot of Gardullo’s. He drove me here.”

  Mason touched Rosamie on the shoulder when she would have continued. Catching his expression, she fell back. He stepped in front of her.

  This was the closest he’d gotten to Laila in months. And she was bleeding.

  “Where is he?” The growl in his voice reverberated in the air, sending out a lethal vibration. It was a voice that promised violence.

  Both Laila and Rosamie reacted. The latter shivered.

  Mason tried to get himself under control. “It’s okay, Laila. It’s going to be okay.”

  She turned away, wiping her eyes, but then wincing as if it hurt.

  Mason gritted his teeth, fighting to keep his face impassive.

  “He’s not here,” she whispered, pulling the door open and backing away. They followed her into a spacious penthouse apartment done up in a mishmash of contemporary and sleek minimalist Asian furniture. It wasn’t gaudy, but it was definitely trying too hard.

  A battered suitcase lay open in the hallway. There were some clothes inside. Something tight uncoiled in Mason’s gut. There was no need to convince Laila to leave. She had already decided on her own.

  Rosamie was all over Laila, who was fighting not to cry. “Do you want to go to the police?”

  Laila thought about it. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, okay,” her friend said, nodding emphatically. “Not a problem. You don’t have to decide now. We can talk back at the dorm. Let’s just get you packed and out of here.”

  “She’s not going back to your dorm,” Mason announced.

  Laila’s lips parted. He shook his head. “Dubey knows that’s the first place you would go. It’s wide open—there’s no security to speak of. Hell, I just got in there, and no one tried to stop me.”

  He’d been hopping mad, too. And despite having a murderous glare, the people who passed him on the way to Rosamie’s room had just scattered and gotten out of his way.

  Mason held out his hand to Laila. “You can stay with me.”

  She swallowed audibly. “Joe knows we used to be neighbors. I pointed out my old building to him once, so he might know where you live, too.”

  “If the dorm isn’t safe, she can stay with my mom,” Rosamie said. “My old bedroom is empty—Mom put her sewing machine in there, but that’s better than staying on your couch.”

  “You’ll have your own room,” Mason promised. “And he won’t find you—I can guarantee that. I moved a few months ago.”

  He stepped closer to her. “Joseph won’t get anywhere near you. I promise.”

  Laila stared at him with shadowed doe eyes. Then she took his hand. “Thank you.”

  Rosamie stopped fighting him then. She focused on getting Laila packed up. Even considering how sparse Laila’s apartment had been, there wasn’t much. It all fit into the suitcase and two garbage bags they grabbed from under the sink.

  Mason took a few minutes to go through the apartment, riffling through papers in a vain attempt to find anything incriminating. But there was almost nothing in the desk. Just some utility bills and a few old term papers. There was no second laptop, meaning Dubey had his with him. No gun and no other weapons beyond the high-end kitchen knives.

  A man doesn’t need a weapon to terrorize a woman, he reminded himself.

  Once the ladies were done packing, he shepherded them back to his car, loading Laila’s few belongings into the trunk. Fate was on Dubey’s side. Mason got Laila and her friend away without the asshole showing his face—or else Mason would have broken every bone in his body.

  He decided to drop off Rosamie at her dorm first. Predictably, she put up a fight.

  Mason let the small Filipina blister the air before he held up a hand. “I know you think Laila needs you now—and you’re right—but you have to think strategically. I don’t have a problem with you knowing where I live, but Joseph will come looking for her. He’s going to want to know where she is.”

  “Well, he’s not going to find out from me,” she protested indignantly.

  “Maybe not,” he said, glancing at the passenger seat. Laila was quiet, examining her hands. She had that million-yard stare that told him she wasn’t even listening. “But let me ask you this—did you ever think Joseph Dubey would hit her?”

  His words struck their target. Rosamie bit her lip, guiltily turning away.

  “No. I’m the one who pushed her to go out with him,” she confessed raggedly. Rosamie reached over from the backseat to put a hand on Laila’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Laila said softly. “He was supposed to be a catch, remember?”

  Mason snorted, but his next words were to Rosamie. They were only a few minutes from the dorm. “Until we get a bead on Dubey and figure out what his reaction to Laila leaving him is, you are not safe either. I’m going to send someone over to your place in case he shows up there.”

  “Who?” Laila and Rosamie asked at the same time.

  Mason pulled up to the dorm. “A friend from work.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Laila scanned the living room of his rental, clutching one of the garbage bags filled with her belongings to her chest.

  “Do you want to take a bath?”

  She stared at him as if he were some sort of ghost. “Were you really at Gardullo’s today?”

  Mason put his hands in his pockets. “I was.”

  “Oh.” She sat on the couch—hard—still clutching the bag. When she spoke, her voice was reed thin. “I guess you want to know what happened.”

  “No.”

  She jerked, hurt filling her eyes. “Oh.”

  Mason knelt in front of her. “I just mean I know you want to talk to Rosamie first. I wasn’t trying to cut you off from her by bringing you here alone.” He reached out to take the garbage bag, then set it aside. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to—I learned everything I needed to know about your ex the minute I saw him lay hands on you.”

  She hesitated, and Mason’s gut twisted. “He is your ex now, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she gasped. “I’m never going back to him. It’s just that I do want to tell you everything, but I don’t know where to start.”

  He reached into her purse, dug around, then handed her the slim smartphone he withdrew. “Start by calling Rosamie. If you don’t, she’ll be blowing up this phone with calls and texts, which will simply make you more anxious.”

  He rose, taking her with him. “Let me show you to your room.”

  Taking her bags and suitcase in one hand, he guided her to the guest room. Fortunately, he’d washed the sheets and made the bed after Ethan’s visit. Then Mason left her alone, ducking out to ask Ransom to watch over Rosamie.

  Mason added a follow-up text, apologizing in advance for the ass-chewing his friend was about to get from a five-foot-nothing ballbuster.

  Ransom swaggered up the girl’s dormitory stairs like he owned the place. It was a front, of course. He was hustling, wanting to make sure he got there before little Laila’s shithead of an ex-boyfriend showed up looking for her.

  There was a significant pause after his knock. Ransom approved. If she were smart, then Laila’s friend was eyeballing him through the peephole, making sure it wasn’t this Dubey character.

  The door swung open to reveal a dusky little pocket Venus. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but he could see a glimmer of interest in those dark depths.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

  Leaning against the doorframe, he crossed his arms. It was a move that made his biceps bulged. Girls loved it.

  “I’m Ransom. Mason sent me.” He batted his eyelashes. “Hello there, new friend.”

  The girl’s mouth twitched, but then her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. She tried to haul him inside with an ineffectual tug. Ransom helped her along by slipping in the room so she could slam the door shut.

  “The manwhore was right! Joseph is here. “

  “Manwhore?” Ransom scowled. “Mason isn’t a manwhore. It was your girl who left him in the dust when he was laid up in the hospital.”

  Rosamie put her hands on her hips, glowering right back. “Her phone was toast! She had to switch phone companies, but it was his fault in the first place—”

  Their argument was interrupted by a sharp rap at the door.

  The little Venus reached for the doorknob. Ransom stopped her with a hand. “Allow me.”

  Rosamie rolled her eyes, but she backed away with a little game-show-hostess gesture as if presenting the door as a grand prize.

  Ransom jerked it open. He looked down his nose at the polo-wearing douchebag on the other side. Except this asshole’s clothing was rumpled, a manic light gleaming in his eyes.

  “Is this him?” he asked Rosamie.

  The douchebag tried to ignore Ransom—a laughable goal. He was over two hundred pounds of whoop-ass.

  “Uh, Rose, I need to talk to Laila.” Dubey tried to peek around Ransom.

  “You aren’t getting anywhere near her, ths asong puki,” the tiny spitfire hissed in what Ransom guessed was Filipino. “Consider this her break-up message, you abusive pussy. And oh, get ready, asno pagdila kambing, because I am about to rip your ass-licking goat balls off and make them into Kare-Kare.”

  Ransom had to bite his lip to keep from laughing aloud, particularly when she started taking off her earrings in a classic chingona girl-fight move.

  It was adorable, but also unnecessary. Ransom to the rescue. Grabbing the sweaty POS by the shirt, Ransom deadlifted the bastard until they were eye to eye.

  “I would listen to the lady,” Ransom said in his most reasonable tone. As predicted, Joseph Dubey blanched.

  “As of this moment, Laila James is a figment of your imagination,” Ransom continued. “She’s a ghost. If you see her in the street, run the other way. If not, I’ll know… and I won’t be happy.”

  Unceremoniously, Ransom tossed the guy back into the hall. Unbalanced, Dubey fell on his ass.

  “What the hell! Who even are you?” the piece-of-shit abuser sputtered.

  “I’m—”

  Smiling tauntingly, Rosamie tucked herself under his arm, anger rippling off her in waves. “He’s my new boyfriend, so if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay far away from me and miles away from Laila.”

  Her attitude was kind of turning Ransom on. He glanced down at his new fake girlfriend.

  Not bad, actually.

  He was tempted to pat her ass to help sell the lie, but he decided he better keep his hands to himself for now or he might pull a stump back. However, it was very tempting. Rosamie was cute, and she kept it tight.

  “Very nice,” he murmured to no one in particular.

  A flash of something crossed Dubey’s face. He picked himself up, then indignantly dusted himself off. “Laila and I had a misunderstanding. I admit that the situation got out of hand. I had a bad couple of days is all. This isn’t me—I just want to talk to her.”

  “Not going to happen, asswipe.” Rosamie bucked against him as if she were going to go for the douchebag. Ransom hid a grin as he held her back. It took some effort, too. He admired her all the more for it.

  Dubey glanced at her, but he wisely kept his gaze on Ransom.

  “If I can’t talk to Laila, then I can talk to Jasmine? Maybe she will listen and be fair.”

  “Fair?” Rosamie spat. Her voice rose, her clenched fist rising threateningly. “I’m gonna give you fair!”

  This time, she did go for the moron. But Ransom had been told to keep Rosamie out of trouble. He just hadn’t expected to have to save anyone from her.

  Ransom plucked the little Venus up, mid-lunge. She blistered the air blue, clawing in Dubey’s direction.

  The guy gaped at her as if she had sprouted horns. His lips parted as if he meant to say something else.

  “Take the hint, motherfucker,” Ransom said in warning, letting his voice grow Siberia cold. “Or I’ll let her go, and my money is on the lady getting at least one of your testicles before I manage to restrain her.”

  Dubey closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Tell Laila this is just a bump in the road. I’m going to fix everything.”

  Wow, this jackass was delusional. That and Ransom had a feeling there was no way Mason would ever let that happen. His best pal wasn’t an idiot, and he had a hard-on for little Laila. The fact it hadn’t gone away in the time they’d been apart could only mean one thing—it was true love.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Rosamie spat a final time.

  Skin slack and grey, Dubey staggered away. Ransom watched him go with narrowed eyes.

  “You can let go now,” the spitfire told him, but Ransom wanted the asshole gone before he released her.

  Dubey had just disappeared around the corner when Rosamie lifted her arm. Quick as lightning, she grabbed his nipple and pinched hard.

  “Ow.” Biting his lip to keep from laughing, he set her down, but he quickly sobered.

  “Think Laila will file charges?”

  Rosamie deflated, losing her steam right before his eyes. “I don’t know,” she said softly.

  “Isn’t it better if she reports him?”

  “You don’t understand.” Rosamie sighed. She rubbed her face. “It’s complicated.”

  “I realize she’s scared, but if it spares another woman from going through the same thing, isn’t it worth it?”

  Rosamie’s downcast expression didn’t change. “Don’t you think she knows all this? She’s one of the founders of the Night Witches. Our group is all about protecting other women—but Joseph is a Dubey. As in Lieutenant Governor Dubey. The family is old money. His uncle is a former senator, and Joseph is expected to follow in their political footsteps, too. If Laila makes trouble for him, she could bring the clout of the entire family dynasty down on herself.”

  Ransom grunted, getting the picture. It was easy for him to poke and prod for justice, but he’d seen the girl. Laila was so delicate looking. Plus, she was shy to boot.

  That’s probably what makes Mason so crazy. His friend was an alpha guardian. A girl like Laila would flip all of his protective switches into full throttle.

  “Mason will make sure nothing happens to her—whether she goes to the cops or not.”

  Rosamie considered this. “And that’s the only reason I let her go with him. I still don’t trust him. He might break her heart all over again.”

  “Mason’s gold. You’ve got nothing to worry about there. Trust me.”

 

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