‘I’m not going to let that happen! I’m going to keep you safe!’ His outburst was so abrupt that she was stunned into silence and they must have covered five miles before she spoke again.

‘You want us to keep doing what we’ve been doing,’ she said, trying to be logical and not let herself be conquered by fear. ‘I’m supposed to trust you and one way or another you’re going to keep me safe, is that it?’

‘Yeah,’ he murmured. ‘That’s it exactly. Just give me some time to figure this out.’

‘Ok,’ she said, resolved to the fact that as angry as she was, she didn’t want to walk away from Dax. ‘I’ll give you three days, after that, if we’re not safe together, I’m on my own.’

‘Ok,’ he said. ‘That’s fair…. You’re not going to run now? You’re not just saying this to keep me from…’

‘From what? Tying me down?’ she asked. ‘No, I’m not just saying this. But if you don’t trust me anymore then I have no reason to trust you.’

‘I trust you,’ he said.

‘Then we’ll both have to have some faith in each other, or else we’re going to cause the demise of each other.’

‘So we stand together or we die,’ Dax said. ‘Can you play the game for a little bit longer, Minx?’

‘My stamina is better than yours.’

He laughed. ‘Now we both know that’s not true, but there will be time to prove it later.’

‘If I let you,’ she said, wondering if they were going to turn into Bonnie and Clyde.

‘You’ll let me,’ he said. ‘I know how to work you now, Minx. I know all of your buttons.’

‘What we have, Dax...? Is there a future?’ If there was no future then hanging around for another three days wouldn’t be worth it.

‘I don’t want you to go anywhere,’ he said. ‘Having you around is… cool.’

‘Cool,’ she said, taking her eyes to her window. ‘Typical man speak for not wanting to reveal too much of yourself. Fine. Let’s just get through today.’

‘Mauri will understand,’ he said, skimming his hand to her inner thigh. ‘I’ll talk to him and work this out and then we’ll be together.’

‘And Trystan?’

‘He’ll be a little shit because he always is. But Mauri will keep him in line.’

She didn’t know if that was true, but she didn’t know the dynamics of the family. All she had to rely on was Dax’s word. With the knowledge that she wasn’t ready to leave him came her own realisation of just how much she cared about him. Fitting into life with the Starks’ as Dax’s girl might be difficult, but she’d rather do that than try to fit into it as Trystan’s girl, as far as she was concerned, that would never happen.

Chapter Fourteen

Dax had driven her to the Stark mansion, but she hadn’t seen anything except a broad wooden gate. Knowing its location seemed to be the goal, and maybe he was trying to make her more comfortable with the idea of spending time there. But when he offered to take her inside and show her around Ivy refused without any hesitation. If she went into that place then she had no guarantees that she would ever get out.

After a brief spell parked outside Dax drove on and they eventually ended up in an industrial area, pulling up alongside a grey concrete warehouse on a lot that appeared to be vacant.

‘What’s this place?’ she asked when he turned off the engine and got out of the car.

‘This is where we prepare our product. Come on, get out.’

‘I don’t want to go in there, Dax,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Who is in there?’

‘No one who will hurt you. There’s nothing you have to worry about, I already told you that. Come on, you have to know what it is that we do.’

‘Why? Why would Mauri want me to know this?’

Dax came around the car and crouched down, resting his forearms along the top rim of her door. ‘Because as far as he is concerned you’re gonna be part of the family and he has to be sure that we can trust you. He also thinks that you’re gonna be the mother of his future grandchildren who will one day take over the family business.’

‘I’m supposed to give birth to felons,’ she said. He backed away and opened her door, then took her hand to help her out of the car. ‘I’ve heard of planning for the future, but that idea takes the cake.’

‘Do you want kids?’ he asked, leading her towards a dusty brownish red door on the side of the building.

‘I don’t think that now is the time to talk about this, tough guy. We could get our heads blown off at any second.’

He laughed. ‘I do this almost every day. Any guy who takes a shot at me will have his kneecaps removed. These guys aren’t going to hurt me.’

‘That’s you,’ she said, looking all around, worried that there may be some kind of sniper or security guy who might take a disliking to her. ‘I’m just some chick that they don’t know.’

‘The guys in here aren’t what you’re expecting,’ he said, pushing open the door and taking her inside.

There was noise and the air was pungent, but it was the humidity, or rather the lack of it, that she noticed first. The space they entered was almost empty. He took her through into another room that was some sort of recreation space, except now it was empty.

‘We’re at the end of a shipment, everything was taken out last night. We’ll get another one in a few days, there’s been a bit of a hiccup, but Mauri’s sorting it out.’

‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said, absorbing the details of the well-kept space. There was air conditioning in here, it was cool and she saw a fridge in the corner. There was a series of mismatched couches and a wide screen TV. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if they could hang out here together, alone, for a while. A far door opened and a guy came in, he was tall but quite weedy. He certainly wasn’t the thug that she had been expecting, just as Dax had warned her.

‘Hey, Zoom,’ Dax said. ‘You need to be quicker off the mark. You don’t have company back there, do you?’

Dax sounded severe, it wasn’t exactly anger in his tone, but an aloof authority that carried an unspoken warning – just like in Vegas when he’d threatened her without using negative words.

‘No,’ Zoom said. ‘Wasn’t expecting you today… I called Serg.’

‘Why?’ Dax asked. Zoom’s statement carried some sort of weight that she didn’t understand.

‘One load wasn’t picked up,’ Zoom said, scrutinising her, then letting his attention flick back to Dax before it came back to her. ‘Who is she?’

‘Not a perk for you,’ Dax said, leaving her to march forward and grab Zoom by the shoulder. ‘Who was it? Who missed it?’

‘I… I gave Serg all the details, you said, you said to report to him while you were… I would’ve called you but—‘

‘You did the right thing, but I’m here now and I’m going to follow up. It’s just sitting back there?’ Zoom nodded. ‘Ok. You don’t do anything until someone is in touch. Stay here.’

Dax let go of his shoulder and Zoom tried to smile. ‘I never go anywhere else.’

Apparently unamused, or maybe just uninterested, Dax stalked back to her and grabbed her hand to tug her back outside and into the car. ‘What is that place?’

‘It’s where we cut the coke,’ he said, starting up the car again. ‘It’s cut and packaged there and it’s supposed to be picked up once it’s divided.’

‘But someone didn’t pick up their share?’ she asked as he manoeuvred out of the industrial site they had not long ago arrived at. ‘Why would that be?’

‘Someone is lazy, scared, or dead, those are the only three reasons,’ he said.

‘Serg works for Mauri too?’

‘Yeah, he’s an all right guy, once you get to know him. He’s been running things for me while my attention has been split.’

‘So that means that you trust him?’

Dax glanced at her and then the road. ‘With the product and the job,’ he said, and one side of his mouth turned into a smile. ‘Not with my girl.’

‘Another rapist friend,’ she said. ‘You know you should really expand your social circles, baby.’