“Ugh,” she moaned. “I-I love it when you box me in like this. When you don’t give me an escape.”

“You were made for me, Remington. Don’t ever fucking doubt that.”

“I’ve done nothing but doubt that for almost fifteen years, Brick. There’s no guarantee that this about-face of yours is going to last. One good night’s sleep, and you could change your mind. You could marry someone else or decide to leave Mackinac and me behind again.”

His face turned to stone. But he didn’t argue. He didn’t promise her that this time was different. He didn’t say any of the words she needed to hear.

“All that aside, you’re safer if you’re not connected to me. If Warren gets it into his twisted mind to hurt me, he’ll start with you. He’ll start by destroying something I care about. I need you to keep some distance.”

“There is no more distance between us.” His tone was steely. “Got that? Not after last night.”

She buried her face in her hands until he brushed them aside.

“Look at me,” he demanded, waiting until she complied. “This is the repercussion of letting me into your bed, Remington. We both knew it would be like this. Now we have to deal with the consequences.”

She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. “What if I run?”

“I’ll chase you down and bring you back. As many times as it takes.”

Ignoring the fluttering around her heart, she slapped her palms to his chest and pushed. But he didn’t budge. “It’s not safe, Brick. Don’t you get that?”

He gripped her upper arms tight. “I need for him to understand that in order to get to you, he has to go through me. I need you to understand it, too.”

She shook her head as her eyes went damp. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He found me here less than twenty-four hours after I got here.”

“What do you mean, he found you?”

35

For once, the law wasn’t on his side. The gap between black and white, right and wrong, had widened overnight into a foggy, murky swamp of gray.

No judge would issue an arrest warrant based on some news clippings and a shredded painting. Certainly not when the defendant was a United States senator.

But that didn’t make the threat any less real. Senator Warren Vorhees was a fucking monster. And sooner or later, he’d escalate beyond vague threats. And Brick would be ready for him. It was with boiling blood he’d logged the evidence and opened a case file. An unofficial one.

He included Remi’s thick stack of research. It made his stomach churn to think of her alone, scared, scrolling through internet searches for hours hoping to find the key to putting the man who’d hurt her behind bars.

Well, she wasn’t alone now. And Brick would build a goddamn prison around Vorhees if that’s what it took to keep him away from Remi.