Severed Ties: A Dark Stalker Romance (Tainted Love Book 1)
Severed Ties: Chapter 27

There are a lot of things I should be worried about other than whether Tommy is mad at me for something. Like where we’re going, when I’m going to get my phone back, and how I’m going to deal with my father while also keeping his identity a secret from the people I work for.

But instead, my eyes flicker up to his dark profile over and over again. It’s a miserable day in Chicago. Snow coats the ground, the icy wind whips around the car as people scurry along the sidewalk to escape the cold, and the windows fog up around us.

“Where are we going?” I finally ask, curling my arms around myself to both keep myself warm and protect myself from what I assume will be a blow of rejection. That’s the one thing I was never able to heal, my anxiety around people and their secrets. It’s ironic because I’m keeping so many of my own, but when lies and deceit have almost gotten you killed more than once, those are the things that terrify you.

There’s a long stretch of silence and I turn my head to look out the window to hide my reaction from him. I squeeze my eyes shut to ward off the irrational tears, but they still slip down my cheeks despite my best efforts. I haven’t allowed myself to fall apart since he called. Since the voice that’s featured in my nightmares rang down the line for the first time in years, but it’s not far off. The inevitable fall the moment I’m alone again. I just have to wait for Tommy to take me home.

The sound of my father’s voice has always made my skin crawl and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, but after not hearing the deep timbre for so many years, it now has nausea rolling over me each time I remember his words. His threats.

“To see a friend. I want to have that call traced and Everett is otherwise indisposed.”

I let out a breath, trying to tamp down some of the panic that rises when I think about Tommy working out who my father is. Who I am. “This isn’t necessary. It’s not a big deal.” But even as the words fall from my mouth, my voice shakes.

He shakes his head but doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, his hands tighten around the steering wheel until his scarred knuckles turn white.

“Clara, I think we’re a little past you bullshitting me.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He lets out a slow, controlled breath, but the tension in his body emits anything but calm. “Even if it wasn’t for the fact the man on the other end of the phone knows who I am and what I’m capable of, and yet is cocky enough to think he can best me, I know you well enough to know that you don’t panic over just anything. You were hit by a car a few weeks ago and you barely flinched. So when the blood drained from your face at the sound of that man’s voice this morning, I figured he’s someone you’re afraid of.”

My mouth dries and I struggle to swallow. I wish he’d waited to call until I was alone. At least then, I could have taken care of this myself without having to throw Tommy off the scent, something I’m not sure I can actually do.

I scramble to think of something to say, to come up with a plan that might get me the hell out of this with my life. Because if they replace out who I am. If the Saint James family replaces out who my father is and that I’ve been lying to them, there’s a very good chance I’ll be the one Tommy skins alive. He must be taking me to a hacker, or at least someone who knows their way around a computer, and there’s no way I can skew the search results. If my father was smart, which doesn’t seem entirely likely, he would have used a burner and thrown it out immediately. Smashed it into a million pieces and left it in a trash can on the other side of the city. But I won’t be that lucky. There’s a reason Mack Johnstone gets himself into so much trouble, and it has a lot to do with his lack of intellect and critical thought.

“Are you sure you don’t want to shed some light on this?” he asks quietly.

He’s still tense, but when his eyes flick back and forth between me and the road, there’s nothing but curiosity and deep-seated need. For what? I’m not sure, but if I had to guess based on what I know about Tommy, I’d say it’s blood.

“He’s no one,” I whisper.

“Don’t lie to me, Clara,” he growls.

The sound that rises in his throat is deep and menacing, but it doesn’t scare me. If anything, it makes the ache in my core grow deeper.

“I’ll tolerate a lot from you, make allowances I wouldn’t make for anyone else, but I will not tolerate lying.”

I huff out a sigh and cross my arms across my chest as if they can do anything to protect me. “I just don’t understand why you care. This has nothing to do with you. I don’t matter to you.”

A dark chuckle rises from his chest. “Oh, you matter, little fawn. More than you know.” The last words come out on a whisper and even though every fiber of my being begs me to ask what he means, I keep my mouth shut for fear of what his answer may be.

“If you’re worried about how this may blow back on Frost, I can assure you I can keep things completely separate. You can tell the Saint James family their organization is safe,” I bite.

If that’s what this is about, if even after all my years of loyal service and looking the other way means nothing, they have nothing to worry about. My father can try as he might, but I’ll never tell him anything I’ve learned about this family since starting as Wynter’s assistant.

“You think that’s the only reason I, or the Saint James family for that matter, would give a fuck?”

He shakes his head as he takes a sharp turn into downtown Chicago and my stomach sinks. I lived around here when I first moved to the city. When I had nothing and could barely afford to eat, it was not an area I had ever planned to return to.

“Isn’t it?” I challenge.

“No, Clara. The Saint James family sees you as part of their family. You’re Wynter’s best friend, and that matters to people like them. They adopt people. Drag them into their lives, protect them with every resource they have at their disposal.” He speaks as if he’s experienced it firsthand, but I can’t imagine Tommy ever needing someone’s protection.

“And you? Why do you care?” The question slips from my lips before I can think better of it. I’m not sure I want the answer, if I’m honest, but curiosity gets the better of me.

There’s a long silence, so long I don’t expect him to respond at all and I lose myself in the blur of the buildings we speed past. We’re definitely not going the speed limit, but that doesn’t worry me. I’ve always been addicted to speed. Not the drug, but the feeling. Fast cars were my father’s weakness when I was a child. He stole so many over the years, and those moments during the getaway, with the wind in my hair as he sped away from the scene of the crime, I would imagine a life far away from there. A life I thought I had finally made for myself, but of course he came to ruin it. I didn’t stick around for the fallout after I left. After I escaped a fate that was his fault, that almost cost me my life. I ran as fast and as far as I could, and I never looked back.

Until now.