Page 39 of Filthy Dirty Dom

He was going to give her his answer, she thought.

And yet, it was clearly one he was still struggling with.

Tell me, Alex. I can handle it.

Finally, his text came through. Alex: We need to talk. I’ll be at your house in an hour.

17

Alex steered his truck through the darkening streets of Manhattan with his mind unusually distracted. But of course he was fucking distracted. He was on his way to Leslie’s, dead set on turning down her offer to be her friend with benefits for a month. He didn’t relish disappointing her or hurting her again.

Story of his life when it came to her.

He was close to her place when a call came through and he glanced at the digital screen on his dashboard.

Luke was calling.

Alex had assigned him the role of security manager for the night so he would be at headquarters, watching the screens and checking in intermittently with the bodyguards. If Luke was calling, that meant there was a problem. One Alex hoped could be solved quickly and without bloodshed.

When he flicked on his Bluetooth, Luke’s voice filled the car. “Alex, we have a problem.”

“Talk to me,” he ordered.

“It’s Leslie.”

Alex’s heart thudded heavily. Leslie’s name coming out of his second-in-command’s mouth wasn’t what he expected or wanted to hear. “What happened?”

“I lost contact with the bodyguard assigned to her.”

First Elvis and the sex club, now another bodyguard leaving her vulnerable. He was going to have to do some serious training and rehiring. Of course, he couldn’t just assume Leslie’s bodyguard was being derelict in his duties.

“Give me a sec.” He put Luke on hold and called Leslie, but was met with no answer. He whipped his truck hard to the right and hit almost sixty going down a back alley, trying to get to her faster. He switched the call with Luke back to live. “She didn’t answer my call. I’m headed to her place already. Almost there. Tell me what you know.”

“Baylor is the one on guard tonight. He’s supposed to check in every fifteen minutes but he didn’t. I called but got no answer. I also looked at the video feed outside her apartment building and didn’t see him, but there’s a strange lump on the sidewalk. It looks like a pile of snow on the camera, but Alex, I can’t be sure. I tried Leslie, too, but got no answer.”

A strange lump in the snow could very well mean Baylor had been incapacitated.

Alex turned back onto the main street and illegally passed three cars. He gripped the steering wheel tight, until his knuckles turned white. “Did she hit her panic button?”

“No.” Luke’s voice was flat.

“That means if someone’s after her, they either haven’t gotten to her yet or…” He couldn’t finish his statement because his throat was closing up on him. He told himself to remain calm. Even though he was armed, going into a rescue situation without recon could not only be deadly for him, but for the victim, too.

For Leslie.

The thought that she might be a victim at this point sucked the air out of his lungs. He steadied himself, focusing on regaining complete control.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Focus.

Clear your mind.

His military training took over, and his mind grew clear as a plan began to form.

He put his earpiece in.

“I’m on her block,” he told Luke. “I’m going to pull into the alley behind her house and park there. My lights are off.”