Black Forge MC: The President's Obsession

Chapter 2: Be Careful

The first gunshot was followed by another before I could even process the first one.

My phone slipped out of my hand and hit the floor. I stared at it for half a second before another shot cracked through the building, and that was enough to get me moving. I ducked behind my desk and crouched there, one hand pressed against my mouth while another shot cracked somewhere below my floor.

Someone screamed, followed by a man shouting something I couldn’t make out. Another voice answered him, and then running feet sounded somewhere below me.

I reached for my phone and nearly dropped it again when my fingers wouldn’t cooperate. I finally managed to unlock it and hit 911 before lifting it to my ear, keeping myself low.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

“I’m in my office,” I whispered. “Someone is shooting downstairs.”

“What’s the address?”

I gave it to her, then listened as she started asking questions I couldn’t answer. How many people? What did they look like? Was anyone injured?

I didn’t know how many people were downstairs or whether anyone was hurt. I just knew someone had brought a gun into my building, and I was sitting in my office waiting to find out if they were coming upstairs.

Another shot made me flinch so hard my shoulder hit the desk.

“Ma’am?”

“I’m still here.”

“Are you somewhere secure?”

I looked around my office. Glass walls. One door. A desk that would probably stop absolutely nothing.

“Not really.”

“Stay where you are. Officers are on the way.”

I nodded before remembering she couldn’t see me.

Then footsteps came from the hallway.

I stopped breathing.

They weren’t downstairs anymore.

They were outside my office.

The door opened.

I pressed a hand against my chest and forced myself to take a slow breath.

“Sophia.”

I almost dropped my phone again. That was Cass’s voice. What was he doing here? I stayed under the desk for another second before crawling out slowly and getting to my feet. He stood in the doorway with a black jacket over dark jeans and a holster strapped beneath his arm. His jaw was tight, his eyes hard, and unfortunately, none of that made him any less attractive. If anything, the whole dangerous-man-with-a-gun thing was doing absolutely nothing to help me think clearly.

His eyes moved over me once before settling on the phone in my hand.

“Are you insane?” I muttered.

His eyes came back to mine. “Babe.”

I stared at him, wondering how the hell he could sound that amused when there were people shooting downstairs. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

“Are you alright?”

“No.”

“I meant physically.”

“I don’t give a damn what you meant, Cass. What’s going on?”

He came closer. I watched him look at my face, my arms, my shoulders. He checked me like he expected to find a bullet hole I’d somehow missed.

“I’m fine.”

His didn’t say anything.

“I was hiding behind my desk with a cell phone.”

“I noticed.”

I lowered it slowly. “What the hell are you doing here?”

His expression didn’t change. “I was around.”

“You were around?”

“I was called.”

“By who?”

He ignored the question.

I wanted to scream my lungs out, but that didn’t seem like a smart idea. Instead, I watched him more thoroughly, noticing the gun beneath his jacket and the fact that he looked completely comfortable carrying it. I’d seen him in T-shirts, jeans and Timberlands more times than I could count. I’d never seen him dressed like this. Never seen him look at a room like he was already measuring every exit.

He reached for my arm.

I pulled away. “Don’t.”

His eyes narrowed. “Sophia.”

“I’m fine.”

He stared at me for another second before stepping back. “Stay behind me.”

I actually laughed. “Excuse me?”

“Not really something to argue over, Babe.”

“I’m not hiding behind you.”

His mouth tightened. “I wasn’t asking.”

I should have argued with him. Normally, I would have. Instead, I found myself looking at the gun under his jacket and wondering how many times he’d used one before tonight. Apparently Cass being bossy outside my bedroom was a thing too. Great.

Cass’s entire body changed. It happened so quickly that I almost missed it. His shoulders squared. His eyes sharpened. One hand moved toward the weapon beneath his jacket while the other reached for me. He pulled me behind him without even looking back.

I stared at his back. “What are you doing?”

“Quiet.”

I stayed exactly where he put me.

A man appeared at the end of the hallway, weapon raised.

Cass moved before I even had time to scream. The shot came from his direction, and the man dropped before I could process what I’d just seen. I froze, but Cass didn’t. He stepped forward, checked the hallway and looked back at me.

“Stay here.”

“You’re not seriously going to leave me here after that.”

“Sophia.”

“Cass.”

He stopped.

I could see the tension in his shoulders.

“What?” he whispered.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

His expression went blank. “Stay here, Sophia.” Then he disappeared down the hallway.

I stared after him, trying to remember if I’d ever actually asked what Cass did for a living. Not where he went, not why he disappeared, not even what kind of job required a man to show up at my office with a gun under his jacket. I couldn’t remember asking any of it. I’d apparently been too busy letting him climb into my bed and pretending the rest didn’t matter.

A few minutes later, voices filled the building.

Police officers rushed upstairs, followed by paramedics and men I didn’t recognize. The whole place became chaos. People asked me questions. Someone checked my pulse even though I kept telling them I wasn’t injured, and I answered the same questions so many times that I was starting to wonder if they thought I’d been shot in the head. When they were done, I went searching for Cass. I found him downstairs standing beside another man who looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him.

The stranger was big enough that I immediately understood why he’d been hard to miss. He had dark hair pulled neatly back and a tattoo disappearing beneath the edge of his black vest. He caught me looking at him and stopped talking.

Cass turned. Our eyes met. He immediately walked toward me.

“You okay?”

“I’ve already answered that question too many times.”

“Answer it for me.”

I blinked at him. “I’m okay.”

His eyes moved over my face again.

“Any pain?”

“No.”

He nodded once.

Only then did some of the tension leave his face. “You scared the hell out of me.”

I stared at him. He seemed to realize what he’d said because his expression hardened again, and I folded my arms. “You were worried?”

He looked at me. “Seeing as I am here.” He gave a small shrug.

I hated that answer because it made the stupid little part of me that had spent seventeen days waiting for him sit up and pay attention.

“Who’s he?”

Cass followed my gaze. “Roman.”

Roman gave me a small nod. “Good to meet you.”

“Under better circumstances would have been nice.”

His mouth twitched.

Cass didn’t smile. “She’s leaving.”

I looked at him. “I’m what?”

“You’re leaving.”

“I have a business to deal with.”

“Not tonight.”

“Cass.”

“No.” I stared at him, waiting for him to back down. He didn’t. “You don’t get to order me around.”

“Just did, babe.”

I almost laughed. “Suddenly you think you can walk into my office, shoot somebody and start giving me instructions?”

His jaw tightened. “Kept you safe, didn’t it?”

Roman cleared his throat. “Cass.”

Cass looked at him. “What?”

“We need to talk.”

Cass glanced at me. “Later.”

Roman’s expression changed slightly. “Now.”

Cass’s jaw tightened again.

I looked between them.

“What exactly is going on?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“That’s becoming my least favorite sentence.”

Cass stepped closer. “Go home.”

“I don’t like being told what to do.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you keep doing it?”

His eyes held mine. “Because you don’t listen.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

He reached up and brushed his thumb across my cheek. The touch was so gentle it didn’t belong with the gun beneath his jacket or the gunshots that had just torn through the building.

His eyes stayed on mine. “Go home, Sophia.”

For once, I didn’t argue. I almost asked what was really going on, but something stopped me. Maybe it was the way his eyes kept moving over me, checking me again even though he’d already done it twice. Maybe it was the tension in his jaw. Whatever it was, I let him have his way and turned toward the door.

The next morning, I woke up to three missed calls from an unknown number.

I stared at the screen for a few seconds before dropping the phone onto the mattress.

I didn’t call back.

I had enough problems without voluntarily adding mysterious phone numbers to the list.

My apartment was silent, and some stupid part of me had expected Cass to show up last night. That was ridiculous. He’d disappeared for seventeen days before, so why should one night of gunshots suddenly turn him into the kind of man who checked on me in person?

Except every time I thought about yesterday, I kept seeing him standing in my office with a gun under his jacket. I kept hearing his voice in my head. You scared the hell out of me. Cass had said it like he hadn’t meant to let the words out, and now I couldn’t decide whether I wanted him to say them again or pretend I’d never heard them.

I got dressed and went to the kitchen.

My coffee was halfway finished when someone knocked on the door.

I froze with my coffee halfway to my mouth. For one stupid second, I thought it was Cass. Then I remembered that Cass didn’t knock. He walked in like doors were merely suggestions.

I opened the door and found Roman standing on the other side.

“You’re not Cass.” I stared at him, and he smiled.

“I’m Roman.”

“I remember.”

He looked pleased. “Good. Saves time.”

“What do you want?”

“To make sure you’re okay.”

“I am.”

He glanced at the coffee in my hand.

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

He laughed. “You’re definitely Sophia.”

I frowned.

“I just spent the whole night downstairs. And I could really use a coffee.”

That caught my attention. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t seriously think Cass was going to leave you alone after last night, did you?”

Like I knew anything about that man.

I crossed my arms.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small card. “This is my number. You call me when you can’t reach Cass.”

I took it. I looked at the number again. I’d called Cass before. Not often, because I wasn’t completely lacking in self-respect, but enough times to learn that his phone apparently existed for texting me and nothing else. By the fourth unanswered call, I’d gotten the message.

“Cass never answers.”

“He’ll answer.”

I looked at him. “That’s what people say right before someone doesn’t answer.”

Roman’s mouth twitched. “Call me when he doesn’t.”

“Where is he?”

Roman hesitated. “Busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Things that don’t involve you.”

I stared at him. “Then why are you standing in my apartment building at eight in the morning?”

Roman smiled again. “Because you just found your way into something that doesn’t involve you.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Before I could ask what he meant, he stepped back toward the elevator. “Lock your door.”

“Roman.”

He paused and looked back at me. “Be careful today.”

I tightened my grip around the card. “Why?”

His expression lost the last trace of amusement. “Because yesterday wasn’t random.”

Then he walked away.

I stood in the doorway until the elevator doors closed, then looked down at the number in my hand. I’d spent months knowing almost nothing about Cass and somehow being perfectly happy with that arrangement. Now I couldn’t stop thinking about the gun beneath his jacket, the way he’d moved through my office, the way Roman had spent the night downstairs because Cass hadn’t trusted anyone else to keep me safe. For the first time since I’d met him, I wanted his last name for a reason that had nothing to do with Google.

I wanted to know exactly who the hell I’d been sleeping with.