Nasa wanted to say that couldn't be a possibility, but had no legs to stand on as Athena had been taken off the street during a busy festival by her ex-boyfriend—a cop who'd stalked her, moved to Texas, and got a job at the precinct closest to her—and no one said a damn thing. The only reason they'd gotten to Athena in time was because she was one brave little ginger.
“I'll put bars on the window in the supply room, but all it'll take to blow the cover of my secondary entrance via the warehouse is for someone to ask a city clerk to pull the building plans and connect the dots.”
“Luckily, you happen to know someone who may have already sent someone else to collect all the physical copies of the building plans that might be surfing around Dallas.”
Dillon paused in twisting her watch around her wrist to look sideways at him. “May have?”
Nasa grinned in answer to her sarcastic drawl. “Definitely did. And any swinging dick could have previously made a call to get inside. Accuse a wife of kidnapping their kid, call in a murder, a fire, and the police could still get in there. Have they?”
Dillon shook her head in amazement, flicking her fingers through the air. “The kidnapping thing has happened before, and an ex-boyfriend called 911 to say he worried his girlfriend called and told him she was going to commit suicide.
"He hoped she'd get put in a hospital on psych watch where he could get to her. Patti handled it, and neither of the women were forced to leave the shelter.
“There's an interview room with the same glass on all the exterior windows. She's on one side; the cops or whoever can talk to her, just like in a prison, and she's safe behind the window. She never has to leave, even to talk to an advocate.”
Nasa heard the problem immediately, but he wrestled with the desire to point it out, versus the need to let Dillon come to the conclusion by herself.
“I didn't have any doubts earlier, but moving to Austin is the right thing for me,” she finally said.
“You know I'm all about it, but can I ask what solidified your decision?”
She nodded, stopping the constant twisting to look at the face of her watch. “I've spent the last ten years of my life barely trusting anyone around me, but I put a lot of faith in people I had precious little contact with, based on the sole fact we all were involved in helping battered women.
“I made the assumption that their dedication to keeping secrets—mine and the other women we helped—was every bit as strong as my dedication to protecting theirs.
"It never occurred to me not to trust them or considered someone involved with Vanguard was the one to give me up to Styles.
“I'm not going to stop building safe houses or volunteering my time to help victims of abuse, but I don't think I can do it through Vanguard anymore. And...”
She trailed off as though she wasn't ready to speak the words aloud for the Universe to hear, but as far as he was concerned, she was done putting her ass on the line.
Dillon had no business bending over backward for people who relied on her protection, her discretion, and her money, who couldn't be bothered to make a damn phone call to protect her in turn.
She didn't need any middleman or woman to keep up with her mission to help women like her find a way to heal after the horrors they'd suffered. Not anymore.
“And?” Nasa prompted gently when she didn't go on.
He heard her swallow nervously, but Dillon's voice was steady when she spoke. “I'm focusing on all the things that could go wrong at the shelter and how it could possibly obliterate my foundation with the lawsuits because I'm rationalizing a way to get out. Even if I build a new one, the same things could happen there.”
“They could,” he agreed as neutrally as he knew how.
Dillon blew out a heavy, ragged breath and pushed her hair off her forehead, bracing her elbow on the door to rest her head in her hand.
“Today has been an unbelievably stressful day, and I'm not going to make any final decisions. However, I know I need to make one, and I will.
"Patti does amazing work for the women who come to the shelter, but I did practically strong-arm her into working for the foundation and manipulated her into making the move from the old building into mine.
“I made it so safe, so strong, so convenient, she couldn't refuse because it meant not protecting the women she helped to the best of her ability.
"I'm sure part of her resented me for the change, for all the rules I insisted she follow, and maybe that helped her go along with Rain's instructions to wait on reporting the incident when the Leviathans came looking for Rachel.
“Either way, Patti broke the rules of the contract, which gives the foundation every legal right to cut ties. I'm feeling a little overly emotional about it right now, but the fact remains I won't be able to put my life in her hands the way I have before, and I don't trust Rain as far as I could throw her.
“If I keep on like I have, I'll question every move they make, paranoid they cut a corner somewhere or weren't careful enough when they asked me to do a transport.
"I'll wonder if today's the day I come home and some other pissed off husband or abusive ex-asshole will be there waiting for me.
“Which will make me even more
