A large pack of chicken came out, a family size bag of kale, pumpkin seeds, and Parmesan cheese, along with an array of condiments that Nasa used to mix up a fresh salad dressing.
Her habit of cooking for herself, of being in complete control over what went into a meal that edged slightly into OCD? Not even a blip on the radar.
She wasn't even feeling the urge to get up and help flip the chicken over, or strip the kale, or wash the dishes slowly piling up.
Dillon just sat there frowning at Nasa while he did it all for her, and she'd let him make her appointment with Dr. White without even a sigh of protest.
Since when had she gotten comfortable enough to give over to someone else? A stranger, for that matter.
He interrupted her pondering. “I need to ask you something, but I don't know how to do it without potentially upsetting you.”
“Just ask,” she advised, wondering what the hand mixer was for.
Nasa gave a slow nod, putting the cap on the big Mason jar full of salad dressing to give it a rabid shake.
“Was that the first time you've ever shot someone?”
The few slices of cucumber churned in her stomach, but Dillon breathed through the immediate nausea, forcing herself to get back in the habit of talking to someone.
Which ticked her off again, because why did she feel like talking to Nasa? She hadn't opened up to anyone since leaving the hospital ten years ago, keeping to the lie with Dr. White about having been taken by a serial killer—though Dillon wasn't sure Dr. White believed that part.
She'd even kept mum on the details with Joshua Warren, not discussing her trauma beyond the small bits of background he insisted on to give her the best possible survival training he could.
“Dillon?”
She clicked her tongue at herself and nodded. “I've burned through over fifty-thousand bullets, busted enough clay pigeons to fill a coop, took down a few ducks, and some wild hogs at two in the morning, but that was my first human. Our first human,” she corrected, smoothing her hand over Elka's ears when the beautiful dog came and set her huge head on Dillon's thigh.
While chopping kale and tossing it in the bowl, Nasa nonchalantly asked, “Is that what your nightmares are about?”
“No. I'm uncomfortable that I'm comfortable talking to you about this,” Dillon blurted.
Nasa didn't pause in what he was doing, lifting one shoulder in an easy shrug. “You're comfortable because you're able to tell me the truth. And, despite the way you came to be here, you like it.
"The security of the building appeals to you, and don't think I haven't noticed the way you explore, looking for weaknesses.”
He said it teasingly, but Dillon was all too aware that every moment she was on the property, she was likely being watched.
She had no privacy, and she was okay with that. No privacy meant she couldn't disappear without someone knowing. Without someone seeing.
No sooner had that thought crossed her mind, when Nasa continued, “Most every single one of the guys hates the fact that I put cameras in the bathrooms, but they understand I'm not out to record them taking a piss because I'm a pervert.
"I mean I am, but not for watching dudes in bathrooms, or women, for that matter. Bathroom play is unsanitary and a hard limit for me.”
He said it so casually, as though he talked about... bathroom play regularly. Just what kind of pervert was he?
“I put the cameras everywhere because I need to have eyes on my brothers and their families at all times,” Nasa told her, giving her another one of those deep, penetrating stares that made her feel seen.
“They can't disappear down a hole in the floor that some prick disguised as a four-hundred-pound contractor made in the bathroom floor because I didn't have cameras in there, and have to wade through a literal river of shit to escape after being cut up and tortured.
“They're my people, nothing happens to them that I don't see, and you like it. Not the cameras in the bathroom, but you like knowing if someone comes for you, you won't disappear without a trace.
“You feel safe knowing you're surrounded by private investigators who wouldn't stop looking for you if you were taken.
"Which you won't be, because there's no fucking way someone can waltz in here without having taken someone else hostage first, in which case another someone else will get on the roof and put a bullet through the fucktard's eyeball.”
It seemed as though she'd ingested something that made her thoughts and words as difficult to hold onto as a pig coated in lube.
Dillon started speaking before she could call the words back, “Why would they look for me? They don't know me. None of you owe me anything.”
Nasa's tone didn't change, and he didn't hesitate to answer. “They'd look because you're here under our roof, under our protection, and you're important to me.”
“Important? Because I might have some puzzle pieces to solve your Ghost problems?”
Instead of being offended by her challenging question, Nasa only shook his head and didn't look up from transferring the cooked chicken into a bowl.
“No, not because of that,” he replied calmly, picking up the hand mixer.
“Then why?” Dillon's heart started to race, hammering against her ribs as she waited for Nasa to say something.
She held her breath, waiting, because hearing his answer was suddenly the only thing that mattered to her.
His blue eyes were deep as an ocean when he lifted his gaze to meet hers, steady and calm.
“I'm not sure yet, but it has nothing to do with Ghost and everything to do with you. Trust me, Tiger Lily, I don't like not knowing. I'll have an answer for you. Soon.”
With that ominous and disturbingly sexy promise, which hummed through Dillon’s veins, Nasa turned thehand mixer on and set the whirring beaters to the cooked chicken breasts, shredding them
