“Uh-huh,” Bunny said, rinsing off a plate. “All charged to the client fund per usual.” Clients being a nice way of referring to the domestic abuse victims who made up the bulk of the clientele for their protective services. Bunny’s first marriage had been an abusive shit show of epic proportions, so she had all kinds of firsthand experience with what was likely to make those they worked with feel most comfortable. Together, Dare’s and Bunny’s experiences with domestic violence had been big motivators behind the club’s mission.
“Good, thanks, Bunny,” he said, walking around the counter to the door. “And, uh, wouldn’t be upset at all if there were more peanut butter cookies today.” He winked.
Bunny gave him a funny look, but just laughed.
Outside, Dare found Haven sitting in a lounge chair in the sun, her knees drawn up to provide support for something she was writing in a small notebook. Damn, she was a pretty thing.
“Haven, you got a minute?” he asked.
She slapped the notebook closed, her eyes going wide. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, of course.” She swung her feet to the floor, sitting up straight to face him as he sat on the edge of the chair beside her.
Dare eyeballed the way she was clutching onto the pad of paper, but he didn’t want to make her any more uncomfortable than she already seemed around him by asking about it. She wore jeans and a white V-neck shirt, and she looked like summer personified with her sun-kissed skin and all that long, wavy blond hair. His appreciation of her bothered him—Dare didn’t get involved with their clients, partly because most of them were in the middle of or trying to escape bad relationships and partly because that wasn’t why they were under Ravens’ protection. But he couldn’t seem to stop noticing Haven Randall.
“I need to talk to you about what happened to land you here,” he said. The question wasn’t based in idle curiosity—he needed to know to help her and to assess what kind of danger she might still be in. Because she and Cora had been rescued in the middle of the crisis with the Hard Ink team, Dare hadn’t had a chance to speak with them before this.
“Where should I start?” she asked, her gaze part weary and wary.
He braced his elbows on his knees and nailed her with a stare. “At the beginning of whatever story will tell me what kind of trouble you’re in and how to keep you safe going forward.”
She dropped her chin, her gaze going somewhere in between them. “Right.” For a long moment, she fidgeted with the notebook and pen in her lap. “Well, the short version is that, with Cora’s help, I ran away from my father, who’s a really bad man, and when we got to Baltimore our truck broke down. The tow truck driver apparently wasn’t who we thought he was, because instead of taking us to a repair shop, he took us to a storage facility and forced us at gunpoint to go in.” Her gaze flickered to Dare’s, but she wouldn’t really look him in the eye. “He was part of a gang, I guess, and they put us in a cell in the basement. And then those soldier guys rescued us and Ike brought us here, and along the way we lost everything we had.”
Dare kept his expression neutral, but her story set off all kinds of alarm bells in his head. The bad father. The discomfort with eye contact. The involvement with the Church Gang—despite being torn apart on an organizational level, there could still be some guys around who could identify Haven and Cora, and therefore might be able to offer someone a lead that would point at the Ravens. “I think I better have the long version,” he said, his brain racing through all the possible complications. “Starting with who your father is.”
She shifted on the chair, her hand spinning the pen round and round. Dare observed all the little movements and already knew there was something that she thought was important that she wasn’t telling him. Why, was the real question. “He’s involved in all kinds of things, and probably some things I don’t even know. Selling drugs, stealing and stripping cars, stealing various kinds of cargo and selling it off, intimidating business owners into paying him protection money . . .” She shrugged. “I’m pretty sure he pays off the local sheriffs so they’re in on it with him.”
As concern settled into Dare’s gut, he heard what she hadn’t said as loudly as what she had. “His name, Haven.”
She licked her lips and quickly glanced at him and away again. “Randall, like me.”
He tried to rein in the impatience that wanted to claw up his spine—because as long as she was there, a threat against her was a threat against everyone there, but he didn’t want to make her clam up by coming on too strong. “Haven.”