Paxton's Promise (Gloves Off #3)(24)

“What’s going on?”

Slamming the cooler shut, I sighed and looked into his concerned green gaze. “It looks like my visitor came again today. Do you mind going with me to check it out?”

He mumbled some explicit words under his breath and got to his feet. “This shit ends tonight, Gabby. I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever this person’s doing, it needs to stop.”

We both packed up our picnic and started for his house so we could drop it all off. “I agree,” I murmured. “It’s starting to piss me off.”





THE WHOLE WAY to my apartment was ridden in silence. Thankfully, Paxton opted to take the Hummer instead of his motorcycle. We were both on edge and the last thing I wanted was to be on a bike. When we got to my apartment, Cliff was leaning over the banister, waiting on us. He didn’t seem too happy about seeing Paxton with me, but the feeling was obviously mutual when Paxton’s gaze landed on him.

“Please try to be semi nice,” I pleaded.

He scoffed. “We’ll see.”

At the top of the steps, Cliff met me there and gave a small smile. “I’m sorry I had to call and give you the news, but you told me to call if something happened.”

“Thanks, Cliff. I appreciate it.”

Paxton walked right on by us and went straight to the flowers and picked them up. I joined him. There were three black roses in his hand and all I wanted to do was step on them. This note, however, was a little more ominous than the others.





“What the hell? It gets weirder each f*cking time,” I hissed, snatching the note out of Paxton’s hand.

“Are you sure this isn’t your ex? I mean, come on, his best friend tried to screw over Ryley and Ash. It wouldn’t surprise me if this * wasn’t messed up in the head too.”

“Bradley wouldn’t do this. I know he wouldn’t.” Quickly, I turned to Cliff. “Did your friends find any fingerprints?”

He shook his head and handed me the other notes. “No. There was nothing other than mine and yours. I don’t know what else they can do, other than patrol around to see if they can find someone lurking about. They have nothing to go on.”

Sighing, I nodded and hung my head. “And I have no clue what I’m supposed to do. What if this person tries to attack me?”

“They aren’t going to do that with me here,” Cliff replied.

Paxton scoffed. “Well, first off, she’s not going to be staying here anymore. She’ll be with me. If this f*cker wants to mess with her, they’re going to have to go through me.”

Cliff’s gaze hardened. “If this person wants her bad enough, they’ll get her. Just watch your back. It doesn’t matter where she is.” Then to me he said, “Be careful wherever you go. Don’t trust anyone, especially strangers who try to talk to you.” Turning on his heel, he trudged back to his door and glanced at me one more time before disappearing behind his door.

“I don’t like this, Gabby. While you pack up your things I’m going to call Mason. He’ll be able to tell us what we need to do.”

Nodding, I opened my door and Paxton went in first, searching around to make sure everything was okay. When we were in the clear, I threw the notes on the counter and rushed to my bedroom. Load after load, I piled my clothes onto the bed. If I had to carry them all out in trash bags, I would.

I was going to be staying with Paxton for two months and I needed a lot more than what I originally packed. With everything going on, I was kind of glad I agreed to the two months. I sure as hell didn’t want to be here.





WHEN I FIND out what sick f*cker is leaving notes and flowers on Gabriella’s doorstep, I’m going to cut off his goddamned testicles and make him wear them as a necklace. If she said it wasn’t her ex I had to believe her, but dammit to hell, I wanted to find out who it was.

Gabriella was in her room packing so I stayed in her living room to make a phone call. Surely, Mason would know what to do.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Mason, it’s Paxton. Do you have a few minutes?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

Over on Gabriella’s kitchen counter, all three letters stared ominously at me. It took all I had not to rip them the f*ck up and burn them. “I have a problem, or actually Gabby does. Someone’s been sending her black roses with notes on them. And they aren’t exactly love letters.”

“You’ve got to be f*cking joking.”

“I wish I was,” I growled. “But I’m staring at it all now. I need to know what to do.”

“How long has it been going on?” he asked. I could hear papers shuffling in the background. “I need to write all this down.”

“For the past week she’s gotten the flowers three different times. The first was with one black rose and a note and then so on.”

“Can you take a picture and text it to me? I want to read the letters.”

“Sure, give me a second.” After lining the roses and the letters on the counter, I took a picture and texted it to him. “Okay, you should have it now.”

The line went silent as I waited for him to look at the picture. The thought of knowing some psycho piece of shit was coming to her door made me furious. If she would’ve had her door unlocked, or even outside running her laps, there was nothing she could do to stop someone from harming her. What made it worse was that something could’ve happened to her this week, when I was waiting for her to come around.