PaigeI stood in the airport with Jamie the next morning, holding onto her hand and fighting to stay with her in my mind. Old memories popped out at me from around every corner. The flight attendant on the plane that one bastard took us on who didn’t notice anything was wrong. The tense flight home next to Tom, waiting for him to tell me he was about to sell me to the highest bidder. That particular memory felt a little silly when I looked back. He’d done nothing but show me kindness, even the few times I forced his hand and made him grab me. Of course, he meant what he said.Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Tom. He’d come in a separate car and had been holding a perimeter with a few of his guys, all undercover. Last night, Jamie confessed that she’d only been away from home for three weeks and that no one had really touched her yet—though I didn’t press on the emphasis she applied to “really”—but she was still a little leery of Tom and his men. I smiled at him, and he nodded ba

PaigeA couple of days after the raid, only a two of the women remained at Tom’s, Andi and another one named Claire. One was a runaway from an abusive family, the other her partner, so they had nowhere to go. They’d moved into their own guestrooms on the same hall as me. I wandered into the guest sitting room, where the two of them had started spending most of their days, and found Caterina and Joyce there with them. Caterina caught my eye and nodded off to the side.“What’s up?” I said when she stepped up to me. I still couldn’t get over Sera’s undead mom just being in my house.She sighed. “I’ve been talking with Joyce, and it seems like what these women need is someone to get them a job and a place to live.”I nodded, mentally filing that away for services my facility would need. “That makes sense. If they were trying to get away, they’re about as away as they can get.”“Andi ran away from home during her senior year of high school, a few months ago, so she doesn’t have much traini

TommasoWe didn’t end up leaving bed quickly enough, so I called a realtor after Paige finally drifted off to sleep, and we headed out to meet the extremely bubbly woman after therapy the next morning. Paige held my hand across the gear shift in my little black coupe on the way, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I had to remind myself we were shopping for locations for a women’s shelter, that we weren’t a happy couple shopping for our first home together. The way she looked at me, after spending half the day in bed the day before, made it difficult to remember.When we pulled up to the first location, I frowned. Every place we were seeing used to be some kind of shelter, and this one looked like the shelters you saw in cop shows about how awful inner cities are.Paige bit her lip. “It’s the cheapest place.”“I can tell.” I climbed out of the car.A woman bounced up to us, her mountain of curls wobbling as she moved, and smiled like she was in an ad for teeth-whitening. “Hi! I’m Marybeth Ol

TommasoThe weather had finally grown warm enough for Paige and I to eat on the patio, so we took the chicken masala Miranda had made out there to enjoy the last rays of sunset. I glanced at her. She’d been fidgety since she came down, but not the same kind of excited fidgety I’d seen when we left the house. Something had changed, and I didn’t know what yet.“I heard from Marybeth,” I said. “The owners were so impressed by our all-cash offer that they’re even willing to trim closing.”She smiled limply and spooned up a bite. Her oversized sweater sagged off her shoulder, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of skin barely hidden by her hair.I sipped my wine. “How was the rest of your afternoon?”“Busy,” she said, distraction edging her voice.I raised an eyebrow.She sighed in a huge whoosh of air, and I knew I had her.“I just came home, and I wanted to spend all afternoon on the shelter, but then Chris needed me for something urgent.” She shrugged and poked at her food. “And I just didn

Paige“So?” I said. “What do you think?”Tom nodded slowly, his eyes on the road as we drove to therapy. “I think it’s a great idea, honestly.”I tapped my feet against the floor, out of time with the music pouring softly from the speakers. Emotion coursed through my veins. Nerves? Excitement? A dizzying mixture of both? I couldn’t quite tell.“I’m just worried about the money.” I stared out the window. “The house was already a lot, and now this—”Tom grabbed my hand and squeezed. “I will make sure the money’s not a problem.”We pulled into the parking lot of Lauren’s office, and I sucked in a deep breath. When Tom promised to work hard enough to erase a problem, I had no trouble believing him. I just didn’t know if I could actually make my ideas make sense to anyone else. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like basically the best idea I’d ever had, and I didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.The walk from the car to Lauren’s office disappeared in my jitters. Tom sque