I stared at him a beat, letting the words “no comment” permeate my stunned brain and with effort came unstuck, handed the empty pot to Mace and snatched the paper off the counter.

I was beginning to feel weird. Way weird. Panic weird. I didn’t know why but it didn’t feel good.

“Stel a…” Mace started to say but I wasn’t listening.

I wandered out of the kitchen area. Juno got close and gave a little whine.

“In a minute, Juno,” I mumbled, my eyes scanning the page.

“I’l take the dog out.” I heard Hector say but I didn’t pay attention.

I arrived at the end of the bed platform and sat. I no sooner got my ass on the platform when the paper was sooner got my ass on the platform when the paper was snatched from my hands before I’d been able to read a single word.

My head snapped up.

“Hey! I was reading that,” I semi-lied to Mace who was standing over me.

The door closed behind Hector and Juno.

“Fuck it, Stel a. We need to stay focused,” Mace replied.

I stood. ‘Focused on what?”

When I stood, it brought me close to Mace. He didn’t move out of my space, just kept looking down at me.

“Focused on what’s important,” he answered calmly.

“Being front page news isn’t important?” I retorted, not calm at al .

I’d never been front page news. I didn’t know how it made me feel. It was both weirdly thril ing and scary-as-shit.

But also that strange panic was stil encroaching. I stil didn’t get it and I didn’t want to. I had enough to panic about as it was.

“No,” Mace broke into my thoughts.

“Then what’s important?”

“Keepin’ you alive. Workin’ out our shit. Movin’ on together. That’s what’s important.”

I shook my head at his words, not awake enough or together enough after last night’s drama and this morning’s position on page one to go there.

I changed subjects. “Who was on the phone?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Who was on the phone, Mace?” I asked again.

He opened his mouth to speak and the phone rang He opened his mouth to speak and the phone rang again. My eyes moved to it. Mace’s upper body twisted and he looked over his shoulder to look at it too.

It rang a second time and Mace turned back to me just as I launched myself, moving quickly around him, toward the phone.

I was almost there when Mace hooked an arm around my waist, hauled me into his body and reached around me.

I was reaching too but his effing arms were longer and he tagged the phone.

He beeped it on and put it to his ear.

“Yeah?” he clipped just as I shouted, “Mace!” He listened for two seconds then said, “We have nothing to say,” then he beeped it off again.

“I cannot believe you just did that! It’s my phone!” I yel ed, struggling against his arm which was stil tight at my waist.

He shook me. “Stel a, calm down and listen to me.”

“Let go!”

He did but only so I could take a step forward. Once I did, he grabbed my hand, twirled me and brought me back to him, front-to-front.

He placed the phone on the counter, put both arms around my struggling body and tilted his head down to look at me.

“Listen,” he ordered.

I stopped pul ing away from him and looked at his face.

“This is unreal,” I stated the obvious.

“Reporters are f**kwads. We don’t talk to them. Ignore it. Don’t read it. Say nothing. Don’t pay any f**kin’ attention.

This’l be over and they’l move on to new meat.”

“I can’t ignore it!” I snapped.

“Why the f**k not?”

I didn’t know why not. My life was so out-of-control, it didn’t feel like I knew anything anymore.

“I know you have experience with this, Mace, but I don’t,” I told him.

“That’s why you need to listen to me,” Mace returned.

Then it came out. It came from someplace buried deep.

Someplace I thought was locked away for good, never to be opened again.

The panic overwhelmed me and my body started trembling. It was so huge, I quit fighting and melted into Mace. My head tilting back further, I put my hands to his chest and my shaking fingers curled into his white tee.

I heard the tremor in my voice when I asked, “What if my mother sees that?”

Mace’s face had been hard with determination but at my words his face and his green eyes went soft.

“Kitten,” he murmured.

“I’m not big news but maybe you stil are,” I told him.

“What if it makes the news where she is? I need to talk to the reporters, tel them I’m okay, tel them you and Lee and the boys know what you’re doing. Tel them the police are involved. The Feds too. Tel them that Sid’s a prick and he kil ed Linnie and we’re doing the right thing.”

“Stel a, we can’t tel them any of that shit.” My fists grew tighter on Mace’s shirt.

“She has to know we’re doing the right thing.” Mace studied my face a beat and his head dipped closer to mine.

Then, quietly, he asked, “Your Mom does or your Dad does?”

I blinked.

“What?”

“You want your Mom to know you’re doin’ the right thing?

Or you want your Dad to know?”

I shook my head. “I don’t care about Dad.”

“Kitten –”

My body went stil and I shouted, “I don’t!” right in his face.

I didn’t know why I shouted, I just did.

I also didn’t know why I was trembling and feeling panicked, I just was.

Big time.

I started to pul away again, thinking only of escape.

Where to, I had no idea but I had to get there, right…

effing… now.

Unfortunately, Mace was ready for me.

He turned us, picked me up with his hands at my waist and planted my ass on the counter. Then he moved in with so much determination his h*ps forced my legs open at the knees and he kept coming until he was ultra-close. We were chest-to-chest, privates-to-privates, nose-to-nose. He put his hands on the counter on either side of me.

“Talk to me, babe,” he demanded softly.

I turned my face to the side and stared at the counter.

Something was happening to me, something very frightening and there was only one thing I knew – I couldn’t deal.

I needed to lock it down.