King's

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After the longest week of my life, avoiding my parents (who thought I was still in Mexico) and trying not to crush under the weight of my worry, I showed up Monday morning, on time just as King asked.

  The office was empty. A note stuck to the lamp simply said:

  Sit. Wait.

  – K

  I scratched my head. He wanted me to wait? But hadn’t he demanded punctuality?

  I knocked on the locked door, which I assumed led to his personal office, but there was no reply.

  Great. I didn’t know which was worse, being in the presence of the man who scared the ever-living hell out of me or being alone in his big empty loft-slash-office. Even during the day, the place had a very¸ very unsettling vibe. The white walls were bare. The floors were dark. The air was cold.

  I began to hum “She Loves You” by the Beatles, something I did whenever I felt nervous. After about ten minutes of standing around in my heels—a pair of black Jimmy’s with very sharp points that could easily double as daggers—I reluctantly decided to sit at the lonely desk. I hadn’t forgotten how he’d used it against me, but tried not to think about it. Instead, I ended up chewing on how little I knew about this man, King. I knew he had an empty office, he liked expensive suits, he smelled incredible, and was the biggest bastard I’d ever met. Oh, and he also belonged to a really weird club. 10 Club.

  Yes, I had returned to those mysterious doors the morning following my unsavory introduction to King. Inside were an empty hallway and a lone elevator with a golden plaque to the side: 10 Club. Members Only. Later, when I got home, I looked it up. The club was for people of “considerable social standing” worth ten or more. Billion, that was. I’d thought it sounded pretentious—perfect for a man like King—but what struck me as odd was the lack of any further information. One would think such a club might have some philanthropy kudos, really nice ads, or fancy pamphlets. Something. But the club was just as mysterious as King. Who, by the way, didn’t even show up in a Google search (“king detective,” “king agency,” “king 10 club”). Nothing. The man had to be living under an alias.

  After thirty minutes of waiting, my humming ceased working its magic, so I got out my phone and answered emails as a distraction. One hour later, still no sign of King. There were no signs of any clients, either. No one came in. The phone didn’t ring. The place felt like a ghost town.

  “Just missing the tumbleweed,” I mumbled. And that’s when I got to thinking. He probably worked out of some other office. Maybe he had a day job—sadistic investment banker?—and kept this office for his side business or hooker rendezvous. And he probably had no intention of showing up early. Perhaps he would make me wait the entire day just to prove a point.

  Fine. If that’s what it took, I could wait. In fact, I’d go out at noon for lunch, grab my laptop and come back here to get some work done. Which is what I did. I didn’t see the point of being bored or unproductive. Not when I had five hundred emails to answer, including four from Sean asking why I hadn’t come to New York lately and why I hadn’t answered any of his emails. I responded by saying that I was sorry, but I’d been tied up on a special project. He’d probably think I was finally seeing someone seriously.

  I managed to get through another one hundred emails of extreme distress from my team at work. The holiday fragrance campaign was going to hell because of an unforeseen supply issue with the packager. Great. Now the rest of my life was falling apart. And King was nowhere to be found. I needed to talk to him about his real “price” because I couldn’t just sit around here all day. And while thinking it over this last week, no way had he been serious that he wanted to “own me.” How ridiculous. But as five o’clock rolled around, I began to wonder if he’d ever show. I’d give him another hour; then I was out of there.

  A minute before six, I shut down my computer and slid it into my case. When I looked up, King’s masculine figure filled the doorway. I hadn’t even heard the door open or close.

  I stood up and stared at the man. He stared back. I was about to say something such as, “Nice of you to show up,” but then he walked right past me as if I wasn’t even there. He entered his office and closed the door.

  What in the world?

  “I can’t do this,” I muttered. There was no way he was going to be of any help finding Justin. That woman who’d referred him had to be off her rocker or getting some kind of kickback. Yes, maybe this was a scam targeted at desperate people with missing loved ones.

  Of course! I bet they wandered into that center for missing persons all the time. It would explain why the woman had been so nervous, how King had known about Palenque, and why he acted like a depraved sleazeball. Because he was.

  I’m such an idiot. I grabbed my stuff to leave, but then the phone on the desk rang. At first, I wasn’t going to pick it up; however, something urged me to do it. “He-hello?”

  “When your brother called you the other day, did you believe him?” It was King’s deep, unforgettable voice.

  “Sorry?” Was the guy really calling me from the other room? I couldn’t decide if that was eccentric or just rude and creepy.

  “It’s a simple question, Miss Turner. Did you believe him? Did you believe that he didn’t want you to come looking for him?”

  How did King know that? I hadn’t told anyone the details of our conversation, not even the lady at the Center for Missing Persons.

  “I don’t—ummm…I don’t know,” I replied, shocked as hell.

  “And did you believe Jamie Henshaw when she said your brother got on a plane to London?”

  “How do you know about that?” I asked.

  “It’s a simple question, Miss Turner. Yes or no?”

  “No.”

  “That will be all. Good night. Oh—and, Miss Turner, you work for me now. You will call your office and resign your other job immediately. You can also tell your lover you won’t be seeing him anymore. You’ll have no time for trips to New York.”

  What? He knew about Sean, too? And he couldn’t possibly be serious about me quitting.

  “So you want to hire me? To do what?” I asked.

  “Hiring implies I will pay you. However, may I remind you that you are the one who is paying me. With your life.”

  He was serious? “How do you expect me to live?”

  He laughed. “You no longer have a life. You are mine—a term you’ve already agreed to. Just as I have agreed to find your brother, which I will. As for the ‘what’ you will do? The answer is simple: as you are told, Miss Turner. Anything I ask.”

  “But I—”

  “I am not the sort of man who deals kindly with welshers, Miss Turner. Are you a welsher?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Because I would hate for you to find out what I do to people who displease me.”

  What the f…?

  “Have a good evening.” He hung up, and my jaw dropped.

  I barely pulled myself back from charging to his door and pounding it down.

  Instead, I left. I needed to get out of there, to breathe. All of my assumptions about King were wrong. He wasn’t just an eccentric, wealthy bastard. He was the devil. Downright evil. And how had he known the details about the call from my brother or the embassy?

  Whoever King was, he was well connected.

  And dangerous.

  Yes. And now you’re his assistant?

  ~ ~ ~

  Proving once more that I’d misjudged King and the seedy depths of his malevolence, I spent the next three weeks sitting alone in that cold, creepy office, watching the clock tick away on my brother’s life. Each evening at six o’clock, King would show up, go into his office, and then call to dismiss me. A twisted and bizarre little ritual. And each evening I promised myself I would confront him, only to find myself paralyzed. The ominous man’s presence did something to me that I couldn’t begin to articulate. It was a sickly sensation combined with a powerful urge to gawk. On the exterior, he was unsettling
ly beautiful, and on the inside, he was wicked. But nevertheless, he was still just a man. So why did I fall apart in his presence?

  If I weren’t so desperate and so absolutely convinced that this man, King, could do what he said—hunt down Justin or punish me if I “displeased him”—I wouldn’t have kept coming back. But I had, occupying myself by making inquiries with officials in Mexico. Zero luck. I had even made a list and called every person who’d ever been in contact with Justin, but it was like he’d disappeared off the face of the planet.

  So why hadn’t King started looking? At least, that’s what I assumed. He hadn’t given me reason to believe otherwise. Instead, he made me sit in that office. Why? Did he want to see how far he could push me?

  Of course. The man was not only cruel, he was sadistic. A statement I felt with severe conviction when days earlier, I secretly moved my belongings into storage and set up camp in a cheap motel. And knowing without a paying job I couldn’t afford even that, I stooped to calling Becca with some BS story about how just as soon as I was back in S.F. from my fake trip in a few days, I’d need to crash at her place for a while due to a nonexistent mold problem.

  With everything else going on, lying to her was a new low point in my life, only surpassed by the moment when I called my boss to resign from my dream job.

  I kept telling myself, over and over again, that I had to do this for Justin. That his life was more valuable than any job or apartment, but that didn’t mean losing them felt good.

  Then, just when I’d been pushed that last inch, ready to unleash a fury, King called. “It is time, Miss Turner,” he’d said.

  “King?”

  “No. It’s your fucking fairy godmother, Miss Turner. And your wish has been granted.”

  I had been speechless. He gave no explanation as to why it was time. He gave no destination details until I got to the airport, passport in hand.

  And now, as I stood in line after a five-hour flight, waiting to pass Immigration at the Mexico City airport and head to my connecting flight, I fended off those dark thoughts telling me that this trip would be the death of me. I should never have lied to my mother and father, who believed I was still in Mexico and due home at any moment. Yes, they had actually believed the story I fed them about Justin and I having some major vacay time coming and that we would be in Cancun before visiting all of the Yucatan ruins. “No cell phone access for a few weeks,” I’d said. Such a stupid lie. Cell phones were just about everywhere in the world these days. And who took vacations longer than a week or two? Not many. But they’d bought it, allowing me to hide the truth. For a while, anyway.

  “Mia Turner?”

  Bag slung over my shoulder, passport in hand, I lifted my troubled gaze from the floor. A cold stare from a Mexican official in a dark green uniform greeted me. Two soldiers with rifles stood behind him. All three men were about my height—five-six—but what they lacked in stature, they made up for in deadly weapons.

  My stomach fell into a tailspin. “Yes?”

  The room of queued-up passengers turned to stare. Anyone within twenty feet stepped away.

  “Come with us, please,” said the official.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked. My heart thumped wildly inside my chest.

  “We warned you not to return,” he whispered.

  Shit.

  ~ ~ ~

  Those terrifying men that night in the hotel room four weeks earlier had left no doubt in my mind that they’d meant what they’d said. They would kill me if I returned looking for Justin. But I’d mistakenly believed the incident was connected to a well-organized group of lowlife narcos who’d taken my brother. I thought, perhaps, they’d been watching me. Maybe watching my entire family, trying to figure out how much we were worth before they issued a ransom. But now, this second time through, I knew differently. I had been detained before officially entering the country.

  What the hell was Justin involved with? And why the hell hadn’t I told King about my prior trip to Mexico City? I suppose I never had the chance, but not telling him felt like a mistake. A big, big mistake.

  One of the soldiers handcuffed me in front of the onlookers from my flight. The three men then walked me down a long, narrow passage and led me inside a small room with dirty, blue walls. No mirrors, no table or chairs, just a room with a door. The soles of my brown suede boots stuck to the grimy floor. I hoped it wasn’t dried blood.

  “Why am I here?” I tugged at the hem of my white turtleneck, not knowing what else to say, but the men kept to their task of stripping me of my watch, cell phone, and other personal belongings, including my passport. Then they left without a word.

  “Crap.” I paced the length of the room for several hours. No bathroom, no water, no answers as to what would happen next. My imagination had a field day.

  When the door finally swung open, I stilled. The man wore a cheap, gray suit and even cheaper cologne. His deep pockmarks and greasy smile screamed criminal. I placed my back to the wall furthest from the door.

  “Señorita Turner,” he said. Why is his voice familiar? “I am Inspector Guzman of the Agencia Federal de Investigaciones.”

  I remained as still as my weak knees allowed.

  He glanced at someone in the hallway and flicked his fingers. In walked a soldier with a chair. He placed it down directly in front of me, and Agent Guzman sat with his legs wide open.

  Nice view. Thanks.

  He smiled and flashed a set of gold-capped teeth. “Do you know why you are here?” he asked with a thick accent.

  “No.” I shoved my hand into my jeans pocket, wishing my cell phone was there so I could call for help.

  He slipped a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. He sucked hard, savoring the long puff, and blew it toward the ceiling.

  He was enjoying this.

  He took another long puff and blew it out. “Your brother is a smuggler. We believe that someone very close to him, someone living on the other side of the border, was assisting him.”

  “What?” I straightened my spine. “That’s bullshit. Justin was a scientist. He detests drugs.”

  Agent Guzman flicked his ashes on the floor. “I did not say drugs, Miss Turner. I said smuggler. Of artifacts.”

  Justin was smuggling? First of all, I didn’t believe it. Second, nothing he dug up was of any interest to anyone except other geeky archaeologists or a museum. Third, Justin was never in it for the money. He loved the hunt. He loved learning. But it didn’t matter what I thought.

  “You think I was helping him?” I asked.

  Agent Guzman stood and closed the gap between us, placing both arms on either side of my head. He blew his disgusting, sour breath mixed with cigarette smoke in my face.

  “Mr. Vaughn,” he whispered in my ear, “wants his things returned.”

  Mr. Vaughn. I had no idea who that was.

  “Until this happens,” Guzman continued, “you are to remain in our custody.”

  “I don’t know anything. I just want to find my brother.”

  “I find that hard to believe, Mia. We saw Justin’s phone records. You are the only one he called on a frequent basis.” He snapped his fingers, and in walked that same soldier armed with a rifle. “I suggest you cooperate…” he dipped his head, “fully.”

  The soldier smiled with a sinister grin and shut the door. He propped his rifle in the corner and then undid the top button of his pants.

  I glanced back at the agent, who reminded me of a hungry lion about to enjoy watching a helpless animal get torn to shreds.

  “Whoa.” I held out my hands. “I’m sure that this is a mistake—”

  “There is no pinche mistake,” Guzman hissed. “But we will enjoy your company all the same.”

  There was a knock at the door. The sliver of a petite woman’s face showed through the crack. She wore a dark green military uniform. I couldn’t understand what they said, but the agent and soldier cursed before promptly leaving the room without giving me a second thought, le
aving the door partially open.

  I leaned over and tried not to vomit. Holy fuck. Holy fuck. This can’t be happening.

  When the door swung open, King’s imposing frame and tailored black suit were the last things I expected to see.

  He leaned against the door jamb and crossed his arms. His light-gray eyes slowly washed over my body, his unsettling expression somewhere between hunger and irritation and, well, relief. “Detained, Miss Turner? Aren’t you full of surprises?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Bewildered, I gazed at the unearthly perfection of King’s masculine face—the line of his angular jaw, the sharp planes of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lips—as he scowled from the doorway of the airport interrogation room.

  “You and I need to have a little talk, Miss Turner.”

  I couldn’t agree more, but given what had just happened and that I was now in the imposing presence of an emotionally charged King, I lacked the ability to form a coherent word.

  “What’s the matter, Miss Turner? Federale got your tongue?”

  “N-no. Not exactly.” However, had King arrived a few minutes later, I was certain the federale or his army boy would have had another part of me. Sick bastards.

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked.

  He sneered. “I generally know everything worth knowing. Except when people, foolish girls in particular, decide to hide things from me. In that case, bad things happen. But not to me. You remember that next time, Miss Turner.” He gestured for me to leave the room, but my feet had stuck to the floor, both literally and figuratively. “You are welcome to stay, but I have an appointment I cannot miss.” He glanced at his watch, and I caught a glimpse of a few thick black lines on his forearm. A tattoo. I found it hard to believe such an uptight man, so preoccupied with his immaculate appearance, would waste his time with body art.

  “Are they really going to let me walk out of here?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  Okay. I wanted to ask how—had he paid them off?—but it seemed much more important to get the hell out of there.