CHAPTER NINE
EMILY
Teresa Martina.
I tell myself to think of her, and her story that I have yet to figure out, not the fact that Shane isn’t home yet and isn’t taking my calls. That works at midnight. It works at two in the morning. By three though, it’s no longer my ticket to sanity, and yet somehow at five I wake up on the couch, still in the office, and incredibly, I’ve dozed off. I check my phone to find nothing from Shane. I stand up and pace, my hand ripping through my dark hair that I wish right now was its natural blond. In the absence of the familiar with Shane, I crave something I know, something that feels like me.
I don’t understand why he’s not communicating with me. He was just supposed to be checking on the security breach, but I’m still alone. And I could deal with that if he’d just talk to me. I sink down on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, where I’ve spent hours tonight, and I key my computer back to life, but another story about the brutality of the Martina family isn’t helping my waning sanity. And that’s how I keep focusing on Teresa. There’s nothing violent in her past. There’s nothing much at all to her past that’s documented. She’s twenty-two, in school, and seems to be low profile. But aren’t the silent ones often the most dangerous? She’s too squeaky clean to make sense. I mean, she’s here, working at her brother’s restaurant.
When six in the morning rolls around and I’m still alone, I decide to take a jog. I don’t know if leaving the apartment is even okay though, so I decide to text Seth: Unless I hear otherwise, I assume I can take my morning jog and go to work. Brandon Senior is expecting me. I’m leaving for my jog in exactly thirty minutes. Message sent, I head upstairs, change into a sports bra, grab my headset, and then head downstairs where I down a protein shake, which I barely manage to stomach. At the thirty-minute mark, my phone beeps with a message from Seth: Normal activity is acceptable.
I grimace at the phone. “Normal activity is acceptable,” I repeat, and I try to take comfort in the hidden meaning of that formality. Clearly everything is fine with Shane if “normal activity is acceptable.” He’s just not talking to me or coming home. Oh yeah. I really need that run. Heading to the foyer, I intend to depart quickly but find myself gun-shy to open the door, as if Adrian Martina, not Shane, will be standing there. I inhale and will myself to get by my nerves, yanking open the door and exiting into the hallway. Stopping just outside our apartment, I make sure I’ve locked up, and as I start walking, I really hate how uneasy I am. Running is my sanity. It’s my escape, and yet I’m second-guessing my choice right now, despite Seth’s approval. I halt and turn around but grimace at my nerves. This is our life. Martina and my brother’s hacker hellhounds aren’t going away. I can’t hide in our apartment or I might as well go find a safe house and live in a hole. Besides, it’s better that I run off steam before I see Shane again than end up responding to him emotionally and blasting him, which solves nothing.
Heading down the hallway, I enter the elevator and flash back to Shane doing his best to strip me naked in the car last night. He’d needed me then. He clearly needs space now. I’d respect and understand that if I wasn’t so sure this silence is related to his vow to do whatever necessary to beat Martina, while all but assuring I won’t know the details. He doesn’t want me to know what he’s doing because he doesn’t want me to talk him out of it. I don’t even want to know what that means he’s doing right now. I exit the elevator with this in my mind, but quickly find I’m distracted by my surroundings. Scouting for trouble, I find only a few businesspeople here and there, and nothing and no one dangerous.
Exiting to the front of the Four Seasons, I’m thankful the familiar faces are not chatty ones, and I make a fast escape down the sidewalk. Turning on my music, a Jason Aldean song Shane and I both enjoy, I insert my headphones and start running. Soon I’m feeling the burn in a good way, but it’s not blocking out my thoughts as I’d hoped. One minute I’m replaying my night with Shane, and the next I’m back in a memory I despise. I’m tied up, while my tattoo artist ex-boyfriend, if you could call him that, Bobby J, is fucking another woman in front of me. Because of course, dating a professor who used me wasn’t enough. I had to rebound with his complete polar opposite, a man with a propensity for kink, while letting myself become his sex doll. I stop running, bend over, and press my hands to my knees. Damn it, why am I going there now? Why? I hate that time in my life. I hate that person I was, who I don’t even know as me.
Why now?
I start walking, a coffee shop in my sights, and with each step my surroundings come back to me, a prickling sensation beginning on my neck. Actually, I think I’ve had it for a while now. Like I’m being watched or followed. My gaze catches on a horse and carriage parked at the curb, and I approach it, stopping to admire the horse, stroking his nose, while discreetly scanning left to find a tall dark man with a hoodie walking in this direction, along with two men in suits, who pass him and keep walking. Glancing right, there is a lady with a dog. Normal people. Normal activities. And yet that feeling of unease remains.
Turning away from the horse, I eye the coffee shop again and hurry in that direction, seeking the shelter it offers, not to mention the caffeine for my sleep-deprived body. Entering the shop, I am immediately calmer and really regretting this run as I make a fast path to the short line. As I’m standing there, waiting to place my order, my mind goes to my brother and the hacker operation hunting him and me, then moves to Adrian Martina. Will there ever be a day when I run again and don’t look over my shoulder? I order my coffee and turn. My heart lodges in my throat as the man from outside enters the shop and pulls down his hoodie. To my distress, his eyes meet mine, and there is no question in my mind. He’s here for me.
I turn, fully intending to race for the bathroom, but a lady and her three kids step into my path. My heart is thundering in my ears. Time seems to stand still as I step around them and dash for the too-distant back of the shop, finally turning down the hallway, but to my distress, once I’m at the ladies’ room door, it requires a pass code I don’t have. I rotate again just as the man I’m running from enters the hallway and, my God, he’s big, broad, and in my path.
“Who are you and what do you want?” I demand.
“Emily,” he says, making it clear that I’m right. He’s here for me. “I’m Cody.” He holds up his hands, his dark hair curling in slightly at his brow, his eyes meeting mine. “I’m the new head of your security detail.”
“Security detail?” I ask incredulously. “I have a detail now?”
“You do,” he says. “Starting today.”
“And as the head of this detail no one told me about, you sneak up on me? How about introducing yourself and letting me know you’re with me?”
“That’s what I’m doing now.”
“You should have done it sooner, and how about someone calling me and telling me you’re about to corner me?”
“Someone was supposed to call you before I approached you,” he explains. “I had no idea he hadn’t. I’ll call him so you know I’m with him.”
“No,” I say when he reaches for his phone, and I see a tattoo of a cross exposed on the back of his hand, more ink disappearing under his black hoodie sleeve. “Just show me a text message from him or a business card.”
“How about both?”
I nod, and he reaches into his pocket to hand me a card with a security firm listed. He follows that by handing me his phone with a text message from Seth about me that reads: Emily’s jogging in thirty minutes. I’ll make contact and let her know who you are. Shane wants to meet you once she’s safely at work.
“Obviously he didn’t make the contact he promised,” Cody says. “And I promise to give him hell.” I hand him back his phone and he adds, “As I’m sure you will as well.”
“Oh yes. I will.” I stick the card into my pocket. “Thank you. And now I just want to get my coffee.”
“Understood. Let me key all my numbers into your phone
and then I’ll leave.”
I pull my phone from my pocket and he takes it from me, punches in several numbers, and then hands it back to me. “I gave you my cell and home number, as well as Nick’s cell number as well. See something, say something. Call or text me if you need anything. I won’t ever be far, and know this. I just got into town. I’m Mexican. I’ve got extensive experience with cartels, which is why I’m here, and I’m better at my job than Martina’s people are at theirs. Had I been there, Martina would not have made it to your door. I’ll be close.” He doesn’t wait for a reply. He turns and leaves.
I am perhaps marginally comforted. I tell myself this man is Shane’s way of telling me that even when he’s not with me, he’s protecting me. Exiting the hallway, I watch as Cody travels toward the door, and by the time I’ve walked to the counter and retrieved my coffee, he’s disappeared outside. Out of sight, but obviously not gone. Ready to retreat to the apartment again, I head for the door myself as well, when my eyes catch on a dark-haired man sitting at a table in the corner. Something about him strikes me as familiar. He’s handsome in a stunning kind of way: his cheekbones are chiseled, his facial features well-defined. He doesn’t look up, and I can’t keep staring, but as soon as I look away, I swear I feel him looking at me.
It’s a crazy notion, or maybe not considering my life right now, but whatever the case, I shove open the door and turn onto the sidewalk, heading back toward the Four Seasons. I’ve made it all of a foot when my cell phone rings, and hoping for Shane, I check my caller ID to find it’s Seth.
“Communicate, Seth. Don’t send a stranger to me when I’m this on edge.”
“He’s a good man.”
“That might be true, but I didn’t know he was following me, and I have too many reasons to be on edge to have a surprise like that. So I repeat. Communicate, Seth.”
“I had a situation, but you’re right. I should have told you sooner.”
I want to ask about Shane. I don’t. “Shane should have told me.”
“He’s juggling—”
“Don’t make excuses for him. It doesn’t suit you or me. He’s okay. I’m okay. Cody is okay. Jogging today was a bad idea. Let’s leave it at that.” I end the call and shove my phone back into my pocket, my mind returning to that man in the coffee shop. Why is he so familiar? Maybe obsessing over him is easier than thinking about Shane shutting me out.
And I’m still obsessing about him when I step onto the elevator, and the very fact that I think the man is Mexican is clawing at me. It’s just too much of a tie to Martina, on top of the familiarity, for me to ignore. I decide to text Cody a note: There was a man in the coffee shop who looked familiar as I was leaving. Dark hair. Mexican, I think. Familiar, and I don’t know why.
Cody immediately confirms with: Investigating.
It’s not much of a reply, but at least he replies.
I exit the car and hurry to the apartment to discover what I assumed to be true. I’m still alone. With my body tense, I hurry upstairs and shower, that man in the coffee shop invading my thoughts often. Once I’m dressed in a black suit dress and heels, my brown hair sleekly flat ironed, my makeup done in darker pinks and roses today to hide the effects of no sleep, I head downstairs. I’m about to grab a cup of coffee to go, when I decide to detour to the office. I sit down and start tabbing through everything I studied last night, when I stop abruptly, my heart racing wildly at the sight of the man I’d seen in the coffee shop in a photo with, of all people, Teresa Martina.
I text a copy of his photo to Cody, certain he’ll come to the same conclusion I have, knots forming in my belly. Funny how an international hacking operation hunting me, most likely looking to kill me doesn’t seem nearly as daunting when members of a drug cartel have you in their sights. I dial Cody as well, not sure I should leave the apartment. He answers immediately. “Do you know that man?”
“Only from the research I did last night. He’s Ramon Aguila. Martina’s head of security, and there’s no way he was in that coffee shop when I was by coincidence. He was there for me.”
“It’s a small neighborhood the Martina family inhabits as well. It could have been—”
“He was there for me,” I press. “I don’t do well with coddling. Be straight up with me.”
He’s silent a beat. “Okay,” he says. “Yes. I’d say he was there for you, but so was I.”
“You didn’t know he was there.”
“I did know.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that to me today. Don’t say it again. Why would he follow me?”
“Because he knew we’d know who he is and he wanted Shane to know he’s watching you.”
“He’s using me to try to control Shane.”
“Yes. He’s using you to try to control Shane.”
I say nothing else. I end the call and draw in a hard-earned breath. If I’m going to be used as a weapon against Shane, I have to figure out how to become a weapon against Martina. My gaze lands on the photo of my coffee shop stalker and Teresa Martina, the woman Adrian Martina said he’d kill for and perhaps the only person on the planet who knows his weaknesses. Oh, what I wouldn’t do to have a conversation with her, but then, she’d never tell me how to defeat her brother in this war. I suck in air with a realization. She’s in Derek’s bed. She might tell him, but then, he’s Shane’s enemy as well. But maybe he doesn’t have to be mine.
SHANE
Seven in the morning comes with Ted still missing, and Martina doing his best to send me a message before he returns him. I didn’t win. He can get to Emily anytime he wants. Well, if that was his opening statement, I have a reply for him. I enter the Blue Roof bagel shop two blocks down from Martina’s Casa and immediately find the pretty dark-haired woman in the back corner booth, a book open in front of her. A man on a mission, I stalk in her direction, and seeming to sense my approach, Teresa Martina glances up. Her eyes go wide, panic in their depths. She shuts her book and sets it on the seat next to her as I claim the seat across from her, inhaling in that way people inhale when they’re about to perjure themselves when giving testimony.
“You know who I am,” I observe.
“You look like your brother.”
“And that’s how you know who I am?”
“No,” she surprises me by admitting, shoving hair from her face, exposing high cheekbones and features too delicate to fit this life she leads. “I already knew who you were,” she adds.
“From my brother or yours?”
“Both. If this is about Derek—”
“This is about Adrian.”
“My brother? What about him?”
“Ramon followed Emily to the coffee shop this morning and made sure we knew he was there.”
She swallows hard, her face paling. “I know nothing about that.” But the way she cuts her eyes and doesn’t even ask who Emily is tells me that’s a lie.
My cell phone beeps, and in case it’s a warning, I remove the phone from my pocket and glance at the message from Seth, laughing without humor at the content. “Derek is at breakfast with Mike Rogers,” I say, returning my cell to my pocket. “Mike’s—”
“Your largest stockholder,” she supplies. “I know. And Derek is just trying to protect his company from everyone who wants to take it.”
“That would be your brother, not me.”
“Had you not tried to take the company from him, he’d never have ended up involved with my brother.”
I arch a brow, surprised at how in tune she is with our business dealings, no matter how distorted her facts. “I’m not trying to take it. I’m going to save it. What does your brother have to do with Mike Rogers?”
“I’m not involved in any of this.”
“Oh no? You’ve already blown your chance at playing the ignorant card.”
“I’m not involved in any of this,” she says again, and while her voice is sw
eet, her track record innocent, she is right here in the middle of her brother’s world, and that’s damning to me.
“Is your brother involved with Mike Rogers?”
“I’m not involved in any of this.”
“You’re sleeping with my brother.”
“Who I care about.”
She says those words fiercely, her eyes flashing. She does care about him. And damn it, that is not good. That is a formula for death if Derek hurts her.
“If you really care about him,” I say, looking for a way out for Derek, “you’d get him out of your family business.”
She leans forward. “So you control everything? That company was Derek’s.”
“Then why did he just hand it to your brother?”
She sits back. “What do you want from me?”
“Ramon visited Emily this morning. I’m simply visiting you.”
“He can get to her and you can get to me,” she supplies.
“That’s right.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Yes,” I say, and when she blanches, I am surprised at how easily that reply came out and how little sympathy I have for her. She’s a Martina. She’s the enemy.
I exit the booth and start walking, never even considering a look back. I reach the door and push it open, stepping outside. A man I know from my research to be Ramon steps in front of me, giving me the attention I wanted, and I don’t back down. I close the small space he’s left between us, stepping toe-to-toe with him, our heights nearly equal, our gazes colliding. “I highly recommend the everything bagel,” I say, so he knows I know who he is. “You should take one to Adrian.”
I step around him and make it all of one step when I hear, “Careful which bear you poke.”
“Careful which lion you scratch, because he might be hungry.” I start walking again and I don’t stop.