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Chapter Two
Ariella
Sunlight filtered in through the skylight casting the kitchen in a warm golden tone. The aroma of coffee filled the room, and I hurried to the pot, grabbed a cup, and poured myself a drink.
Izzie sat at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal. It was the quietest I’d ever seen her, except when she napped.
Jaxson clomped down the stairs, dressed and ready to go.
I still needed to shower, but I’d be quick. “Are we driving into work together?” I asked.
“No.” His response was short, his tone cold, emotionless. Had I done something to piss him off? We hadn’t talked about that night when he’d found me in the shower, curled up with water pounding over me. I’d been unable to move, shaken to the core. He’d dressed me, carried me to bed, and slept beside me.
It was the only night I’d slept in that bedroom. I was now delegated to the guest room, which I guess made sense. We agreed that if he was going to be my boss, we had to keep things platonic.
That wasn’t what I wanted, but I had mixed feelings. He hadn’t stuck around after the one night we shared at my place before the fire burned my house to the ground. We also hadn’t spoken about it, and now it seemed pointless to rehash a relationship that couldn’t ever be.
I stared at him, the cup of coffee poised at my lips, two hands on my mug. The tremors were under control, and while my house had burned down, I was able to get a prescription from the local doctor for the medications I needed for my battle with autonomic dysfunction. I was managing for the most part.
His cell phone rang and he grabbed it off the kitchen counter.
“Morning, Declan. What’s up?” He waltzed into the living room for privacy, at least some semblance of it.
I sipped my coffee and sat down at the kitchen table across from Izzie. “Is that good?” I asked, trying to make polite conversation with a three-year-old.
* * *
It was my first week on the job, and Jaxson was buried in his office. I wasn’t sure if he was ignoring me or giving me space and not preferential treatment.
Lucy hadn’t so much as acknowledged my existence or the fact that Eagle Tactical now employed me. While she was at the front desk at the building entrance, I was shoved at the breakroom table with my laptop plugged into the nearest outlet. It was clear they had made room for me to join them, and I’d take what I could get, office or not. I probably was lucky I even had a computer to work on; the keyboard was faded and worn.
The hallway was fine, it was a place to work. I could almost see Jaxson if I leaned back in my desk chair, which I kept doing, the chair squeaking.
Lucy glanced over her shoulder at me, glaring with narrow eyes and a sharp jaw. So maybe we weren’t going to be friends like Emma and I had become. I was okay with that, as long as she didn’t bury me under paperwork.
A message popped up on the screen.
Mason, I need your help. Please track my phone and come for me. I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t life or death – my death. Hazel
Who was Hazel, and why was I getting her message? I still wasn’t that friendly with Mason. We’d come to an understanding, or maybe it was the fact my cabin burned down I had forgiven him. It wasn’t his fault for the fire, and the anger that I held toward him for selling me that crappy place seemed stupid now. Plus, he hadn’t kept me from getting employed and helped Jaxson with the off-gridders who had threatened me. We were almost friends. Well, not quite. He didn’t hate me, and I didn’t despise him, at least not anymore.
I stood, and the chair squeaked. Lucy spun around in her seat, eyes wide. “Do you mind? Some of us are trying to get work done!” she snapped.
I didn’t have a ton to do, granted it was my first week, and no one had assigned me any surveillance or backgrounds to research. I held my tongue. I didn’t need a new enemy. I had enough of them from my past.
My boots clunked over the tile floor, and I sauntered over to Mason’s office. I knocked on the open door, not wanting to barge in unannounced.
“Yes, Ariella?” Mason glanced up from his computer. “What can I do for you?” He didn’t sound thrilled that I was bothering him, but I needed to make sure the message wasn’t a joke, and it was real.
“I need you to see something that popped up on my computer,” I said. I didn’t want to elaborate. I wasn’t sure who Hazel was to him, if anyone at all, and the doors were all open. The guys could all hear our conversation. I was trying to be discreet, for his sake.
His attention that had been on me briefly returned to his computer. His right hand clicking and scrolling with the mouse. “Declan can help you if you’re having computer troubles.”
“You need to see this,” I said. When he didn’t glance up or get up I tried again. I guess I did need to spell it out for him. “Do you know someone by the name of Hazel? It sounds like she’s in trouble.”
He leaped out of the chair like it was on fire and followed me to my desk. He hunched forward, reading the message that remained on my screen.
“So?” I asked.
