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So many questions ran through my head as I looked out the window. Trees and office-looking buildings passed us by, places I had seen many times before, so I had a general idea of where I was and how I could get back home. Eventually, though, the familiar disappeared, and I started seeing large white buildings that looked like over-puffed marshmallows, large rolling metal structures with cranes and things on them, and railroad tracks that crossed the road and went through buildings. Through the open window, I began to smell the ocean, warm metal, and oil. I could also hear seagulls.
He took a hard left and brought us down an embankment that had a large fence that rolled back as we approached. Before us was the ocean, a dock at the end of a short road, and an oil tanker-looking ship sitting at the dock in the water. There was a line of black SUVs to the right, and when we approached, a very large man got out of one and walked around to stand behind it, leaning against the back bumper.
He was so tall that he towered over the SUV, making it look like a toy. He folded his giant arms over his wide chest and waited as Daniel got out of the car. I stayed where I was, staring at the big man through the window, clutching my bag in my lap, and not wanting to move. I knew I didn’t want to get out of the car.
Daniel, of course, didn’t give me a choice. He opened my door after walking around the front of the car and grabbed my arm. He pulled me up and out of the vehicle as if I were just a nuisance, and I went with him, having no other option. Unfortunately, the car was a stick shift, so it wasn’t like I could have jumped over to the driver's seat after he got out and driven away. The thought had certainly crossed my mind, but if he was willing to cause me physical harm, how could I be so sure he wouldn’t shoot me while I fumbled with the gears?
“This the wife?” the big guy asked in a booming grumble of a voice with a Russian accent. His beard was so dark and bushy that I couldn’t even see his lips move when he spoke.
“Yes. Can I go now? Are we done?” Daniel asked, even more itchy than before. I had the feeling that he wasn’t as comfortable with all of this as he was pretending.
“Not yet. Meet me at the house. Ten minute. There we take care of one last thing,” he said and took my arm. His fingers wrapped around my upper arm as easily as my hand would wrap around an ice pop or the neck of a beer bottle. I could feel the immense power in him and decided that I would do whatever it took to stay alive, but I wouldn’t take dumb chances. I would do what he said until I had no other choice because if he decided to backhand me as Daniel had, he could take my head right off my shoulders without even trying.
“Ivar, I have someplace I have to be, can we just…” Daniel started, but his words trailed off as the big man just stared at him. Daniel rubbed a hand through his hair and nodded. “Okay, okay, yeah, ten minutes. I can be there in ten. I’ll follow you.”
As Daniel turned to get in his car, the big man—whose name apparently was Ivar—grabbed the strap of my bag, pulled it off me, and threw it. I didn’t see where it landed, but I did hear the sound of something hitting the water.
“Come, sit in passenger seat,” he said and escorted me to the right side of the SUV he had been leaning against. Once he had opened the door and helped me up and into the seat, he closed the door behind me and went around the back of the car to get to his side. I tried the door to see if I could open it and make a run for it, but the handle on the inside was gone. I couldn’t open the door.
A moment later, Ivar opened his door and folded himself into the seat. Even if he was half giant, he moved like he was in control of every muscle in his body. He looked over at me and smiled as if he knew what I had been trying to do a moment before.
“Special-made vehicle,” Ivar said, nodding to the inside of my door.
I scowled at him, which only made his smile wider.
Chapter 21
Jimmy
Itturnedoutthatthe break-in had been Caroline, which was a complete surprise to me. I had assumed it was a Mafia-related incident or a disgruntled business owner of a company I had bought, both of which had happened in the past, but I had not expected Caroline to be that petty.
Because she was my PA, she knew everything I knew. She knew the codes to disarm the fences, the guard schedules, where the extra keys for the offices were, and how to run the cameras. Apparently, she had hit the security officer on duty over the head, knocking him out, and dragged him into a nearby broom closet—which she locked after duct-taping his hands together as well as his mouth. From the security booth, she was able to shut down the computers, unlock the digital lock doors, and make her way around the electric fence to the inside fence, which she snipped with a pair of bolt cutters.
I wasn’t sure what she thought was going to happen. They found her in my office—naked and crying on the couch about how I was supposed to be there and how we were meant to end up together. She had trashed my computer, which was an annoying setback, but I could at least transfer the information to a new computer. One of the windows in my office was broken too, as she had thrown my desk chair out of it.
I had no idea that she had become so unhinged. She had been the perfect employee and, until I married Natalia, never said anything to me about her true feelings. If I had known, I would have fucked her and fired her like I had done to so many PAs over the years. Good thing I hadn’t because this might have ended up so much worse.
The cops carted her away in handcuffs with one of those foil blankets wrapped around her. She glared at me when they walked by me on the way to the squad car, her hair a mess and makeup running down her face. She looked as if she had melted, like wax. It was so bad.
“You’ll need me!” she screamed as one of the officers helped her tuck her head into the backseat without hitting the doorframe. “You’ll see! You’ll be lost without me!”
The cop shut the door and her voice cut off, but I could still see her screaming face in the window. I turned away.
Filing reports with the police and insurance agents and cleaning up the mess as much as I could took forever. Calling my father took even longer because he insisted on coming down to see everything, including the tape we had of Caroline breaking into the security booth and attacking the security officer. She had wiped the original tape, but I had other cameras that no one but my father and I knew about.
Watching the footage with my father was crazy and made me so grateful for Natalia. If she hadn’t come into my life, I might have ended up fucking Caroline, and that would have been much worse because I could have been held at fault for her reaction. But as this happened right after I fired her for being rude to Natalia and making her think I was cheating on her, none of the blame was on me. The incident only went as far as Caroline and did not merit a closer look at my past, which could get ex-employees involved and create a company scandal that would no doubt get out of control.
As my father watched the tapes for the third time, I looked at my phone. Nothing from Natalia. That was odd, she should have texted me that she was home by now. Long before now as a matter of fact. It had been about three hours since I got her first text saying she was on her way, so she should have arrived home about two hours ago.
Maybe she took a nap and forgot to text? Maybe her phone died?
I opened the security camera app on my phone and checked the cameras at the house. From what I could see, my apartment was empty. There was a slim chance that she was in one of the bathrooms, but the house was quiet. Nothing in her art studio had been touched either, and I knew if she had been home, that would have been her first stop, especially when she had collaborations to plan and ideas from the beach to write down.
Was she still out with Daniel?
I sent her a quick message, trying not to worry. I tried telling myself that this knot of tension in my stomach was from the Caroline incident, and I was just paranoid.
Me: Hey Baby, things are wrapping up here soon. Did you make it home?
