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“Valik will take you home, and anywhere else you need to go. Consider him your own personal bodyguard.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Great, a twenty-four-hour babysitter was not going to help me in any way. But now wasn’t the time to bring it up.
He bent down and kissed my cheek. “I’ll be in meetings all day, so I’ll see you tonight?”
I nodded and he grabbed his briefcase and left me with the muscular guard from last night.
I flipped the keycard over and over again in my hands, thanking the universe for this tiny gift. If Ryzen was going to be gone all day, then I had a golden opportunity to snoop. But first, I had to head home and get my gear.
Valik was waiting at the door for me when I was finally ready to leave. He was all muscle, and covered with tattoos, and I pegged him in his mid-thirties. I didn’t like the idea of having him around and reporting to Ryzen, but I had to pick my battles. We made small talk in the car, mostly him asking if I was comfortable with the temperature or if I wanted to listen to music. Nothing on a personal level, which was good. We pulled up to Goodacre Estates and he helped me out of the SUV.
His phone rang, and he held up his hand for me to not move. “Yes, Mr. Goodacre? Uh-huh.” He walked to the back of the SUV and opened the trunk. “Yes, I see it. I’ll be right over.” He pulled out a small duffle bag from the back and shut the door. “Mr. Goodacre needs this right away.” He tossed the bag on the passenger seat and turned to me. “My cell phone number is in your phone already. Call me for anything, Miss La Roux. I’ll be back shortly.” He waited for me to acknowledge him before driving off.
This was perfect. He would be gone for a while and I would have plenty of time to do some digging. But first, I had to grab a few things.
Back in my apartment, I sank down on the couch and tilted my head back against the cushion. I let my eyes drift closed for a moment, exhaustion overtaking me. It wasn’t necessarily physical, but mental fatigue. Everything was going according to the plan, and with any luck, this would be over soon enough.
I searched in the back of my closet until I found the bag Delove had said he would hide. Don’t ask me how he, or whomever, got into my apartment undetected by security, because I didn’t know. All Delove had said was to not worry about it.
I dragged the bag onto the bed and started pulling out the gear they had given me. First the watch, which I put on and pointed at my face. I smiled and pressed the button, taking a picture so they would know things were going well. Then the small tape recorder, which I stuffed into my pocket just in case. I checked to make sure the wiretap equipment, tapes and necklace were safe in the bag, then zipped it back up and pushed it far back under my bed.
My phone rang and Owen’s name flashed across the screen. Fuck. I had been so preoccupied with everything, I hadn’t thought to call him. “Heeey, Owen.”
“Oh, my God, Nova. Where the hell have you guys been? I’ve been worried sick to death.” He huffed into the phone.
I scrunched up my nose and sat on the edge of the bed. What was I supposed to say? I couldn’t tell him about the FBI or Ryzen—not only because I didn’t know if Ryzen had tapped my phone, although I was pretty sure he had, but I also didn’t want to get Owen involved. The more he knew, the more of a chance he could be in danger. And I couldn’t have that on my conscience.
“Well, funny story.” I chuckled and he remained silent. OK. Not so funny to him. “I got cold feet. I panicked and pulled a full-onRunaway Brideand, um, made Juliet come with me.”
“Where though? You didn’t return my calls. The warehouse, Nova! Everything burned down!” He sputtered and I could tell my answer wasn’t going to be good enough for him.
“Owen, I know. Everything was a mess, but it’s OK now. We’re back, and just trust me when I say that it’s going to be OK. I’m sorry that we left without saying anything. I left my phone, my purse, everything.” I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping he wouldn’t ask any more questions. When he started stuttering, I sighed into the phone. “I have a plan, and I’ll be in touch in a day or so. OK? I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the best I got right now. We’re going to take care of everything, Owen… take care of you.”
“Well, damn. I thought you guys were dead. I couldn’t get a hold of anyone. Ryzen wouldn’t return my calls. I’m just glad you guys are OK and back home.”
We chatted for a few more minutes and I promised to call him tomorrow with more details about next steps. I paced around the living room, gripping my phone. Grams would be worried too. By now, she would have known that the wedding hadn’t taken place, but that I hadn’t taken her car, money and gun either. My head throbbed and I tried to shake it off.
Later. I would call her later and tell her exactly what I had told Owen—cold feet, that was all. No kidnapping, no dangerous men ambushing us. Just good old-fashioned cold feet. I groaned, thinking about what that same conversation would be like with my parents. There were no missed calls from them though. None. Zero. Zip. It was like I’d disappeared off the face of the earth, and very few people had even bothered to care. That was not reassuring, not one bit. But that just reaffirmed what I already knew—my parents, my sister, they only cared about their image. Not about my actual well-being.
I wondered if Cian was close by. He had promised me that he would always be there if I needed him. There was an internal struggle going on inside of me when it came to him. Yes, we had mind-blowing sex; there was no doubt about it. Did I trust him? Surprisingly, yes. I felt it deep down in my core, this need for him. So unlike anything I’d ever felt. And I thought he felt the same way, although he expressed it a lot differently than flat-out saying “I love you.” But once he got his revenge on Ryzen, would I be enough for him? I didn’t know if my heart could handle the answer. So I did what I always did: I shoved it down deep inside of me and locked it away until I was ready to deal with it.
I punched the code into the elevator and rode it all the way to the penthouse floor to Ryzen’s unit. I held my breath as I stepped out, half expecting one of his guards to be there. But the chair was empty, and I sent another silent thank you to the universe. Once inside, I walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and peeked down. From this high up, people looked like tiny little ants, scurrying around from one place to the next, oblivious to the madness going on all around them.
Did he have cameras in here? I glanced around casually, looking for anything out of the ordinary that would indicate a camera being pointed directly at my face, waiting for a red light to blast out from the ceiling or an alarm to blare. But nothing happened, and I convinced myself that I was being overly paranoid.
I searched his bedroom first, opening the night table drawers and rummaging through the contents. Condoms, watches, jewelry, aspirin. No documents though, or anything else out of the ordinary. His closet was the same. Slacks, button shirts and blazers, all organized by color, hung neatly with a console holding all of his jewelry in the center of it. I opened every drawer and still found nothing.
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. What kind of criminal hid incriminating paperwork, pictures or video tapes in a shoebox in their closet? That was too cliché, and although I didn’t think Ryzen wasthatsmart, he also wasn’t that stupid.
His office was next. I checked my watch and hurried around to his desk. It had been over forty-five minutes since Valik had left, and I had no doubt that he would pop up soon. I pulled out drawer after drawer until I found a manila envelope labeled “Findlay Construction.” It wasn’t a name that Dobbs had had me memorize, but I peeked inside just in case. There was a bid request for a new high-rise building on top. It looked completely normal, but I snapped a picture anyways, then snapped a few more of the other documents in the folder. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking at, so better to err on the side of caution and go overboard with photos.
I stuffed them all back into the folder and shut the drawer. There was a pink Post-it note crumpled in the wastebasket, and I reached down, unfolding it. There was a series of numbers written down followed by letters, and a dollar sign with nine billion written after it. I took a picture and put it back in the trash.
The drawer in the center of the desk was locked, and I searched underneath the piles of papers on his desk for the key. It wasn’t there. There was a picture frame on his desk with a picture of him and his parents at some type of Christmas event. I flicked the clasps to the side and removed the backing, but no key.
Damn, it had to be here somewhere. I walked over to the bookshelf, tapping my lip with my finger. If I was a secret key, where would I be hidden? All of the books on one shelf were real estate related—construction regulations, city ordinances—but one stood out in particular, a lighter color than the rest. I pulled it out and realized it was some type of journal. There was a gap in the middle, and the key fell out.
Eureka, bitches!
