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Beeping seeped through my consciousness, the sound so annoying that my teeth were grinding from it.
Who the hell had an alarm like that?
Rolling over, I stretched my arm out, slapping down on several things, but it wouldn't stop. The longer it screamed, the more I woke up.
Fuck!
I snapped up in bed, my brain finally catching up as I realized it wasn’t an alarm, it was the ringtone I’d set for the chief.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Hello?” I whispered, panic whizzing through me. It had been nearly two weeks since I’d last seen him.
“Open your apartment door,” he demanded, then the line went dead.
My heart raced, thumping in my chest so hard that I was afraid Theo would hear it. Slowly, I turned my head to look down at him. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed as soft snores came with each of his breaths.
He’d slept through the ringing and me talking. Thank God.
Counting to three in my head, I stared at the wall, preparing myself for what was about to happen. I didn’t know what the proper protocol was, but surely it wasn’t usually this long before first contact was made? Something seemed…off.
I slid out of my bed and tiptoed across my bedroom.
This entire time I thought I’d been alone in this, but as I opened my apartment door, I suddenly realized that they may have been watching me this entire time without my knowledge. What if they knew that Theo was in there right now? What if they’d seen him driving me to my apartment?
“Up here,” a shouted whisper told me.
I swung my head to the right, seeing a shadow on the floor above me and quickly sprinted up the stairs toward it. And there, standing there in plain clothes was the Chief—the man in charge.
“Chief,” I greeted, wrapping my jacket tighter around my long T-shirt. I probably should have put on pants to cover my legs, but at that moment I hadn’t even thought about it. All I’d been worried about was following orders.
“Lena.” He tilted his head, his expression not giving a single thing away. “Want to give me an update?”
Blinking, I wondered how much to tell him. It wasn’t like I could say that I’d been assaulted, not when I had no idea where that guy was now—or even who he was. Theo said he’d taken care of it, and although they seemed like innocent words, I couldn't be sure that they didn’t have another meaning behind them.
“I’m in.” I pushed my shoulders back. “He asked me to tag along on a small job earlier today.” The Chief didn’t say or do anything, so I just kept talking. “And I think I can get him to open up. If not, then I can definitely get access to what we need to bring him down.” I started pacing in front of him, needing to get rid of the pent up energy that was trying to overtake me. “I’ve got this. I’ll bring him down.”
“We,” he reminded me, stepping forward. “We will bring him down, Lena.” He took another step, cutting off my pacing. “Keep your wits about you and let me know if anything changes.”
He turned and started walking up the stairs. I frowned, wondering why he wasn’t going down, and why it was now okay to call him.
“So I can call you with information now?”
“Your line is secure,” he said, stopping before turning for the next flight of stairs. “Stay safe.” And with that, he disappeared, leaving me standing there confused. He was haunty, but then…I hadn’t told him everything that had happened.
It was clear we were both keeping secrets and I was determined that he never found out about mine.
Chapter Ten
THEO
I sat at the bar, a change from the booth that had my name on it every night of the week. It was an unspoken rule that no one but me and my guests were allowed to sit there.
But we weren’t open. The club was empty on one of the busiest nights of the week, all so that I could have a crew meeting. The days were passing quickly, but planning for the next job was nearly complete.
Now there was only one final thing to put in place.
I stared at the glass of tequila in front of me while I waited for the rest of the crew to turn up. I wasn’t a big drinker, but when I needed a shot of liquid courage, Tequila was it. Top shelf Tequila to be specific.
