Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Kenzie woke to silence. The room was dark, just the orange glow of streetlights peeking between the curtains. An uneasy feeling filled her stomach, but she couldn’t figure out why.
She knew where she was, her favorite hotel in Phillipsburg. She was safe with Jaz. She peeked at him across the room.
But the twin-sized bed near the door was empty.
She sat up. “Jaz?”
The bathroom door stood open. She threw back the covers and crossed to it, then flipped on the light. Empty.
Jaz wasn’t here.
She sat on the edge of the bed, that uneasy feeling growing. It was the first time since the pirates had attacked the Blue Fantasy that he’d left her completely alone. Even at the resort, he’d introduced her to friends before disappearing to meet Magras.
Where was he? Had something happened? Why hadn’t he woken her?
What if someone saw him, what if—?
She grabbed her phone from the nightstand to call him, but realized… He didn’t have his phone anymore. And even if he hadn’t thrown it into the sea, she didn’t know his number.
They’d spent two days together, days that felt a week long. They’d attended a party, snuck into her apartment, run from drug smugglers—and she’d never gotten his phone number.
She tapped the screen to check the time and saw that she’d missed three texts and a call from her sister, all time-stamped within the last twenty minutes. The vibrating was probably what had woken her.
She read the texts.
Call Dad. NOW.
Kenzie, I’m serious. He’s losing it.
If you don’t call him in the next 10 minutes, I’m giving him your location myself.
She gave the text a thumbs up—message received.
But the thought of calling her father made Kenzie want to hide under the pillows.
She was almost twenty-five years old, a business owner. She’d taken on pirates and drug smugglers, but she couldn’t stand it when Dad was angry with her.
She dialed his number before she could chicken out.
The call had barely connected when he answered. “Wright here.”
“Dad, it’s—”
“Kensington Abigail Wright, where in the world are you?”
Second time she’d made him full-name angry in a couple of days. Not a good sign. “I’m fine, Dad.”
“That’s not what I asked.” His voice was a thin veneer of steel covering what she guessed was fear. “I tracked your phone to some crappy cabin in St. Barts, and you weren’t there. What is your exact location?”
“I’m safe. I’m on St. Martin—“
“With who?”
She hesitated a beat too long.
“Kenzie, if you don’t tell me exactly where you are and who you’re with in the next thirty seconds—“
“I’m calling you, Dad. I’m obviously fine, so maybe take it down a notch.” Had she really just said that? To her father?
His only response was silence. She could imagine his face turning red, his lips clamping shut to corral the words that wanted out.
“I’m with someone who’s helping me.” Kenzie softened her tone. “He saved my life, and he’s keeping me safe.”
He had been, anyway, before he left her here alone without telling her where he was going.
“I don’t care who he is,” Dad said. “You’re in over your head. These people are not playing games. They will kill you without blinking.”
“I’m aware of—”
“Are you?” His voice rose. “Because from where I’m standing, my youngest daughter is gallivanting around the Caribbean with some man”—the word man came out with enough scorn that she winced—“while drug cartels are hunting her.”
“I’m not gallivanting, whatever that means, and he’s not just some man. He’s helping me figure out who set me up.” Her own volume climbed to match Dad’s. “Someone used my business to smuggle drugs for years, Dad. Years.”
“Alyssa filled me in.”
“Then you understand. I need to find out who did it.”
“No, you need to get out, disappear.”
“I’m not going to just—”
“Someone took advantage of you. Used you. Seems to me you’ve done enough.”
“What do you mean by that? You’re blaming me?”
“No, just…” Dad sighed, the sound frustrated. “You’re young, you’re naive, and you don’t understand.”
“Explain it, then. Explain what you plan to do.”
“I already told you, get you out.”
“So I’m supposed to, what? Sit in a safe house while you and your team clean up my mess? While you make all the decisions about my life, my business, my future? I did that once already, remember?”
There was a long pause. When Dad spoke again, his voice was gentle. “And I took care of it.”
“I wanted to go to the police, and you—”
“If that boy’s family had found out you were the one who took his life—no matter what the circumstances—they’d have killed you. I protected you. Is that so bad?”
“I’m not saying that, Dad. It’s just… It feels like I did something wrong. It would have been nice to have someone besides my mother and father tell me I didn’t. A cop, a judge.”
“That kid deserved a lot worse than you gave him, believe me.”
“That’s not the point. It’s my life. I should’ve had a say in what happened.”
“You were a child.”
“I was fifteen. And now I’m an adult, and I get to make my own decisions.”
“I know that.” His voice was almost pleading. “I’m not trying to control you.”
“Feels like you’re trying to pull the strings, and I’m the puppet who has to comply. But this is my life. My business was used. I was used. I want to find out who did it and expose them. And it’s not like you can solve the drug problem to protect me. What are you going to do?”
“Keep you safe. And then I’ll figure it out.”
She paced to the window and looked out at the dark street below, half expecting to see Jaz out there, but he was gone.
“You have no tactical experience,” Dad continued, “and you’re facing down a drug cartel. Your old man might be a demanding, controlling jerk—”
“I never said that.”
“—but I also happen to know what I’m doing. Forgive me for thinking you might need help.”
“I do need help. But you don’t want to help. You want to swoop in and take over. ‘Get Kenzie out of the way. She’s too incompetent to solve her own problems.’”
“I don’t think… I never said that. You don’t know these people. I just want to keep you alive.”
“I get it. I do. But what I want is to expose them, to make sure they don’t do it to anyone else.”
“So you’re planning to solve the drug problem?”
“No, just…” She closed her eyes. She couldn’t argue with her father. No matter what she said, he wouldn’t listen. “I have the right to live my life my way.”
“Your life is going to be short and tragic if you continue on this path.”
“That’s my choice, too.”
“Kenz…” The single syllable was laced with pain.
“I would love your help, Dad. But only if you can help without taking over.”
“I can…I can try.” The hesitation in his voice indicated how much that wasn’t what he wanted to do. “Who is this person you’re with?”
She opened her mouth to answer, then stopped. Here she was acting as if she had everything under control. Meanwhile, the man she’d trusted to help her was gone.
A man who, like her father, made decisions without consulting her, just dragged her along for the ride.
“I have to go.”
“Kenzie, I need to know where you are. I’ll come and…and help.”
The lock clicked.
Kenzie spun as the door swung open and Jasper stepped inside, keys in hand. He looked surprised to see her awake, standing in the middle of the room and talking on the phone at two o’clock in the morning.
“I have to go.”
Dad huffed. “Kenz, we need to talk about—”
“You can reach me at this number, and I’m sure you’ve already tracked it. Just please don’t go all special ops and show up with an extraction team, okay?”
“For now. Please take care of yourself.”
“Love you, too, Dad.” She ended the call and tossed the phone on her bed.
“Hey.” Jaz closed the door behind him. “What are you doing awake?”
The casual greeting, as if he hadn’t disappeared without a word, made her blood pressure rise.
“Where were you?”
He set the room key on the table. “I found something. I think Sterling is involved. I went—”
“You left. You left me alone in the middle of the night without a word. No note. Nothing.”
His expression shifted from excited to wary. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Jaz, what if something had happened to you? How would I have known? I’d just have woken up and waited for you to come back. What if you didn’t?”
“Nothing happened. I’m okay—”
“That’s not the point. I didn’t know where you were. I couldn’t call. I didn’t know anything except that I woke up alone and you were just…gone.”
“I’m sorry.” He sat on the bed he’d slept on, or pretended to sleep on. “I should have left a note.”
“Yes, you should have.” She crossed her arms, aware she was still in the oversized T-shirt and shorts, that her hair was probably a mess, that she must look as rattled as she felt.
Jaz, on the other hand, had changed into the black T-shirt before bed. She’d thought it odd at the time—it wasn’t exactly a sleeping shirt. At some point, he’d gotten up, traded his gym shorts for black jeans, and crept out.
He’d planned it, whatever he’d done. And he hadn’t told her. “You don’t trust me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” She gestured to his skulk-about-in-the-dark outfit. “You knew when we went to bed that you were going to leave, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me. You only tell me what you think I need to know.
You disappear without explanation because you think I’ll be safer not knowing where you are or what you’re doing.
Or maybe you don’t even care about that.
” Her voice cracked, but she pressed on.
“Maybe you just don’t want me in the way. ”
“Kenzie—”
“I’m not your asset, Jaz, some pawn you move around the board to win your game. I’m a person, a person I thought…”
But that was the problem. She was an idiot.
So what if they’d kissed? What did that mean to a man like Jasper Aylett?
“You thought what?” He was no longer wary. He was angry.
“I thought maybe you saw me as a partner, not just a playboy’s…prop.”
“I never treated you like that.” He stood. “All I did was go out—”
“Without telling me.”