Chapter 4
FOUR
STORM
N o one bothers me on the way to the top floor of the Eshu building, except for the girl at the front desk of the high-rise, who made it more than clear that she’s down to fuck at any time and any place, like that Janet Jackson song.
Still, I don’t think about relaxing until the elevator doors slide closed behind me, taking me to the top floor of the penthouse my assistant set me up in for the next eight weeks while I’m in Chicago.
Every time I think about how long I’ll be here and the fact that she’s here, I start to get dizzy—a buzzing starts between my ears, and it feels like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, seconds away from jumping off.
It’s equal parts exhilarating and terrifying.
Me, Storm Alexander Sandoval, the man who’s never terrified of anything…except the five-foot-three woman who stole his heart.
“Get in, get out, go back to business as usual,” I say to the empty elevator car.
Lakeland said it’ll take a month or two to finish the job.
I’m gonna see if I can cut it down to a few weeks.
The longer I stay here, the more likely it is I’ll fuck up somehow —and most likely, I’ll fuck up in a way that concerns Shae.
It’s my top priority to make sure that never happens.
That’s why, even at four-thirty a.m., after not sleeping at all and having a meeting with the CEO of Keystone Financial at noon, I’m wired.
The elevator doors open. I step out of the lift but immediately stop short. A glass wall separates the landing outside the elevator from the condo’s living space, providing a sense of privacy.
But clearly, there’s no privacy to be had in my day, because on the other side of the glass is a face I haven’t seen in months.
“Welcome to La Casa, amigo!” Axel yells through the closed see-through door.
Jesus. I can’t get a nap before I have to deal with his hyper ass?
I open the door after tapping my watch against the panel affixed to the glass.
Axel grins, rocking back and forth on his heels. I can tell he’s giddy about having taken me off guard.
“Your assistant’s computer network is super hackable, by the way. It took nothing to get into her system and change your reservation to this building. But anyway. Nice, right?” Axel throws his arms out to present the space as if he were on MTV Cribs .
Damn, what a throwback.
“You changed the reservation?” I shake my head, too tired to deal with him and his bullshit. Axel, Riale, and I talk nearly every day via the comms system Axel created, but it’s been a minute since I experienced Axel at full force and in person.
“Man, move,” I groan, ready to drop my bags and fall into the nearest bed for at least a few hours of sleep. Since Axel’s here, I know Riale’s not far behind. He wouldn’t have let Axel get this close if it weren’t for a reason.
That’s how it goes for our plan. Being my best friend, Riale is never too far away despite owning a black ops security firm for high-profile individuals, many of whom are connected with Lakeland. Our paths cross often, as he runs my personal security team, too.
But Axel’s a wild card. I see him a few times a year these days while he works behind the scenes, hacking systems and diverting whatever trades he can in Lakeland’s black-market sales and other hacker-for-hire deals.
With the three of us together and away from surveillance, we’ll be able to make a plan.
And I’ll be able to breathe.
“Damn, you’re welcome, nigga,” Axel says, and I take a breath. There’s no need for me to act like a dickhead just because I’m tired.
“My bad,” I grumble, leaving my suitcase by the front door and giving him dap and a sideways hug. Even though his goofy ass gets on my nerves a lot of the time, I miss having him around sometimes.
Pulling away, I go deeper into the suite, drawn to the windows looking over The Loop.
This condo is the type of place I would have gotten for me and Shae, had fate worked in our favor.
It would have been after she finished her MBA at Harvard, of course, because I know she wouldn’t tolerate being away from home for longer than absolutely necessary. But we would have resettled back in Chicago and lived somewhere like this for a few years.
Then, we would have moved to the suburbs and started a family.
But fate is a fickle, vindictive bitch.
“I see you’re in a pissy mood,” Axel says, still smiling. “Let me give you the tour while we wait for your comrade in assholery.”
I shoot him the middle finger.
“All right, so here’s the living room,” Axel says, throwing his arms out as if he were on a game show.
The space is minimalist and clean, everything white and gray.
The floor-to-ceiling windows offer a nice view of the Chicago River, and even though we’re nineteen stories up, dark blobs move along the sidewalks in a steady stream.
“Nice. ETA on Riale?” I ask Axel.
He rolls his eyes a bit before saying, “Fifteen to twenty minutes.” He sounds irritated, and I’m immediately suspicious. Axel and Riale have been cool to each other since the beginning, with Riale treating Axel like an annoying little brother.
But lately, our online communications have gone from cold indifference to outright hostility between them, and shit can’t stay like this.
Discord amongst us will get one of us, or all of us, killed. Before I can question Axel further, he claps and turns on his heel.
“Lemme show you the rest of the unit,” he says brightly, walking away. I follow him into the kitchen, then the dining area, and the office.
“And now, for where the magic happens,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows as if his nickname for me isn’t The Monk for a reason.
Axel flings open the door, and I step inside.
The room’s standard issue, nothing to be excited over.
But then I see it. A high-tech telescope stands next to the broad expanse of windows.
I raise an eyebrow.
“I won’t have much time for stargazing, Axel,” I say, moving closer to the instrument to check out the gauges.
“I thought you might like the view,” he drawls, and I make a face, giving him a side eye.
“The fuck you talking about, Axel?” I look out the window, seeing the building directly across from mine obstructs most of the sightlines.
A light comes on in a unit in the other building, and from this position, I can see directly into the condo. With the telescope, I’ll be able to see the face of whoever’s living there.
“Take a look,” Axel says, like the spider to the fly.
A body moves in the other apartment, and I take a step back.
“What would you do if you saw her again?” he asks softly.
My brain stalls; my synapses spasm at the thought.
I don’t have to ask him who “her” is.
“The fuck kind of question is that, Axel?” I whirl on him.
“Obviously, the Universe is trying to tell you something. Why else would the only condo I could find on such short notice be right across the street from hers? And facing her apartment, no less?”
I gape at him. What?
“Are you trying to tell me that…her apartment is right across the way from mine?”
Axel nods, smiling and rocking back and forth with his hands in his pockets.
A sick draw toward the telescope has my fingers twitching with the need to go to the viewfinder and watch her move.
Watch her be.
Absolutely fucking not, Sandoval.
Bubbling anger and pain cause me to lash out at my friend.
“You wanna call this universal design, or is it more like you’re fucking with me? You don’t want to mess with me about her, Axel,” I grind out. Axel sighs, and I step away from the window—and the telescope—as if it were diseased.
Axel gives me a strange look, and I can tell he wants to say more, but then a loud beep comes from the main entrance.
After the front door opens and shuts, Axel mutters, “Here we go.”
I snap my mouth closed and turn around right as Riale makes an appearance at the doorway. He’s silent, looking from me to Axel to the telescope behind the two of us. His eyes narrow, shooting a lethal look at Axel.
“Storm, you should stay in the Gold Coast house,” Riale grinds out, and I’m taken aback by the venom in his tone.
“Uh, last time I checked, you ain’t my damn Daddy. The fuck?” I say, stepping to him.
Riale looks past me.
“Axel, really ?” he barks.
Axel feigns an innocent look.
“What did I do?” he chimes in.
“You know exactly what you did. Putting him across from the building is one thing, but then you got him a goddamn telescope? Are you trying to send him off the deep end?” Riale shouts by the end of his monologue, and I crack my head from side to side.
“It’s funny,” Axel says in a pointedly unfunny tone. “You are so damn concerned about Storm keeping it together, and yet, here you are?—”
“Shut the fuck up, Axel,” Riale hisses, but Axel jumps into his face.
“Or what, nigga? What you gon’ do?” Axel’s voice is lethal, low, and I hate the fact that I’m standing here in the background. Enough of this.
“You both need to chill the fuck out,” I command, stepping between both men. Riale rolls his eyes and clicks his tongue, leaving the bedroom completely, and Axel looks after his retreating back before chuckling and saying, “Bitch-ass nigga” under his breath.
“Talk,” I say to Axel, lifting a finger and pointing him in the direction of the living room. Riale sits with a pensive look, staring out at the skyline when I enter, Axel close behind me.
“You.” I point to Axel. “Sit.” I point to the empty spot on the opposite end of the couch from Riale.
Axel grumbles but does as directed.
A headache manifests itself behind my temple, and I pinch the bridge of my nose before giving them my attention again.
“We’ve got too much shit to handle, and we’re too close to the finish line to have you two after each other like a bunch of toddlers. So, we’re gonna air this shit out.”
I look between the two of them.
“Right now,” I add. Riale’s jaw tightens, and Axel reclines on the couch, spreading his arms along the back of it.
“Well,” Axel drawls. “Go on, Riale. Tell Storm what’s happening.” The words are meant to be antagonistic, and I draw in a breath to try to calm my nerves.
Riale still doesn’t look at Axel, but after a heartbeat, he says, “Shae’s tied up in the Keystone Financial sale.”
The news lands like an anvil in one of those old-timey cartoons.
“Run that past me again? Shae…Shae Rivers?” As in my ex, Shae? As in the object of my obsession and love and fucking existence since the moment I met her on the Asheford campus?
It all clicks together: Lakeland’s reaction to his ordering me to Chicago, the way he egged me on about her during our last conversation.
I should have known.
Maybe some part of me already did—maybe part of me felt her presence humming just beneath the surface of this bullshit, like electricity in the walls.
Like fate laughing in my face.
I lower myself into the chair across from them, my pulse pounding behind my eyes.
“Explain this to me,” I mutter.
Axel and Riale share a look.
“She and her business partner own a FinTech VC firm called Orisun. Their valuation is through the roof, and they’ve been courting a few acquisition opportunities before landing on this one with Keystone.”
“Who’s her business partner? Do we know them?” I ask.
“Nah, I don’t think so. His name is Zane Gibson. Rich, all-American boy from Connecticut. You know the type,” Axel says, rolling his eyes.
I frown.
“How’d Shae get tied up to someone like that?” I ask, frowning even more deeply. Shae hates pretentious assholes—hell, it took her forever to even see me as an option.
And look where that got you both.
“They were Harvard classmates,” Riale grinds out with a rough, irritated tone. “He’s one of those tech guys. He’s the technical founder for Orisun, while she’s the business head.”
I hum.
“Lakeland knows Shae’s connected,” I say. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past him to have coordinated her meeting this Zane motherfucker all those years ago.
Did I really expect a nigga like Lakeland to stick to his word?
Our deal was simple: I do what he asks, and he’d leave Shae alone. Forever.
It was only a matter of time before he decided to break his vow and go after Shae. Now the question is why.
“I get it,” Axel says, and I realize I said the last part out loud. “We didn’t want to jump to conclusions until we were sure.”
“And now?” I ask.
Riale looks at me, his expression unreadable. “Now, we’re sure.”
A long silence stretches between the three of us, heavy enough to crack open the floor.
“She can’t close that deal,” I say at last, voice flat.
Riale’s head tilts slightly. “And what do you plan to do about it?”
“I’ll talk to her,” I reply, already formulating the approach in my head. “Figure out why she’s interested. Convince her to back off.”
“Storm—” Riale starts, but I cut him off with a look.
“You think I can’t handle her?” My voice is ice now. “Is that what this is about?”
“No.I think you can’t handle what’s between you. What’s left .”
My vision narrows, and my voice goes low.
“I don’t care what’s left. I care that she doesn’t end up on Lakeland’s radar.”
“Too late,” Axel mutters.
I whip my head around.
“From what I can tell, he’s got a lot of eyes on Shae,” Axel says, casting a look at Riale’s grim face. “And that never bodes well.”
And just like that, the mission changes.
I gave up everything for Shae’s safety eight years ago, and I’ll do it again.
Even if it throws everything in jeopardy. Even if it costs me my life.