Chapter 57 The Long Con
THE LONG CON
AURORA
Itriple-check my bag before leaving the room as if the flash drive is going to evaporate into thin air.
It's still twenty minutes before we're set to leave for the airport, but I'm feeling extra punctual.
Other than maybe not having all the data from Ambrose's computer, I think this risk paid off.
I got some hopefully useful intel, am still in one piece, and managed to stave off Ambrose's attempts to get me to stay—although I did have to make a compromise involving some personal security personnel—but it's not like they weren't already there before I left.
I just gave him permission to stop pretending they weren't.
"Miss Aurora," Santiago says, making me jump so violently that my shoulder knocks into the doorframe. I rub the sore spot as he asks, "Sorry. Is this all you're taking with you?"
I look down at the bag in my hand. "Oh. Yes. This is all I need."
"But your new clothes—"
"I'm sure I'll be back soon."
No, I won't.
He smiles graciously. "Very well. I can take this to the car for you."
I yank the bag out of his reach reflexively and then cover my hastiness with a small chuckle. "I'm perfectly capable of carrying this one all by myself."
I wink for good measure.
After the shit with the tracker from my bra and my old clothes and boots not making the trip to Spain with me, I am not going to risk losing this bag or what it contains.
No. Fucking. Way.
He nods and bows. "Of course. I'll go see if there's anything else I can assist with in preparing to depart."
"Thanks for everything," I call after him, particularly grateful now that there are only hours left before I can see my Ellie girl and the guys.
I don't even know how I made it through some of these nights without her, but somehow I slept at least five hours every night since I arrived. I blame the fresh sea air.
There's a bounce in my step as I take the stairs down to the main floor and stroll into the library. Ambrose said we should meet here before we leave for the airport.
I'm headed for the couch to wait for him when his office doors open. "You're early."
I grin at Ambrose. "I can come back if you aren't ready."
He's quick to dismiss that idea. "No. Please, come in."
A little shiver of unease races through me as he reenters his office, beckoning for me to follow.
But there's nothing to be worried about.
If Ambrose noticed something amiss in his office, he would've mentioned it three days ago. He wouldn't have waited until now.
I'm not a spy, I say in my head, the mask leveling out my expression to a pleasant one.
I'm his daughter.
The daughter he laughed with at dinner last night. The same one he promised to teach how to ride a horse, since we missed out on bike riding and playing catch.
I'm harmless.
I don't enter the same office I exited three days ago. Not exactly.
It's impossible not to notice the empty spot on the wall where Florence's painting was, but I try not to stare at it. The other painting is gone, too.
…and so is the computer monitor.
But Ambrose's harmless daughter, Delilah, hasn't ever been in this room, so she does a little turn to admire the space. The shelves are still filled with rich people office things—hourglasses and vintage books and little fancy trinkets—so I focus on those as Ambrose sits opposite me at his desk.
He pulls a thin stack of pages from a drawer and sets them down atop the desk where his computer monitor once rested, giving me a curious look.
He looks different, and I can't place why.
He's in the same style of tailored shirt and vest he wears every day.
His salt-and-pepper hair is the same. Is it his beard?
Maybe it's a little shorter than last night—the edges crisp as if he's had a straight razor shave. That's got to be it.
It takes me a little too long to realize he's waiting for me to sit down opposite him, in the chair that wasn't there before.
I perch at the edge of it and pull my bag onto my lap.
Ambrose pauses between glancing over one page of the document on his desk and another, dark eyes dropping to my lap. "Why do you have your bag?"
I bark a laugh. "Just making sure I'm ready to go when you are."
He stares at me long enough that I know it's not the beard that's different. It's something else.
The laughter chokes off in my throat when Ambrose cocks his head at me, his thick brows pulling together.
"Go?"
My fingers flex against the leather of my bag. "To the airport."
Why did that sound like a question?
"Airport?" he asks as if he has no idea what I'm talking about, and it's hard to hear my own thoughts over the drum beating loudly in my chest, making my palms slick against my bag.
"We're supposed to leave for the airport around eight this morning," I remind him, struggling to maintain the pleasant expression on my face.
A drip of cold sweat drops between my breasts, and the mask nearly slips, but I manage to catch it before it falls completely. "Landing in Charlotte by about one o'clock eastern, right?"
I did not get the times wrong.
I told 'Céce' I'd be back at the apartment by four at the latest, and I am not missing a very important—very overdue—snuggle with my Ellie girl.
The expression of confusion on Ambrose's stupid face doesn't shift even a fraction, and my stomach sours.
"Did I get the times wrong?"
He frowns and sets the papers down, clasping his hands atop them slowly, like he's about to give a lecture or scold a child. "Aurora, we've talked about this."
I gape at him.
"You can't leave." He sits back in his chair with a sigh. "It simply isn't safe."
"Okay," I start tentatively, but even I can hear the note of annoyance and frustration in my tone. "I understand your concerns, but—"
My voice is rising and I stop to try to get control of it.
He's been so pushy about trying to convince me to stay or move to one of his more private properties in the States.
I should have anticipated this. But to blatantly act like there wasn't a concrete plan for me to fly home today is on another level, and anyone, even perfect Delilah De La Rosa, would be angry about it.
"Like I said," I start again, more slowly, more calmly. "I'm not willing to completely abandon my life. I have classes. Friends. A job."
"Trivial things compared to family, don't you think?"
He's being completely serious, I can see it in his eyes. He's already decided.
And that's what's different about him. It's not something physical at all. It's the bad feeling in my stomach and the way I'm mentally mapping the exits.
He may look the same on the outside, but something has shifted on the inside. He isn't playing Daddy Warbucks anymore. He's someone else, and I should've fucking seen him coming.
I wet my dry lips and swallow. I need to be certain here about what's going on—why he's doing this.
"So we're clear, there is no return trip home?"
He levels me with an unwavering stare, leaning over the table. "You are home, Delilah. And I intend to keep you close."
I stand up and turn for the door, but there are two men in front of it. They're in full tac gear, armed, and stone-faced. I recognize one from the files in Ambrose's cabinet. He's ex-military. They call him Coyote.
I back up and scan the office, but the only other exit point is a window behind Ambrose's desk, and the only place it leads is a hundred feet down into craggy rock and sea.
Think, Aurora. Think.
But I can't make sense of this. Why? Why is he doing this?
Behind me, Ambrose's chair scrapes backward. "I know you must be feeling…a certain way at the moment, but there's no reason to be upset. I'm only trying to do what's best for you as your father. You understand, don't you?"
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as he crowds me from behind.
When I turn to face him, I stand as tall as I'm able to and sling my pack over my shoulder. "Tell them to move."
For three heartbeats, he looks down his nose at me, composed and sure, and on the fourth, his lips split into something that's not quite a smile, but more a mimicry of one.
Alarm bells ring in my ears, and I lurch back as the sound leaves his mouth. It comes all at once. Loud and echoing in the silence of his office. Ambrose laughs at me. Laughs so hard his face turns red, and he can barely breathe as he holds his sides like the force of it physically pains him.
My teeth creak from the pressure of clamping them so tightly together.
What the fuck is happening right now? I've seen mental breakdowns—I've fucking had one or two myself—but this?
This doesn't seem like that.
This isn't a breakdown, it's him…breaking free.
The sound of his laughter quiets, but it's already burrowed into my chest and made a nest of dread there.
"Oh god," he pants, wiping a tear from his eye. "Aurora…"
He gives me a dubious look while I calculate my odds of survival if I jump out that fucking window. Or my chances of outrunning two men over six feet tall if I can get past them.
"My sweet, innocent, lying daughter."
I freeze.
What did he just say?
He isn't laughing now. There's murder in his stare, and he's pointing it directly at me.
"Did you really think I didn't know?"