Chapter 3 #2
“Oh, they’ll notice, they paid a fortune for it, but these are a wonderful replacement.”
“Do you need help getting them on the table? That’s a big bouquet,” I said.
“I have it,” Noah said, and I watched as he carefully lifted the flowers off the cart and placed them on the table.
“Thank you so much. Tell Carina y’all saved my ass with that one. Now, off to see what disasters await.” She turned and hurried off.
I waited until she was gone before I turned to Noah. “So, a place we can talk?”
“Can it wait? We’re in the middle of setting up a wedding.” He motioned around dramatically like I didn’t already realize what this was. “How did you find me, anyway?”
“We tracked your phone. And no, it can’t wait; we need to call Wolfe.”
He sighed. “Okay. Let’s go talk to my boss and let her know I’ll be out of commission for a bit.”
I followed him down the hall and through a door and walked into a sea of flowers. They were everywhere. On the tables, on the counters, on the shelves. The scent was thick, sweet, and edged with something cool and clean. It hit me before I’d taken two steps in.
“Wow,” I said, drawing all the eyes in the room to us.
A tall, willowy woman paused what she was doing and lifted one eyebrow at us.
“Sorry, Carina. I need to take a break for a few minutes. Something important has come up.”
“I won’t keep him long,” I added. “I can see how busy y’all are.”
She gave me an appraising look, then turned to Noah. “Are you okay?”
He let out a breath and nodded. “Yeah, I hope so. Do you think we could use the staff breakroom?”
“That should be fine. Everyone’s busy setting up, so it’s probably empty.”
We went into a small room off to the side. There was a table with a couple of chairs, a fridge, and a counter with a microwave and a coffee pot.
“Do you want a cup of coffee?” He glanced at the half-full pot of coffee and rubbed at that poor lip he’d been chewing on earlier.
I could think of better uses for those pretty little lips, but now wasn’t the place or the time for such thoughts.
I was here to pass on the warning, not to take advantage.
“Sure. Black is fine.” I didn’t really want a cup, but he needed a minute to get ready to hear what I had to say, so I figured the least I could do was give him that.
He pulled two cups down off a shelf, filled one with coffee, and handed it to me. Then he added a tea bag to the other and filled it with hot water. “I’m not really a coffee drinker.”
“I wasn’t until I joined the military. I swear some days we lived on this shit.” I took a drink and waited for him to get his tea ready.
After a minute, he took a seat across from me. He used the tag on the tea bag to lift it in and out of the cup while he prepared himself to talk with me. Finally, he looked up at me and sighed. “Okay, hit me with it.”
“I know the basic details, but I won’t be able to answer your questions. For that, let’s give Wolfe a call.” He nodded, and I placed my phone on the table between us and called Wolfe. He picked up right away.
“Hey, Crowe, did you find him?”
“I did. He’s sitting right here with me. I’m on speaker phone.”
“Great. Hello, Noah.”
“Hi. Sorry I didn’t answer. I was just super busy at work, and I left my phone in the van and—”
“It’s okay, Noah,” Wolfe interrupted. “It was just our good luck that Crowe happened to be nearby, so he was able to go to you.”
“I haven’t told him anything yet,” I said so he would know where to start.
“Okay. Noah, do you remember Kat?”
“I do,” he said, nodding.
“Okay, well, I had her set up passive monitoring on your identity or any attempt to locate you. You know, pings on the dark web, social media searches, government webpage hits, things like that.”
“Okay.”
His voice was steady, but the up and down motion of his tea bag was growing more manic, so I reached across the table and stilled his hand and mouthed it’s okay. He took a breath and nodded as Wolfe continued.
“These things happen to everyone all the time. Most of the time, it’s totally innocent. Like those pre-qualified letters you get from credit cards or car warranty companies trying to get enough info about what you drive to sound legit, stuff like that.
“But we got a different hit on your name, overnight. One that was a little more invasive and a lot more persistent. We aren’t sure how much they were able to learn, and it’s concerning. Do you have any idea what country the man they were holding you for was from?”
Noah shook his head. “No, I don’t. I’ve tried to think of anything they said that would help, but like I told Agent Kelly, they called him the prince, but not like he was actually a prince. Like it was a derogatory name they had for him.”
“Well, that tracks because Kat was able to narrow it down to the island of Selvaris.”
“Selvaris? I’ve never heard of it before. Where is that?” Noah asked.
“In the Mediterranean,” Wolfe said. “It’s an old-school monarchy. It’s a small country, but insanely wealthy. The kind of place where the government and a handful of elite families run everything.”
“And you think someone from there is who”—he paused and swallowed like the words he was about to say tasted bad in his mouth—“paid for me?”
“We don’t know for sure, but it’s likely.”
“And you think they found me?”
“We don’t know that either, Noah, but it’s suspicious. It would make me feel better if you would come stay here with us until we sort it all out.”
Noah shook his head vehemently. “No, I can’t. Carina is counting on me. This is a big wedding.” He looked at me, eyes wide. “You saw all the flowers in there. We have so much to do today to get everything ready. I can’t just leave her in a bind like that. I won’t.”
I gave him a small nod. “I’ll stay with him until the work is done, and then we can get on the road.”
His shoulders relaxed, and he gave me the tiniest of smiles. “Thank you.”
“Okay, but as soon as possible, you head this direction. Bring enough stuff to stay for a bit. We don’t know how long this will take.”
I hung up the phone, and Noah slumped down in his seat.
“I knew this was going to happen. I kept telling myself that whoever he was, he would let it go. That the risk would be too high to try to come after me now that I wasn’t being held in that fucking basement, but no matter how many times I said it, I never believed it. I knew he would come.”
“Hey,” I said loud enough to pull him back from wherever his head was taking him. “You’re safe with me. I won’t let him get you.”
He drew in a long, deep breath and nodded before pushing to his feet. “I need to get back to work, but you’re staying?”
“I am.”
“I’ll have to explain to Carina what’s going on.”
We left the break room and went back into the area where they were hard at work arranging flowers. When we walked in, Carina looked up at us.
She locked gazes with Noah and asked, “Is everything okay?”
He shook his head. “This is Jackson Crowe. He works for the men I told you about. The ones who rescued me.” The young man who’d been working with Noah’s head jerked up, eyes wide, but Noah didn’t notice.
“They think it’s possible that man found me.
He wants me to go back with him so they can keep me safe until they figure things out. ”
“Well, shit,” she muttered under her breath as she put down the arrangement she was working on and came around the table. She gripped both his shoulders and then dropped her hands down to his wrists and held on. “I really hoped this day wouldn’t come.”
“So did I.”
She dropped his arms and took a step back. “Okay then. I guess you need to get on the road.” She looked at me. “Where are you taking him?”
“I’d really rather not say.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense. But you call me when you get there, Noah. I want to hear from you, or I’ll be making some phone calls. I have connections.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“But I can’t just leave you here with this.” Noah waved his arm at the flowers all over the counters. “Jackson’s going to stay with me until the wedding is over, and then I’ll go with him.”
“Noah, your safety is more important than this event. We got the arch made… that was the hard part. Levi and I can handle the rest. You two get going.”
I was glad that was her response because, while I would’ve stayed with him, the truth was, I would feel a lot better if I could shove Noah in my car and drive him straight to HQ where I knew he would be safe.
Noah looked around at the mess, and I could see he wanted to argue with her, but her tone had brooked no argument, and he knew it. “Okay, we’ll go by my place and pack a bag, then we’ll get on the road.”