21. Tiia
Nerves prickle my skin and leave a sickening sludge in the base of my stomach. Police lights swirl outside, though it’s daytime, so the blue and red don’t penetrate nearly as ominously as they would in the dark. Cops wander the street, while others take statements from anyone who witnessed the incident that has everyone in a tizzy.
And yet, I sit on my desk, my feet on a stool, and I bite my nails as I stare at the glass front door.
Five minutes pass from when Micah hung up.
Ten minutes.
My palms slick with sweat.
Fifteen minutes, and I’m not sure I’ll keep my breakfast inside my body.
“This is messing with my business, Ms. Hale.” Jakeline stomps from her office and shoots me a glare. My posture and position atop my desk are hardly elegant. Neither are the bedrock for upscale shopping, or for hoping a customer might consider spending five or six figures.
I nibble on my thumbnail and finger the new pendant in my left hand. I run the pad of my thumb over the emeralds, and when another minute clicks by and still no Malones walk through the door, I tiptoe shakily closer to insanity.
I shouldn’t need him this much.
I shouldn’t want him here like this.
I shouldn’t let his existence and proximity literally affect my well-being.
But that’s who I am now. It’s what I am.
I fell in love on the job, and I’ll be damned if I can undo the damage I’ve caused.
“Tiia?” Micah bursts through the shop door, his broad form taking up the entire doorway and his eyes spearing straight across to mine. Instantly, the breath stuck in my lungs empties. Horrifyingly, my eyes itch with tears I refuse to let free.
But he’s here.
Safe.
Alive.
Looking at me like he truly, genuinely, gives a shit. “Grá.” He releases the handle and crosses to me. Doesn’t matter who else is in here. Doesn’t matter who is outside. Or that the media vans line up for a scoop. Doesn’t matter that he’s Micah friggin’ Malone, brother to the don. And chances are, he and I will be on the six o’clock news tonight.
Nothing matters, because he’s here, and when he’s close enough to wrap me in a hug, my breath shudders out on what most others would consider a sob. “You’re crying?”
“No.” I sniffle as quietly as I can manage, wiping my cheek on his expensive suit and linking my hands around his back. Then I crush my face to his chest and just… be. For a minute, at least, before the rest of the world encroaches. “I don’t cry. Ever.”
“Okay.” Pulling back, he cups my cheeks and shows me a gentle smile. “Gave you a scare, huh? Did the guy come anywhere near you?”
I shake my head, dangling earrings tapping the sides of my neck with each swing. “Literally nowhere near me. I was being dumb when I called you.”
“I’m glad you did.” He presses a kiss to the center of my forehead and undoes me. So sweet. So protective. He leaves his lips resting against my skin, allowing me to hide. For a single, traitorous tear to roll along my cheek and down to my chin. “I kinda like that Ms. Independent needs me,” he croons. “That chick who went toe-to-toe with me outside CeCe’s, and then again in here not all that long ago, is fun and all. But this,” he rubs my back, trailing his fingertips along my spine, “this is nice, too.”
“Where’s Felix?” I hate that I have to ask. That my question makes Micah’s hand jolt for a beat. But I need to know. “Is he here?”
“He’s around.” Pulling back, he strokes my jaw and searches my eyes. “Secure. Have the cops talked to you yet?”
“Yeah. I didn’t have a lot to tell them, since I didn’t see the guy. So they just asked what I heard and wrote that down.”
“Do they have any idea who the perp was?”
I shrug, refastening my arms around his wide frame and resting my cheek over his heart. I know he carries guns; I feel them under his jacket. I know a knife nestles in his pocket; I feel it against my hip. He could be arrested for those alone.
I know it.
He knows it.
If any of the cops littered along this block wanted to, they could incarcerate the man purely based on the weapons he carries on his body today. But he doesn’t seem all that worried, and for as long as he holds me, I struggle to find concern for the matter, too.
“Tiia?”
“No. I don’t know.” I draw a deep breath and fill it till my chest aches, then I exhale again. “I don’t know what they’re doing. But I’m glad you came.”
“Have you had lunch?” He goes back to stroking my skin. To soothing me, when I admit to thinking, not so long ago, that the giant was incapable. “Noon was a long time ago, Grá.”
“I had a granola bar and Pepsi.” My lips curl up, because I know my answer won’t please him. “I wasn’t super hungry, and I know we’re getting dinner tonight.”
“You’d be less unsteady and emotional during incidents like today if you ate better.”
I snort. “I’m not sure eating an entire rotisserie chicken for lunch could have helped once I heard that gun being loaded.” Pulling back and leaning against the edge of my desk, I discreetly wipe beneath my nose and glance up, teary-eyed, to meet his stare. “Stop micromanaging my diet. It’s weird.”
“You’re weird.” He stands alone now, his hands dropping to his pockets and his suit, hugging every inch of his body. Surely he must melt under the weight of a full outfit. It must be suffocating to have to be so formal, even in the depths of summer. But he doesn’t look disheveled or bothered. Even as the day wears on, he looks as put together now as he did when he dropped me off at my apartment. “So it seems we’ve found ourselves in a bit of a situation, Tiia Hale.” He glances down at his shoes, but peers up from beneath long lashes when I frown. “It’s a problem for me.”
“What situation?” I glance around the shop, all but void of other human beings. Jakeline is in her office, weeping about lost revenue, and customers are outside, soaking up the drama of a police investigation. “What problem?”
“You.” He licks his lips and pulls the bottom between his teeth. I get the distinct feeling he plays with them now purely for my benefit. Or my detriment. He pulls my focus there when my eyes already so naturally watch his words anyway. “You’re my problem, Grá. And I have no fucking clue how to fix it.”
“What’s there to fix?” Screw the police outside; my attention and adrenaline now focus entirely on the mafia enforcer who has deemed me a problem. “I don’t understand.”
“Well…” He glances over his left shoulder, searching for listening ears. Then to the right, to ensure we’re alone. Finally, he takes a step forward and grins. “Seems I’ve gone and fallen in love with a woman I’m not sure I deserve.”
My eyes shoot wide. Panic and possession and, holy shit, anxiety, swirling for dominance.
“I’m not sure I get to keep you. So now my dilemma lies in the fact that you took something from me. Or I willingly gave it to you. I’m unsure which it was. And an hour ago, I was concerned I’d gone and fucked up, considering I’m not the kind of man who’s gonna do something so foolish. But here you are, Tiia, scared and needing someone…” He stares into my eyes and breaks my heart, all in a single beat of what we have, “Your parents are alive. You have a twin brother. A sister you like enough not to pair up with Cato. You have friends you love, and a life filled with people who care about you.”
“Micah—”
“But when you needed help,” he presses, “when you were scared, you called me.”
Shitttttt. I sigh out loud.
“That kinda means you have feelings for me, too.” His lips curl high, smugness radiating through his expression until I simply want to melt into my desk and disappear. “So I’m here, Tiia. I came, because you asked me to. And in a couple of hours,” he checks his watch and silently counts, “In three hours, I’m gonna pick you up. I’ll take you to my house and we’ll have dinner. Because I’m not ready to spend my downtime without you yet.”
Oh god,I silently groan. Oh god, oh god, oh god.
He pinches my chin and draws my eyes up when I’d rather study my feet and die.
“I swore to never, ever bring a woman to my home, Grá. To never bring her into my world and put her life in danger. But here we are anyway. And I can’t give you up just yet.”
“Boss?”
The shop door opens and a man I recognize as one of Micah’s guards, Stovic, stops on the threshold. He raises a brow when Micah glances over his shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt, but we have an issue in Harlem.” The man looks at me for a beat, a curious once-over as though unsure whether he can speak in front of me. “The club…” He clears his throat. “There was a drive-by.”
Tears prickle the backs of my eyes again. A sob, desperate to claw its way along my throat.
“Jasper got hit, Boss.”
Micah’s stance turns stoney. Hard. “Dead?”
“No. But he’s heading in for surgery.”
“Alright.” He checks his watch again. “We were gonna be at that club. Lix was the target.” Dropping his hand, he tells his man, “Get the car and inform Felix if he doesn’t already know.” Then he turns back to me. Our moment of emotion is gone. Our friendliness. Our peace. He cups my face in tight hands and pulls me up, stretching my neck until I can’t elongate any more. Then he smacks a kiss to my lips. “Don’t worry so much. Don’t leave the shop. I’ll keep Stovic posted outside for the rest of today to make sure you’re okay. I doubt next door’s gunman is coming back, though.”
“Do you have to go?” My stomach aches. My hands hurt. My heart and soul shrivel. “Can’t you stay here?”
“Jasper is my friend, Grá. I have to make sure he’s okay.” He presses a kiss to my cheek. “I’ll pick you up in three hours.”
Then he turns on his heels and starts away, his absence almost as profound as if his body leaving the room also takes the oxygen with it.
He swings the door wide and steps through, bringing Stovic with him. But they stop on the other side, leaving the door open, while Micah’s hand drops on his soldier’s shoulder and he murmurs, “Stay on Tiia. No exceptions. Get her home once she’s done. I’ll be there by six to relieve you.”
“Yes, Boss.”
Micah peers over his shoulder and meets my eyes, letting the door close slowly, the blinds on my side of the glass just enough to encumber our view.
He remains for a long beat. His stance, statue-like until I find myself not breathing. People and cars move outside. Policemen wander from shop to shop. Pedestrians stick around in hopes to see something, completely clueless to the fact New York’s deadliest man stands amongst them.
Finally, Micah’s phone rings and his eyes peel from mine, releasing me from our stare-off and reminding me to inhale once more.
He nods for Stovic, placing him as my guard, then he turns on his heels and slides into a sleek black car when it comes to stop at the sidewalk.
“Holy shit.” Roscoe emerges from the back room of Jakeline’s shop, his eyes dancing with arrogance and his chest bouncing with laughter. Like he thinks my worst day ever is something to celebrate. “He went and fell in love with you, Ipo! What a fuckin’ idiot.”
“Shut up, Roscoe.” My eyes itch again, stinging and irritating as I step away from my desk and cross to the shop door to flip the open sign to closed. Jakeline will be pissed. But I have nothing to give anyone else right now. I have no mental strength left to fake my life. “Mind your business.”
“This is my business. Literally!” He plops his ass on my desk where I sat moments ago, his feet on the stool, then his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “What’s it like inside his house? Do they slit throats in the hallways? Bricks of cash on the kitchen table?”
“Stop talking to me.” Crossing the store, I snatch up my empty coffee mug and stalk into the back room. I need space. Solitude. I need caffeine, and maybe a Prozac. “I did what you wanted me to. Now I’m done discussing it.”