Thirty-Six
THIRTY-SIX
Emiel
I STILL COULDN’T WRAP my head around the idea of Byron stashing Tony away from his fucked-up family. Byron was supposed to be the asshole. It was how things worked in this house.
Sure, he was good with the kids at the Hope Project—convincing them to listen to boring crap like lectures on budgeting and investments, even though half of ’em would normally be fast asleep within the first ten minutes. But this ... it was different.
He’d kept that shit quiet for how long, exactly? Just done what needed to be done and not told the rest of us, because if Zalen found out, it’d put him in a bad position. Course, now Zalen had found out, and it didn’t sound like he was gonna be rushing to tell the cops or Tony’s shitty parents where the kid was hiding. Not anytime soon.
Really, it was perfect—Tony just needed to stay off the radar until he was old enough for the courts to grant him emancipated minor status. Then he could reappear mysteriously with some story about living on the streets or whatever, and get the piece of paper that would protect him from his asshole stepdad.
In fact, it was so perfect I was a little bit pissed off that Byron was the one who’d come up with it. Which, yeah, was kind of stupid. Zalen couldn’t have done it with the police and Tony’s mom breathing down his neck about the whole thing. And I didn’t have anyone I could have sent Tony to stay with for safekeeping. Same for Luca, I was willing to bet.
So, okay... maybe it had to be this way. I just didn’t like having to change the way I thought about stuff. Or people. Especially people like Byron.
Byron and me, we had our thing. Which was basically that we lived together and kind of hated each other’s guts, but we’d still help each other out in a bind because—thanks to Zalen—we were sort of a pack, even if no one liked to talk about it.
Anyway, now I had to think differently about the asshole because he’d done something really good, when none of the rest of us could. And he was missing, along with Luca and Nat.
Zalen had trudged down the hall to his room after talking to me. I hadn’t heard any noise coming from inside for the last couple of hours. Which hopefully meant he was grabbing a bit of sleep.
Mia shifted restlessly against my side. She’d managed a few fractured hours of rest, punctuated by whimpers of distress that tore at my heart. Of course it had ended up being the three people she was closest to that got snatched. Life was fuckin’ unfair like that... but somehow it was even harder to swallow when it was unfair to her .
“Wha—?” she rasped, lifting her head away from my chest.
I’d spent most of my life avoiding touch, and only a handful of weeks allowing this kind of closeness. So, why did her absence feel cold the moment I lost contact with her?
She sat up, blinking in the mid-morning light filtering through Luca’s heavy blinds. I saw the weight of what had happened last night settle over her slender shoulders as confusion gave way to dismay.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
“Zalen came back earlier,” I told her. “He talked to Byron’s gran, an’ she gave him another lead to check on. I think he’s getting’ ready to leave now.”
I could hear clumsy movement stirring down the hall; the kind of stumbling around that meant someone should’ve either slept longer, or not gone to bed at all.
“Oh,” she said again. “Okay. That’s good.”
“You need to get ready for the restaurant?” I asked.
She chewed her lip. “Emiel, I don’t know if I can do this. Act normal when they’re missing, I mean. Go into work like nothing’s wrong.”
I climbed to my feet on creaking joints and went to pick up Princess from the pile of cushions where she’d been curled up. I dropped her gently into Mia’s arms. “Pretty sure you can do anything you set your mind to,” I told her. “I expect Princess agrees.”
Mia always tried to make it sound like I was the one that rescued Princess. But the truth was, if she hadn’t been here to light a fire under my ass, Princess would’ve been put to sleep in the animal shelter without me ever finding her.
Mia cuddled the little gray cat against her chest for a long moment, pressing her face against Princess’ sleek fur. Then she got up, and there were fresh tear tracks on her cheeks as she cradled Princess in one arm, reaching out to grab my shirt front with her free hand.
I didn’t expect the press of her lips against mine as she pulled me down, and herself up enough to slot our mouths together. The unexpected kiss sent blood rushing down to my dick, which sprang up hard and ready against the inside of my pants.
Run , screamed the broken parts inside me. The muscles in my arms twitched with the instinct to push her away, to stop everything before a terrible monster made of shadows attacked both of us.
But this was Mia.
Mia , who’d said she wanted it when I’d had sex with her and believed that maybe I’d raped her. Mia , who’d slept curled up against my side on what was probably one of the worst days of her life. I let my breath out slowly through my nose, and tentatively reached a hand up to cradle the back of her neck as our lips slid together.
The kiss wasn’t long, or deep. She broke it, resting her forehead against mine.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I should have asked first.”
I had to swallow hard a couple of times. “S’all right. I wanted it. I want everything with you, Mia. Just need to sort out my shit first.”
She nodded against me and pulled back, letting Princess squirm free and hop down to the floor. “I know. And... I’ll be waiting, Emiel. But I’m still sorry I did that when the others are gone like this.”
“Zalen’ll get them back somehow,” I said, with maybe a bit more confidence than I actually felt. “And in the meantime, you’ve got an amazing restaurant to run.”
“Yeah,” she said on a sigh. “Guess I’d better grab a shower.” Her teeth worried her lower lip once more. “It’s stupid, but could you... stay with me? I promise not to spring any more surprise kisses on you.”
Now that the adrenaline spike had faded, I wasn’t sure surprise kisses would be such a bad thing—but she was probably right that now wasn’t the time.
“I’m on bodyguard duty,” I told her. “You get in the shower; I’ll grab you some fresh clothes from your room and hand you a towel when you’re done.”
I ignored the squirming in my insides at the idea of being in a steamy bathroom with her while she was naked behind a flimsy shower curtain. After all, it wasn’t a bad squirming, exactly. Maybe this was the kind of thing my therapist had meant when she talked about desensitization. Like, baby steps.
“Thanks,” she breathed.
Zalen was already off checking out whatever lead he’d gotten last night by the time Mia and I left the house. She’d covered up her tear-blotchiness with makeup, painting on a professional face for the world.
I was driving her, because after last night, as far as I was concerned, ‘ keeping Mia safe’ meant not letting her out of my sight once she stepped out of the house. With Nat gone, she’d be the first one to show up at the restaurant. If it turned out that Nat had been the kidnapping target because he was one of the owners, whoever took him might’ve known Mia would be vulnerable when she showed up to unlock the place.
Soulard was bustling on a Saturday morning, and that was in our favor.
“We’re doing a drive-by first,” I warned her. “And then we’re gonna go in the front door, not the back.”
Her complexion paled, but she nodded in understanding.
There was no one loitering around the front of the building, but there were a couple of vehicles parked along the block that I didn’t like the look of—including a sketchy-as-fuck unmarked white van. When I slow-drove past the mouth of the alley, though, there were two figures standing in the shadows toward the back.
“ Fuck ,” I said. “Call the police, Mia. Tell ’em there’s two armed men loitering in the same alley where three people disappeared last night. Give ’em hell until they send a squad car here to check.”
Her eyes were very wide as she scrambled for her phone. “You can tell they’re armed?” she asked incredulously.
“Nah,” I replied. “I’m just guessing. It’ll probably shift the cops off their asses, though.”
If these guys had been scoping out the place, they wouldn’t associate my old Bronco with Mia. So, I felt comfortable parking down the block while we waited for the cops to show up. To their credit, they did in about ten minutes, which Mia spent texting all her employees and warning them to use the front door when they came in to work.
When a white Chevy Tahoe with flashing lights and police markings showed up and parked in front of the alley, the van peeled out like someone had lit its tailpipe on fire. I clicked several pictures as it went, hoping to get the license plate number now that my view wasn’t blocked by the car parked behind it.
Moments later, two guys came pelting out of the alley, darting past the squad car. A uniformed cop slid out of the passenger side and legged it in pursuit, then the squad car headed in the same direction with sirens blaring.
“Guess we cleared out the rats,” I said with satisfaction.
“And if they can catch them, maybe the police will get serious about the missing persons case,” Mia added grimly.
“If you want, I’ll monitor your phone while you’re working today, in case the cops call back for more information,” I told her. “And I also want to do a walkthrough of the restaurant, just to make sure no one broke in.”
She shuddered, but firmed her jaw and gave me a resolute nod. “Let’s go, then. My employees will start showing up soon, and like you said, I’ve got a fucking amazing restaurant to run.”