Chapter Eight
Diego
It had been over a week since she left me empty, and I was taking it out on everyone I knew.
My latest victim was my assistant. Everything she did annoyed me, and I told her so.
She was a good girl from a small Midwestern town, but I wanted to fire her for no reason other than I couldn’t find my sweet nothing.
My woman disappeared into oblivion like she was just my imagination.
After a night of pure bliss, I was left alone, searching in a sea of millions, growing angrier every day.
“Don’t you have any damn work to do?” I barked out at her as if she were the problem.
She rolled her eyes at me. “I did everything I was supposed to do. I was here waiting for the phone to ring, like a good receptionist.” I swore this woman had no self-preservation or no idea who I really was or she’d watch her damn tone.
Especially since I was feeling quite murderous.
I saw her doodling in her notebook every day.
She thought I didn’t know what she did, but she had no idea how much I knew about her.
I’d gone over the footage from the hotel lobby, to the subway, and even the vendor to get a better look at the hoodie she purchased.
The slick woman paid in cash—something most people didn’t even carry anymore.
Damn it, she was smooth and quick. I had a team following the subway lines, but they lost her, and unfortunately, the street cameras only went so far.
We’d have to hit up restaurants and stores to see if they caught her.
The city’s surveillance system, with its facial recognition software, wasn’t available to men like me, and although I could get some access, it was limited.
She was caught on camera once, but then she kept her head down, and strangely, her image couldn’t be found in the system anywhere. It told me she had connections or wasn’t registered as a New York resident with the DMV.
“Jack, come in here. I need you to do a job; it’s menial, but I have a purpose.”
He nodded, and then I continued. “I want you to go about and get me the images of every daughter, sister, female, cousin around the age of twenty to twenty-five of every one of my enemies and associates.”
“Does this have to do with the girl who left?”
He asked too many questions. “What do you think?”
“I’ll take care of it, boss.”
Over the weekend, I had two dozen images of different women strewn across my desk.
I’d taken the next batch over to my bed with a glass of whiskey.
Photo after photo, not a single one was of her.
I tossed back a drink and then threw the folder on my nightstand before laying back on the pillows, pissed as hell.
Where the fuck was she, and how the hell was I going to find her?
As we drove into the tow trucking office, I had Vasco pull over after a red light. I had to do a double-take when I saw my security specialist on a billboard in Times Square in a sensual perfume ad with a woman.
I gasped. “Ava?” It was my assistant. I thought it was quite strange, something neither of them mentioned to me. The failure to mention the connection made me a little concerned. Were they together, or were they working against me for some reason? I never liked coincidences.
While searching the ad on my phone, I found a video and damn, they had chemistry that appeared purely all too real.
Neither of them were professional actors or models, but you wouldn’t be able to tell.
I still had to verify how they met and if it had to do with me.
Somehow, I was going to get answers from her when she showed up at work today.
I arrived before her and waited impatiently, curious about their relationship and whether I was about to lose my assistant.
When she strolled in with a tear-stained face, I could tell something was wrong, and I almost wanted to choke Keaton for that.
I had been pissed off lately and was taking it out on my assistant, but she normally just gave me attitude.
That was genuine hurt on her face. The only man in her life right now was obviously him.
Or that perverted brother of his, who I couldn’t stand for shit.
I let her run to the bathroom and clean her face. Hoping to lighten the mood after her tears, I turned my phone so her ad was on the screen and said, “Well, I see why you have been anxious to get the fuck out of here early lately.”
“Actually, I was doing a favor for a friend and filled in.”
“Wow, so your friends have you taking your clothes off. I didn’t know you needed that kind of money. If you needed a raise, you could have asked for real responsibilities.”
“No offense, but I don’t ask questions, and I don’t want to take on responsibilities.
I want to be a writer, so my goal is to eventually move on from this job.
” Wow, that snotty tone told me that my assistant was well aware that my dealings weren’t always clean, and she still managed to give me attitude.
“I understand,” I said with a clipped tone.
“Do you?”
“God, you have a smart mouth, and if I didn’t think you were such a good person…”
“Thank you for that, Mr. Hernandez.” So she understood the type of man I was. At least we had that understanding. I’d never hurt a woman unless she was a fucking unhinged psycho, but that didn’t mean I had to put up with shit all the time. I’d fire her and blackball her ass so fast.
“So are you planning on working here today, or are you quitting now?” I asked, wondering if Keaton would be forcing her to drop her job. He probably already demanded it. I knew once I found my little runaway that she’d be attached to my hip.
“Modeling once doesn’t pay the bills,” she scoffed at me. I doubt she’d have to worry about another bill in her life.
She had a billionaire who was clearly obsessed with her.
He didn’t even bother to hide the evidence he left on her skin.
I was at least a little covert about it.
Maybe I should have marked her skin so everyone knew she belonged to the fucking head of the Cortez Mafia.
Damn, I thought about the fact that we had unprotected sex.
She had been a little too carried away, and I knew damn well that I planned on filling her womb.
The thought alone was making me hard, which was stupid as I spoke to my assistant.
Shaking off the thought, I continued, “Sleeping with a billionaire might.”
“He’s a what? I didn’t sleep with…” What a little liar.
I pressed a finger to her collarbone where she’d been marked up by Keaton. “That hickey on your neck suggests otherwise, and you’re telling me that you didn’t know that James Keaton is a billionaire.”
Her face turned scarlet red as she put her hand to the mark. “We only met that day. His assistant is my neighbor, and she recommended me.”
That meant she didn’t know much about Keaton or his shitty family. She had to be warned. “Be careful. His brother is rumored to have hands that don’t know where they belong.”
“I’ve already met that piece of…” She bit her tongue when it came to that piece of shit, but I’d end that fucker just for good measure. He was disgusting.
“It’s okay to say he’s a piece of shit. He’s not my brother.” I chuckled and shook my head.
“Excuse the fuck out of you, but what is going on here?” Keaton’s voice proved I was correct.
I was about to tell his ass that this was my business as I turned around with a smirk, but my eyes landed on the woman I’d been looking for. “You,” I whispered, losing my voice for a moment. My sweet everything was standing there beside Keaton.
Keaton continued to glare at me, but I barely noticed.
My eyes and thoughts were all focused on the woman beside him as she did her best to stay close to his side.
I would be fucking jealous, but the man clearly had no interest in her.
Not that I could fathom why. Still, I wouldn’t argue with my good luck.
“We have a problem, Hernandez.” Yes, we did. He had what I wanted, and I refused to lose her, but I knew he wasn’t talking about the straight-laced, light-makeup beauty next to him. Wow, this look was just as sexy.
“No problem at all. Ava was just getting her shit, right?”
Ava gasped and tilted her head at me with a frown. “I thought you said I didn’t have to quit?”
“By the look on Keaton’s face, I’m guessing he says otherwise.”
“Damn right, unless you want our contract terminated,” Keaton threatened me. It was fucking amusing that today I had two people give me shit like I wasn’t a dangerous bastard, but at least I understood him.
I raised my hands, revealing my palms. “Not at all. Go ahead. She’s a good assistant, but sorry, not irreplaceable.” My eyes refused to leave hers.
“I wondered how you got out,” I growled.
“Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, we should go.”
“Are you coming, Elizabeth?”
“Yes, I’m ready to go.” She turned on her heels and walked as fast as she could right out of my building. Fuck, I enjoyed looking at her backside, but it wasn’t over by a long shot.
“That’s okay.” I nodded and smirked. As they left, a plan formed in my mind.
I let her escape because I knew exactly where to find her now.
The little brat thought she could easily flee, and somehow that made my dick so painfully hard.
That son of a bitch Keaton had my treasure and didn’t even know it this whole time.
She’d come to the New Year’s Eve party looking like a mafia wife, unaware that she could run, but there was no hiding from me, my slick little thing.
I called Vasco. “I need everything you got on James Keaton’s assistant.”
“Will do, boss.”
“And I need it now.”
“No problem.” I ended the call and sat back in my chair, thinking about how good it would feel to have my hands wrapped in her hair as I slid her down onto her knees and punished her for being a bad girl.
It didn’t take him more than an hour to call me back. “Do you want me to drop it off, email it, or just read it off?”
“Meet me at the hotel bar.” He met me there within fifteen minutes and slid the file over.
“Have a drink while I read this.” I opened it, and my heart nearly popped out of my chest.
“How come this didn’t show up on the DMV list?”
“She’s got special clearance. Unless we had her name specifically, we can’t get it. I had to pull a favor just to get the image.” It had almost everything about my mystery woman, including some dirty secrets. Elizabeth was a good girl with a bad family.
I knew her father, and I was the reason he was in prison.
The bastard had crossed me and after he dug a hole with the casinos in Atlantic City.
The fucker robbed one of Duke’s drivers and shot him.
I was about to kill him, but my boss demanded I just be used as an eyewitness and send the fucker to prison, where our people would deal with him.
I’d been making his life hell every six months.
I might have to ease up to keep my woman happy.
Did my little sneaky thing come after me that night knowing who I was? Or did she run when she realized the truth?