7. Elsie
Elsie
Jesse is down at the command center with the team. The cabin is quiet with him gone, even though he’s not much of a talker, sunlight pooling warm across the floorboards and the scent of pine drifting through the open cabin door.
I’ve spent the morning reading a book on the porch, feeling the twins shift under my ribs every time I laugh at something on the page.
They’ve been moving since the day their father confessed his love two days ago. Maybe they adore the feel of his hand when he rests it on my stomach and the way he presses his ear to my bump for minutes at a time.
The air smells like pine and warm earth, that particular mountain-summer smell I’ve come to associate with safety these last few days, foolish as that probably is.
My phone rings a little after noon.
Ros’s name lights up the screen, and I answer smiling, looking forward to a long chat.
“Elsie.” A man’s voice, low, unhurried, the kind of casual that makes the hair on my arms stand up before my brain even catches up to why. “Finally. You’ve been hard to find.”
Everything in me goes cold.
“Who is this?”
“You know who I work for. He’s coming to see you. Doll yourself up nice, you should be grateful for the attention, honestly. Man like him, wanting a girl like you. Who did you think you were, running like that? He’s going to show you exactly who the man is here.”
My hand’s shaking so badly I nearly drop the phone.
“Where’s Rosalie?”
“She’s fine. For now.” Something shifts in his tone, sharper. “We tracked you to that small town you’re hiding in. Give me your address. This bitch says she doesn’t have it.”
“I’m not home.” The lie comes out fast, some instinct kicking in before I’ve even decided to use it. “I’m out. Shopping.”
“Don’t waste my time. This bitch won’t have a use if you don’t cooperate.”
“It’s the truth.” I give him my address, terrified he’ll hurt Ros.
“Go home. Now. Wait for your man.” His voice drops lower, colder. “And if you call the police, if you tell anyone at all what’s happening, your cousin doesn’t wake up tomorrow. Are we clear?”
I can’t make my mouth work.
“Are we clear, Elsie?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl.”
“Wait! Let me talk to her.”
A shuffling sound, muffled voices, and then, “Say hi.”
“El!” Rosalie’s voice, raw and terrified, cracks through the phone. “Don’t do it, El! Whatever they asked, don’t—”
The sound of a palm hitting flesh reverberates through the phone, sharp and sudden. Rosalie’s voice cuts off mid-syllable like the phone’s been yanked away from her.
“Go home,” the man says again, calm as anything, like he didn’t just hurt my cousin. “Wait for the boss. Don’t disappoint him twice.”
The line goes dead.
I stand on the porch with the phone still pressed to my ear, the dial tone humming into the silence, sun bright overhead, birds still calling from the tree line.
I don’t remember sitting down. I’m on the porch steps when I come back to myself, phone in my lap, my whole body shaking hard enough that my teeth chatter despite the heat.
The wood’s warm under my palms, ordinary and solid, and I press my hands flat against it like the roughness of it might calm me.
If I tell Jesse, if his team moves on this the wrong way, that man on the phone made himself very clear about what happens to Ros.
But if I don’t tell him and go alone, Andrei might hurt the babies when he sees I’m pregnant.
He’s depraved enough to have hunted down a woman who rejected him for two years, but I can’t see him sleeping with someone impregnated by another man.
He’s more likely to kill me out of some misplaced sense of affront. I lay a hand on my belly.
I force myself to breathe. In for four counts, out for four, the way my mother taught me years ago before a nativity play at school.
I think about her face the last time I saw her, two years ago now, both of us laughing over nothing in the kitchen of the apartment we shared, the night before I left LA.
We’ve shared so much since we were tiny, I can’t imagine a world without her.
The sound that phone call ended on runs through my mind and I know I must return to the apartment.
I enter the cabin and wipe my face. Put my shoes on. Make myself think about how I can save both Ros and my babies.
The door of the cabin opens before I’ve decided on anything.
Jesse’s face changes the second he sees me. He’s across the room with his arms around me before I can get a single word out.
“What happened?”
I’m still afraid. For Rosalie, him and the team, the babies and me. I’m afraid for the beautiful future I know we can build together. Yet, seeing him makes me realize I trust him more than I trust my own ability to handle this alone. He’ll figure out a way to keep everyone safe.
So I tell him everything.
His jaw goes tight through all of it, that cold stillness settling over him the way it did in my kitchen days ago.
“We’re going to fix this. Rosalie too. I promise.”
He’s on the phone with the team before I’ve even finished nodding, voice sharp and clipped. Within twenty minutes the cabin’s full of people. Colton arrives first, then Hudson, followed by Diego.
They all move with the same economy of motion Jesse has. With their ripped muscles and height over six feet, they make the cabin feel smaller and my five feet seven inch frame, despite my bump and usual curves, seem tiny. However, their strength gives me courage.
Within twenty minutes, they and Tucker, in the command center, have formed a plan that saves me and Ros and ensures none of the residents are alarmed. I don’t understand everything, so I focus on my part.
Jesse will drive me back toward my apartment, drop me a few streets short. I’ll go the rest of the way by taxi just in case Andrei has anyone watching my apartment to make sure I arrive alone.
Jesse will go in ahead of me through the back stairwell.
“And I open the door of the apartment myself,” I say.
“Yes.” Jesse crouches in front of where I’m sitting, hands braced on my knees, blue-green eyes steady on mine. “It buys seconds. If Andrei thinks you’re alone, he won’t have time to give anyone an order about Rosalie before we move. It’s why you have to be there, though I hate having you near him.”
“What if I freeze? What if I can’t do it?”
“You won’t.” No hesitation in it at all. “I’ve watched you hold your ground against me more times than I can count. You’ll hold it against him too. And the second that door’s open, you’re not alone for even a full second.”
An older member of the team, Riker, and Jesse will be in the apartment with me, just out of sight when I open the door. Hudson and Diego will deal with any men on the stairs and street, while Colton takes a position on top of a building nearby, in case he’s needed.
Tucker’s already got eyes on every camera between here and my building, confirming the route is clear before anyone moves.
I nod, throat too tight to answer out loud.
On the drive down the mountain, Jesse makes a call on the truck’s speakers.
“I need help to locate and safely extract a woman,” he says when the call is picked up, no preamble.
The pause that follows is long enough that I hold my breath through it.
Then, “Name?” The voice is dark, controlled and authoritative, as if the owner is used to giving orders.
“Rosalie Palmer.”
“That’s my woman. I’m in the process of tracking her. Tell me what you know.”
Jesse recounts what happened without wasting words.
“I just got a location on Rosalie. I’ll bring her home.” He doesn’t say anything for a moment. When he speaks again, there’s a chill in his voice. “Take care of Zidaru and any of his men that show up. I’ll handle everything on this end.”
The call ends. Jesse’s hand finds mine across the console, steady and warm.
“Your cousin will be okay.”
“Was that Vincenzo Greco?”
Jesse shoots me a glance, surprised.
There’s no point in hiding it now. Jesse must have heard that note of possession in the man’s voice. Maybe he hasn’t said anything because of the situation we’re in.
“He’s part of the Italian mafia in LA. Ros works for him. She also has feelings for him.”
Jesse’s lips lift.
“That worked out well then. Tell me about it later. And yes,” he shoots me another glance. He must have noticed my curiosity because he says, “He was the boss I mentioned.”
Jesse pulls the truck over, engine idling in the shade of a jacaranda tree that’s dropped a carpet of purple blossoms across the sidewalk.
A woman walking a dog passes by and a lawnmower hums somewhere out of sight.
Before I climb out to wait for the taxi, he cups my face in both hands, forces my eyes to his.
“He is never going to lay a hand on you.” His blue-green eyes gone are dark and certain.
“Okay. Be careful, please.”
He kisses me once, hard and quick, and then he’s gone, disappearing toward the back of the building while I stand on a hot, ordinary sidewalk, taxi pulling up right on schedule, waiting to carry me toward whatever’s about to happen next.