Chapter 14
It was nearly midnight, and Santiago was dragging ass, he was so tired.
They’d pulled roughly three million dollars’ worth of product out of that damn garage.
They’d located the area on the property some of the drugs were made in.
Vince might own the garage, but Eddy seemed to manage the more lucrative business.
Still, there was no way Eddy and his boys were more than middle management.
This big of a haul was coming from people with deep pockets and a more organized distribution network than Eddy could ever dream of handling with the three brain cells in his head.
Santiago determined he would put in a call to the DEA tomorrow.
Sitting in his cruiser, Santiago wanted answers to all his questions, but damn if he was going to get them tonight.
Thinking about the other thing he needed to get to, he groaned and knocked the back of his head against the headrest.
“Just leave her there,” he told himself. She was probably asleep anyway.
His phone vibrated, and he picked it up immediately. “Stillwater.”
“I’m ready to go home, Santi. You better be on your way.” She was the devil. She had to be with her ability to sense when he was thinking about her.
“What if I’m not?” he said as he cranked the engine.
She’d already hung up the phone. Which was fine, he assured himself. He didn’t have the energy to argue with Lauren right now.
When he pulled up to Aunt Lina’s house, the front door opened immediately and Lauren walked out, hair wrapped up in a floral satin scarf, face void of makeup, and wearing a mint green silk pajama set. It was the fluffy orange cat slippers that made him roll his eyes.
Where the fuck did she get pajamas, he wondered, forcing himself to face the windshield as she opened the passenger door and climbed in beside him.
“Lock up!” she called to Aunt Lina. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“We’ll talk in the morning, mijo,” Aunt Lina called out, waving to Santi. He honked twice in rapid succession and pulled off. As he drove, he spared Lauren a glance only to find her looking at him expectantly.
“You could’ve just stayed the night,” he stated.
“Your cutthroat of an aunt was going to charge me double the nightly fee. I will not be extorted.”
He snorted, amused for the first time in hours.
“Sounds like she’s taking your business advice to heart.”
“No, she’s just being”—she made air quotes—“protective of her peace.”
He took a long deep breath. Her scent and wide-awake energy went a long way in sharpening his own alertness.
“What does she need to protect her peace from?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
Lauren faced forward and clasped her hands in her lap, primly, demurely.
“I like to think of myself as an advocate.” He groaned and rubbed a hand over his face.
“I’m telling you right now, Lauren Gael Green—”
“How did you know my middle name?”
“If you have done anything to make my job unnecessarily fucking harder I’m going to—”
“Listen Santi, listen,” she said, lifting and lowering her hand as if to calm him down.
“It’s too late at night for arguing, we need to be in a calm place if we’re going to sleep peacefully tonight.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“All I’m saying is that a little levity will help…and don’t curse at me.”
He remained silent.
“We can’t undo the past, despite how we sometimes might want to. Lord knows I would if I could,” she muttered. “But I can’t. Not that I would change what happened at Flemming Realty—”
He briefly closed his eyes and rubbed the throbbing that was expanding throughout his left temple.
“I was literally minding my own business. Sitting at Lina’s kitchen counter, culling through the information I was going to present at the council meeting.”
“You’re not going to the council meeting.”
“I am absolutely going to the council meeting,” she said, looking at him like he was crazy. “The fuck?” he heard her mutter. Then she took a deep breath and laced her fingers in her lap again.
Why was she pretending to be a rational human being all of a sudden?
“Miya is an honorary member of the Women’s Business Club. They say she’s the one that really runs Flemming’s real estate business though Dave Flemming is the one who claims to.”
He didn’t know what she did, but he knew she did something.
Earlier when Peters and Derry dispatched out to Dave Flemming’s office, the report stated that Andy Archer had witnessed Flemming getting handsy with Miya, and likely for the first time in his privileged life, Andy had played the hero and had thrown Dave Flemming to the ground and bloodied his nose.
In the report, Peters wrote that Miya was “shaken,” but minimized the situation, stating that the incident was “a miscommunication.”
“In a show of support, Lina and I went to advocate for Miya. Given that the young Anderson—and yes, I’m choosing not to hold his lineage against him right now—beat that man’s ass, I believed it was my duty to further clarify that if there was ever a hint of Flemming touching Miya again, he’d lose his license, his business, and likely the marriage he was trying to repair, once my lawyer finished with him.
This wasn’t the first time she’s had to fight him off, you know. ”
He hadn’t known. But in less than two weeks she knew.
“Is it your goal to alienate every powerful person in this town?”
“If defending innocent people is something to be alienated over, then yes. Each and every one of those fuckers can kiss my black—”
“What about you?” he interrupted before she escalated. “Who’s looking out for you?”
The question must have confused her because she didn’t respond immediately. Which wasn’t like her.
“Well...” she began. “From what everyone keeps telling me, you are.”
He looked at her incredulously.
“I know, right!”
She pointed to the road ahead.
“Turn there.”
“That’s the road to my place.”
“I’m aware. I’m staying with you again tonight.”
He slowed down so he didn’t run his vehicle off the road as he searched her face to see if she was bullshitting.
She wasn’t.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve had a long hard day, and I have an even busier day tomorrow. That means I’m gonna have to pass on our little slumber party.”
“Listen Santi, I’m not walking into that house alone at nearly one in the morning after being gone all day. So, A, you can take me to your place, or B, you can spend the
night at mine.”
“I’m getting sick of you and your demands, woman,” he said, turning onto his road.
She smiled dazzlingly at him.
He grunted, refusing to be dazzled.
Lauren walked into Santiago’s kitchen and pulled the few breakfast items she’d purchased in town out of her bags.
She placed the coffee next to his coffee maker, placed the honey, peanut butter granola, dates, and sea salt in the overhead cabinet, and placed the ground turkey, eggs, Greek yogurt, and biscuits in the refrigerator.
She put some cashews in a jar of water to let them soak overnight then put the plastic grocery bag in the cabinet beneath the sink.
Picking up her bag, she joined him in his home office.
It was nearly one in the morning and they’d each worked silently; he at his desk, and her in his worn brown leather reclining chair.
She reviewed copies of historic information she found.
More than just about the house, she discovered information about the individual family members themselves, and Deborah hadn’t been the youngest to die, but unlike the rest, she hadn’t died with the majority of her family.
Lauren also found that not every descendant had died the night of the massacre, but the two believed to have survived had escaped the mountain that night and never returned.
She’d also read about how at one time, land this high up was deemed less valuable than the land closer to civilization.
The people that lived this high up were also deemed as less valuable.
They were indigenous, both once enslaved and free Black folks, poor Whites, and seeming many other cultures between.
Lauren was shaken awake. Disoriented, she looked up to see Santiago looking down at her, his hair cascading freely over his shoulders. Somehow the soft flow of his hair made the sharp angles of his face appear that much harder.
She watched him with drowsy eyes, probably for too long to be appropriate.
Then she yawned loudly and raised her arms up.
“Carry me.”
“If you don’t get your grown-ass up,” he grumbled, then turned and walked away.
She laughed wildly, lowering the base of the recliner and stood; organizing her belongings, she left them in her chair and followed Santi up the stairs. When she entered the bedroom he was already in the bathroom, door closed, and shower running.
Balancing her wide bottomed bag on the small night stand, she toed off her Garfield slippers, propped up the pillows on her side of the bed, and climbed beneath the sheets, her body sinking deliciously onto the firm mattress.
Closing her eyes, she drifted again until she heard the bathroom door open.
Through half-closed eyes, she watched Santiago step through the door wearing nothing but boxers.
His light bronze skin glistened, dark nipples were pebble hard, his muscles dense.
It’s too bad all that masculine beauty is wasted on me, she thought as Santiago turned off the overhead light and plunged the room into the kind of claustrophobic darkness that only seemed to exist in the country.
She felt the covers pull back and the mattress shift under Santi’s weight.
She fought the urge to roll over and move closer to his body heat.
Closing her eyes, Lauren’s breathing slowed, her thoughts quieted. Turning on her side, she hugged her pillow and surrendered to...
“Why are you here, infesting every crevice of my life?” Santi asked, his voice like black velvet caressing her skin.