Chapter 4 - Someone Was Watching
The penthouse changed in less than ninety seconds.
Metal shutters lowered over several exterior access points.
Security doors locked.
Men appeared from hallways Willa hadn't even realized existed.
The calm luxury of the apartment vanished, replaced by something military.
Willa hated it immediately.
Locked doors.
Men giving orders.
No exits without permission.
Her chest tightened.
“Open the elevator.”
Nobody listened.
She turned toward Jared.
“I said open it.”
“We may have an active threat.”
“That's your problem.”
“You're inside my home.”
“Exactly.”
Willa backed away.
“I've done locked doors before.”
Jared's gaze dropped briefly to her wrist.
He understood.
Or at least enough of it.
His voice lowered.
“You aren't being held here.”
“Then open the elevator.”
Jared looked at Miles.
“Give her access.”
Miles hesitated.
“Jared—”
“Now.”
A guard entered a code.
The elevator light turned green.
Willa's lungs loosened slightly.
She didn't leave.
Jared noticed that too.
“You can go.”
“I know.”
Roman whined from the bedroom.
Willa looked back.
She hated herself for caring.
Brendan had exploited that part of her for years.
Her inability to walk away when something wounded needed help.
But Roman had never manipulated her.
He was simply hurting.
“I'll stay until morning,” she said.
Miles stared at her.
“For the dog.”
Jared nodded once.
“No one locks that elevator again.”
The order traveled through the room.
Willa returned to Roman.
The Mastiff had exhausted himself and now lay half inside Elena's bedroom.
She filled a ceramic dish with water and sat beside him.
“Think he'll eat?” Jared asked.
“Not tonight.”
“I thought you—”
“I made him lift his head. I didn't perform a miracle.”
Jared went quiet.
Willa wet her fingers.
Roman licked one drop.
Then another.
It wasn't much.
But Jared saw it.
He looked almost stunned.
“You really love him,” Willa said.
Jared stared at Roman.
“He was the last living thing she touched.”
The sentence was barely audible.
Willa's irritation toward him softened despite herself.
There it was.
Not the mafia boss.
The widower.
The man who'd preserved a bedroom because moving a pair of shoes felt like losing somebody twice.
“Tell me about Elena,” she said.
Jared sat against the opposite wall.
Miles quietly left.
“She hated expensive restaurants.”
Willa smiled faintly.
“That's inconvenient for a rich husband.”
“She said every meal tasted better from a truck.”
“She sounds smart.”
“She was.”
“What else?”
“She rescued Roman from a breeder who was going to put him down.”
“Why?”
“He was aggressive.”
Willa looked at the giant dog whose chin rested near her knee.
“He doesn't seem aggressive.”
“Elena said fear gets mislabeled when it comes from something big.”
Willa stopped breathing for half a second.
Jared looked at her.
She knew he hadn't meant the sentence for her.
But it found her anyway.
“What happened to Sebastian?” she asked.
“He was my father's man before he was mine.”
“You trusted him.”
“Yes.”
“And Elena?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Jared looked toward the recorder.
“Six months before she died, she asked me to fire him.”
“Why didn't you?”
His silence answered.
Willa shook her head.
“You thought she was overreacting.”
“I thought they disliked each other.”
“And now?”
“Now I know she was afraid.”
The regret in his voice was ugly.
Real.
Willa knew that feeling too.
The endless rewriting of the past.
If I'd noticed sooner.
If I'd left earlier.
If I'd listened.
“You didn't kill her,” Willa said.
His gaze snapped toward her.
“I ignored her.”
“That's different.”
“Not enough.”
Before Willa could reply, Miles returned.
His face was wrong.
Not frightened.
Angry.
“What?”
Jared stood.
“We found a vehicle in the service garage.”
“Whose?”
“Plates are false.”
“And?”
Miles looked toward Willa.
“There were photographs inside.”
Jared became very still.
“Of what?”
Miles handed him an envelope.
Jared opened it.
The first photograph was Willa outside the Brooklyn clinic.
The second was Willa leaving a grocery store.
The third showed her entering her apartment.
Her stomach dropped.
“No.”
Jared's expression turned vicious.
“How long?”
Miles flipped one photograph.
“Dates go back fourteen days.”
Willa grabbed it.
Two weeks.
She hadn't known Jared Kensington existed two weeks ago.
“This has nothing to do with me.”
Nobody answered.
She looked at Jared.
“I didn't know you.”
“I know.”
“Then why would Sebastian photograph me?”
Jared's eyes narrowed.
“Maybe he didn't.”
Miles looked at him.
“What are you thinking?”
Jared took another photo.
“Who told you about Willa?”
Miles froze.
“The veterinarian.”
“Which one?”
“Dr. Elias Crane.”
Jared's expression changed.
Willa saw it instantly.
“What?”
Jared looked toward Roman.
“Crane was Elena's veterinarian.”
Willa's pulse hammered.
“The same man?”
“Yes.”
Miles was already dialing.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
“Send someone,” Jared ordered.
Miles turned.
Willa grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at her.
“There's one more person in those photos.”
She pointed.
Across the street from her apartment, barely visible inside a parked sedan, sat a man's profile.
Willa's knees nearly failed.
She knew that face.
Not Sebastian Vale.
Not a veterinarian.
Brendan.
Her former boyfriend.
The man she'd spent eleven months escaping.
Jared saw her reaction.
“You know him.”
Willa couldn't answer.
“Willa.”
Her voice came out thin.
“His name is Brendan Holt.”
“Who is he?”
She closed her eyes.
“My ex.”
Jared's expression hardened.
Miles asked, “Why would your ex be connected to Sebastian?”
“I don't know.”
Jared crouched in front of her.
He didn't touch her.
“What does Brendan do?”
Willa swallowed.
“He used to say he worked private security.”
Jared and Miles exchanged a look.
“What company?”
“I never knew.”
“What kind of clients?”
“I said I don't know.”
Her voice cracked.
Roman lifted his head.
Willa immediately regretted raising her voice.
She steadied herself.
“He disappeared for days. Came home with cash. Sometimes guns. Sometimes blood on his cuffs.”
Jared's face went dangerously calm.
“Why didn't you report him?”
Willa laughed once without humor.
“To who? Brendan knew cops.”
Miles looked at Jared.
“We need to find him.”
Willa stood abruptly.
“No.”
Jared frowned.
“No?”
“You don't go after Brendan because of me.”
“If he is connected to Sebastian—”
“You don't understand him.”
Jared's gaze sharpened.
“I understand men like him very well.”
“No.”
Willa stepped closer.
“You understand violent men with power.”
Her voice lowered.
“Brendan is a coward with power.”
That distinction mattered.
Cowards didn't fight fair.
They waited.
They hid.
They hurt the thing you loved instead of facing you directly.
Roman suddenly growled.
Everyone turned.
The Mastiff was staring through the glass doors toward the terrace.
A shape moved outside.
Miles reached for his weapon.
Glass exploded inward.
Willa screamed.
Jared hit the floor with her beneath him as two shots tore into the wall.
Security opened fire toward the balcony.
Roman barked ferociously.
For the first time in three weeks, the dying Mastiff stood completely upright.
And through the shattered glass, just before the shooter disappeared over the terrace wall, Willa heard a voice she hadn't heard in eleven months.
May you like
Brendan.
“Found you.”
