Page 56 of Wicked Angel

ANGEL

5 years later …

Dreams were like the wind. You could feel them brush against your skin, touch your presence, but you could never catch them. Never hold onto them. Attempting to do so was like trying to capture a human soul—not that I believed those existed anymore, and if they did, my sister certainly had a rotten one. She was rancid and corrupt to her very core. Only now that I’d experienced the depths of her betrayal and delivered my own betrayal in return did I understand what the life of a criminal indeed did to someone.

It sucked out hope, burned it to a crisp, and then let the ashes rain back down over every fucking thing.

As I sat in the Rosemary Café on Main Street of Queens, New York City, waiting for my client to make an appearance, I absently reached up and touched the ring hanging from a slender chain beneath my silk shirt. Every morning, no matter where I was—Boston, Paris, Vancouver—I woke up and touched it. Made sure it was still there. Reassured myself that what I was doing—the person I’d become—had not been for nothing.

It was all forhim. The only man I’d ever felt I belonged to. The only man I’d ever been so close to loving. And the only man I could never ever touch again.

Some days, the beautiful metal ring felt like it would burn a patch in my skin; other days, it felt like the only thing keeping me tethered to the ground. Today, it was a mixture of both because today was our wedding anniversary.

The bell to the café door chimed and I lifted my gaze as a tall, slender man dressed in an impeccable suit bypassed the short line of patrons waiting to be served at the counter and made his way toward me. My client’s tall, gangly-thin frame outlined his body and shadowed his features as he rushed through the café. It wasn’t until he sat before me that I looked up and saw the red splotches over his too-pale skin. Too thin, too pale—the poor man rarely left his lab, even less so in the past few months. He was rather sweaty, not that I could blame him. As one of the youngest scientific protégés in America, if any of Ronald Wiser’s competitors even caught a whiff of what he was doing, he’d find himself on the wrong side of an assassin’s scope.

“Thank God you’re here,” he said as he took a seat across from me. “I think I’m being followed.”

My back straightened. This was not good news. My eyes shot past him and out into the busy street. “Was it a car or a person?” I clarified, scanning our surroundings.

“Car. Dark blue sedan,” he answered. “I think I lost it a few blocks back, but I can’t be sure.”

I scowled as I watched a dark blue sedan drive past the front windows of the café.Damn.No, he hadnotlost it.

Ronald was neither a spy nor a criminal on the run, but he did need my protection. I sucked in a breath and slowly let it out. It wouldn’t help to panic now. If I’d learned nothing over the past five years, it was that panicking merely slowed down my thinking process. If Ronald was being followed, then someone must have tipped off his competitors. If his competitors knew about the synthetic organ growth project he’d been working on for the last several months, then he was in deep shit. Anyone in the medical industry would spend billions to keep his future from happening. There was too much money on the line for them. My eyes moved from the street and back to him.

Ron was red-faced, his eyes jumping around the room as if any of them would stand up and shoot him at any moment. I leaned over and touched his hand, offering him a small smile as if we were two friends out for a friendly chat. “Calm down,” I warned him quietly under my breath. “Don’t make a scene.”

“They’re going to kill me, Eve,” he hissed the fake name I’d given him when we’d first met. “I know they are. I’ve done everything you said. I copied all of the files, all of the information. I’ve sent the flash drives, but what if it’s insufficient? They will want to destroy this information—or worse, take it and use it for themselves. They’ll create my organs and then jack up the prices until no one but the rich can afford them. This could save lives, and they’re going to use this for their own profit.” By the end of his monologue, his voice had turned slightly shrill. More sweat beaded on his brow. I wrinkled my nose as the distinct smell of sweat reached my nostrils.

Discreetly, I reached into my purse, removed several tissues, and handed them to him. He took them and began blotting the sweat on his forehead.

“We don’t need to worry about the research,” I told him. “Right now, all we need to worry about is how to get you out of here and to a safe place before whoever is trailing you finds a way to get you alone.” Anddead,but I don’t say that last part aloud.

“Do you have a safe house set up?” he asked almost pleadingly.

My smile turned pained. If only I had those kinds of connections. Had things not gone terribly awry five years ago, I might have been able to give him a better answer. I’d once thought that being the wife of a mob boss was the worst thing that could ever happen to me, but now as time had passed and the longer I’d been on the run, I knew that having contacts in the world of crime was what kept people alive—as well as fear and power. Ron had fear in spades, but his power was waning in the face of the profit-mongers.

“Come on,” I said, lifting my purse over my shoulder and getting up as the same dark blue sedan crossed the street once again, this time on the other side of the traffic. “We’re going out the back.”

Ron’s chair scraped back against the café floor as he hurried to follow me. I walked slowly though, and soon, he had to slow the speed of his gait to match mine. It was clear he didn’t want to, but if I was going to get him out of here safely, then we had to be smart about it.

I lifted my head and turned past the bathrooms straight for the café’s tiny kitchen. I’d been here many times—it was why I’d felt so comfortable to meet him in this location. I never went anywhere without several escape routes in mind. A few of the younger employees paused and frowned as we passed, but it wasn’t my presence that made them question us back here. It was Ron’s. He was sweating like crazy, and it seemed that his body odor only grew more and more intense with each second.

Look like you belong,I reminded myself,and they’ll believe it.I’d run into an ex-thief a year or two ago that had taught me that motto. People believed confidence, no matter what it sold them. So confident, I became.

Even with Ron’s sweating and shaking and his darting gaze, we made it all the way through the kitchen to the back door. I popped it open and glanced out into the alley. One side was completely open, while the other was blocked off by a set of dumpsters and a large brick wall. My heels clicked against the pavement as I led him outside. I dug my hand into my purse and pulled out a burner phone, a small wad of cash, a non-traceable credit card, and a set of keys. I was afraid this would happen, but I’d planned for it—or rather, I was still in the process of arranging things. This was my option B. Five years of learning this life. Sink or swim. Life or death. Both were good motivators that quickly made me realize I was a Price Heir, after all. But the most critical thing the trial and error had taught me was to always be prepared.

“Here,” I said, reaching over and shoving the card, cash, phone, and keys into Ron’s hands.

He gaped at the money and phone and then at me as we came to a stop at the mouth of the alley. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

I watched the blue sedan cross the street, and before the driver could spot us, I grabbed Ron and ducked behind a low-hanging sign on the side of the building. “Listen to me very carefully,” I said, keeping my eyes trained on the sedan. There had to be more, possibly an assassin already after him, but I didn’t want to alert him and send Ron into a spiral of panic. He was the type who would absolutely make things worse when he panicked. I shifted my gaze back to his face.

“I want you to take that money and card and grab a taxi out of the city. Use the phone I gave you. Here—give me yours—I don’t want you using it for the foreseeable future.” When all he did was blink at me, I huffed and dug through his pockets until I found the phone I was searching for. I shoved it into my purse. “Now, as I was saying…” Ron still hadn’t moved or said anything more. Instead, his eyes were centered on something over my shoulder. I glanced back but saw nothing. With another irritated huff, I snapped my fingers in front of his face and brought his attention back. “Focus,” I said. “Take a taxi. Use the phone I gave you to contact me when you get to a safe place.”

“Safe place?” he repeated, his face growing more flushed than it already was. “Where is that? Do you have a—”

“No,” I interrupted him. “I don’t have a specific place. You’ll need to find a motel or something to hide up in. Grab some food with the money I gave you and stay put until I can come for you. There’s enough money there in cash and on the card to last you for several weeks as long as you don’t stay somewhere too expensive. Motels—Ron. Stay where they don’t have any CCTVs.”

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