Page 45 of Deception & Desire

“They’re just talking,” he continues.

I get a sickening sense of deja-vu as I watch Mia’s pulsing red dot pause for a moment at the location.

Ivan had contacted Carmen to negotiate a small deal with a few of their higher-paying clientele. If I had to put money on it, I’d say it was an initiation for the debutant.

Clearly, these Silicon Valley wannabes emphasized discretion, and Carmen just happened to be perfectly cast to show up at one of their parties.

This meant that, once again, Mia would be playing the role of ditzy-soap-making-business-college-buddy.

And I hated it more than I could really express.

“They’ve just set off,” Max interrupts my thoughts. “ETA forty-three minutes.”

He will follow them the entire way, park at the neighboring beach villa, and keep tabs on the entire evening, reporting back to me with any progress or mishaps. He was instructed to intervene the second I gave the order.

De-ja-fucking-vu.

All I can do is stand here and wait. Wait forty-three minutes for them to arrive. Wait an hour or so for the interaction to last. Wait another forty-three minutes back and then…and then wait for Mia to come home.

Come back tomyhome. Not ours. Where she will, undoubtedly, give me the cold shoulder for the heart rate monitor thing. Or for setting her up on a project with my sister thing. Or for the walking out after sex thing.

It’s just all one big fucking mess, really.

And all I can do is wait. Wait and wait, and go crazy waiting. Pacing and pacing and waiting and waiting and not being there to help if anything goes wrong because I’m too busy waiting.

I don’t know when I leave the brownstone. Don’t exactly know when I get into my car, a bag of surveillance gear and sniper rifle placed carefully in the trunk.

If it takes Mia forty-three minutes to get there, driving safely to keep her client safe, it takes me half that time.

“Max,” I say into my phone as I pull into the neighboring beach house. “Change of plan.”

I really,really, truly hate those shorts.

The problem with looking at them from a high vantage point through a scope, is that with a small nudge of my hand, I can see every bastard she passes turn around to do a double take.

And the thing is, I’ve never really had a problem with a twitchy trigger finger until now.

She’s standing outside by the goddamn infinity pool (did I mention how much I hate tech-bros) with an arm casually draped over Carmen’s shoulders. She sips a beer from the bottle and nods at something Ivan says.

The older man might have looked a little out of place, but the company of the two women offsets the intimidating set of his shoulders and gang tattoos. No one around them has even spared them a second glance.

Except the bastards looking at her shorts.

Eventually, a guy comes out to meet them. He’s tan, with reddish hair. Too young to be a millionaire—not that I can really talk, but at least I don’t wear my wealth like he does, by buying tacky designer clothes and flaunting the labels like some kind of walking billboard.

The new money big shot says a few words to Ivan and gestures for the group to follow him inside.

When Carmen trails after him happily, Ivan pauses to stop Mia. There’s a brief argument, a stalemate.He doesn’t want her to come along.Then Carmen reappears, loops her arm through Mia’s, and the three of them walk back inside as if that settles it.

For the time I don’t have eyes on them, I feel something akin to terror begin to seep into my bones.

I can see the room they’re going to arrive in. It’s perfectly adjacent to the one I’m currently sitting in. The floorplans of the two beach houses mirror each other exactly.

Inside are three men sitting around an office. I’ve clocked them all already and sent their pictures to Max, but they’re notaffiliated with anyone we know. Just a bunch of kids playing at drug lords who got in a bit too deep with an actual kingpin.

They shouldn’t be a threat.

Yet, when the door opens, and Mia, Carmen, Ivan, and the walking billboard walk in, my heart still stammers in my chest.

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