by S. Ann Cole
Flipping to a clean page in my notebook, I title it First Priorities, then jot down in bullet points:
• Hire an inspector
• Hire a gardener
• Inquire about surveillance
I’ve spotted multiple cameras, but only the ones outside the condo appear to be active.
I’m assessing a room on the second floor when the honking of a horn tugs me to the windows. Outside the stately front gates are two black SUVs, one behind the other. Waiting for me to give them access it seems.
Getting the jingle of keys from my back pocket, I check to see if there’s a fob or something.
Nothing.
I fetch my phone and text Trent.
Me: How do I open the gates?
Trent: There’s a control monitor in the condo and one by the front doors in the guesthouse.
I head downstairs, find the monitor, and spend the next five minutes figuring out how to work the damn thing. When I finally get the gates to open, I head outside. Two SUVs drive up the brick-paved driveway and pull to a stop in front of me.
A good-looking black man climbs out of the first SUV and holds his hands out. “Michael.”
I shake his hand. “Lexi.”
He flashes me a blinding-white grin. “I know.” He moves to the trunk and pops it open. “Where do you want these?”
Frowning, I ask, “Where do I want what?”
His muscles flex as he lifts out two big bags of groceries. “These.”
“That controlling jerkhole,” I grumble through clenched teeth. Begrudgingly, I gesture in the direction of the condo. “Follow this path here to the side. You’ll see a patio. Just leave them there. I’ll bring them inside.”
I’d discovered two additional paths to the condo while I was roaming—a convenient side entrance with a small patio that leads directly into the kitchen, and a small, green gate hidden in some overgrown shrubs at the front, which leads to a set of stairs that go up to the second floor.
Michael unloads around six bags of groceries before handing me the keys to the SUV. “It’s got a full tank.” He then slides me a business card. “Boss said if they’re any emergencies and he’s unavailable, you call me.”
I raise a brow. “Or I can call the police.”
Michael grins cockily. “We’ll get here faster.”
“Whatever,” I mumble, glancing at the card.
Red Cage Commando Security & Investigation Services
Michael Spencer
“Anything else I can do for you, Lexi?” he asks, a twinkle in his hazel eyes. What the hell does he find so damn amusing about me? Ugh. I don’t even want know. Trent’s his boss, so…enough said.
“Um, no. That’s it. Thanks.”
He jerks his chin and jumps into the second SUV, and off it goes.
I get out my phone.
Me: You controlling asshat! I told you I could get my own damn groceries.
Trent: How long have you known me, Hellcat?
Me: Cockroach!
Trent: Just dying to get me on my back, aren’t you?
Me: You’re SO lucky I’m indebted to you, I swear.
Trent: You have no idea :)
Chapter ELEVEN
“Lucky Mage”
Lexi
Sipping java from Trent’s travel mug, I stand on the front steps outside the guesthouse and watch Maggie’s fire-red Mini Cooper zip up the driveway.
Magnolia Glades.
We went to Redlands East Valley High together and she lived three streets away from me.
Shortly after Torin and I started dating, so did she and Trent. A couple of months later, her family just up and moved to Bakersfield.
It wasn’t until I joined Slim’s team that I saw her again, shocked to discover she was a member. Her nickname on the team was “Lucky Mage.” She couldn’t count cards for shit, but she had unimaginable luck at Poker and Russian Roulette.
Our re-bonding was instant and effortless. We were both strongly motivated and focused. While my reason was Mama, hers was to make start-up capital for an interior decorating business. Consequently, after making her first three hundred thousand, she was out.
We kept in touch, but much like when she’d left Redlands, our connection sort of faded again.
A few days ago, however, she messaged me asking for Slim’s digits since the one she had no longer worked; she wanted to get back on the team.
When I poked a few inquisitive questions at her, she told me her business plan had failed and she was currently running on E. That it’s too hard to make it in her field in California without having big projects and big names in her portfolio.
Seeing an opportunity for the both of us, I told her about the guesthouse and offered her the interior makeover job. I low-balled her, big time, knowing she would’ve taken it even for less, because having a project like this in her portfolio is what her business needed.
The budget for the guesthouse is decent, but Trent warning me not to overpay for anything is loud in my head, and I’d rather be under budget than over budget and have to deal with that ornery asshole, so I don’t allow myself to feel bad about low-balling one of my oldest friends.
I spent the last couple of weeks researching like mad, binge-watching HGTV, creating an idea folder, and even joining an “Accommodation Owners” group online where I got to pester real owners of small hotels, guesthouses, and bed and breakfasts with questions, to which they would kindly and enthusiastically answer.
So far, the most I’ve done is hire a gardening company, got all the security cameras upgraded, and had some more added in a few other areas to make sure there are no blind spots. I also brought in an inspector. Aside from some plumbing issues caused by rusted pipes, most of what he found was minor. Solid roofing, zero mold, lots of recent upgrades to the bones of the structure. A plumbing company is already scheduled to come in and start replacing the pipes next week.
So, yeah, things are in motion.
Maggie parks and folds from out of her small car. As she approaches, she slides her sunglasses from her face to the top of her head, which scoops back her mass of long, ombre-streaked brown hair.
“Oh, wow,” she says, gazing up at the house. “Those pics you sent didn’t do it justice. This is just the kind of project I need.”
“Yep. It’s a task for sure.”
Magnolia Glades is hitch-in-your-breath gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that’s noticed right away and demands compliments and comments. Her Instagram page is a smoke-show, and with an almost perfect, model-figure body, she could easily become one of those internet models who make thousands of dollars off endorsing garbage products they don’t use. But that’s not her personality. All she ever talks about is running and owning her own business, Glades Custom Interiors.
Granted, I don’t know for sure if she’s any good at this and I’m taking huge a gamble here, but I do know I’ll feel more comfortable fumbling and figuring this out with her than with some bigshot who would no doubt seek to take advantage of my ignorance.
Once she’s done gawking at the house, she drags her storm-gray eyes to me and crosses her arms. “You stopped calling me.”
I give an apologetic dip of my chin. “Things got wild once we began traveling more. And then I left and…long story. Stuff I don’t even wanna think about right now.” I stretch my free hand out wide. “But look, here we are again.”
Shaking her head, she grins. “Here we are again.” She bounds up the steps and pulls me into a hug while I hold the coffee mug up and out so nothing spills. “It’s so good to see you again, Lexi.”
“Same, Lucky Mage,” I say with teasing a grin. “The universe will always push us back together. We’re meant to be.” Looping my free arm through hers, I say, “Now, come. Let me show you what we’re working with.”
Chapter TWELVE
“You’re asking for a beating.”
Trent
The jeep rocks as my twin loads his luggage into the trunk, grumbling words I’
m too tuned out to hear over the noise of the busy airport.
When he finally dumps himself into the passenger side, he gripes, “You couldn’t have gotten out and helped me with my shit like a normal person, asshole?”
I lift my attention from my phone screen and direct it to him. “You still got two balls on you, right?”
He grunts and fakes a punch at me. “After being gone for six weeks, I thought I’d get a better reception than this.”
“Nah.” I drop the handbrake and shift into drive. “It’s more fun when there’s only one of me. I get to piss people off and have them hate you by extension ‘cause you aren’t here to smile it away.”
“For shit’s sake. How many people do I have to apologize to on your behalf this time?”
I navigate out of the lot. “How’s the Denver office?”
“Running smooth. Putting Scratch in charge was a good move. Business is steady. Everyone’s on their A game.”
“If everything’s so perfect, then why were you there for so long?”
He coughs. “Just to, uh, oversee and…you know.”
“Pussy,” I say, shaking my head. “Pussy got you, didn’t it?”
He laughs. “If you saw her, you’d have stayed until you got every last drop, too. Saweeet!”
“You’d be so easy to kill, brother,” I say through a low chuckle. “So easy.”
He shrugs, unrepentant. “Well, everyone’s got their weakness. Mine’s women. And yours is…” He trails off and clucks his tongue. “…well, same, but singular. A woman. A spicy little Latina who chose the older brother.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
He laughs at me, hard. “And you think I’m easy to bait.”
“Home or office?” I ask through gritted teeth, sick of him already.
“Hom—wait, don’t we have a zoom meeting with Tor at two?”
“Shit. Yeah. Forgot about that.”
He flips his phone idly in his hands. “So, guess who called me asking for money.”
“Who?”
His glare penetrates the side of my face, but I keep my attention on the road. “You fucking know who. Because the only time she ever gets the gall to call me is when you give her cash and let her think the door is open.”
Fuck. He wasn’t supposed to find out, but I should have known. Give Annette and inch, she takes a mile. “I didn’t give her cash directly. I gave it to the bank. She was gonna lose her club. I just paid a couple months on the mortgage to help her out.”
“Yeah, it’s always something with her. Always coming with her hand out,” he spits. “Well, guess what, she’s never getting a dime of my hard-earned money. So tell her to stop damn well calling me. Your heart might still be open to her but mine’s sealed fucking shut.”
Our memories of our early childhood years with our biological mother aren’t good ones. They’re filled with angry shouts, painful, punitive pinches on the arms, deliberate neglect, and zero affection. Even at three years old, we could feel her hate and resentment toward us.
Our uncle Roberto Castellos would come take us with him much of the time to play with our cousins, and I can remember him always shouting in her face so hard his veins would bulge. Once, though we were barely five at the time, I remember him finding pinch marks on True’s arm and became so enraged he pointed—what I now know was—a gun at her head. I remember her clasping her hands as if in prayer with tears streaming down her face.
Our favorite memories from that period of time were when we came to L.A. to spend the weekends with our father and his wife. Monica was everything Annette wasn’t. She hugged us, spoke to us with soft, kind words, and smiled at us with love.
She loved us so much she made us her own.
True’s not a hateful person, nor an asshole like I am. Between the two of us, he’s everyone’s favorite. But his hate and resentment for Annette Darling is severe. Lethal. He wants nothing at all to do with the woman. And I can’t blame him.
While a part of me does still resent Annette for her horrible treatment of us, her own flesh and blood, another part of me still harbors an inherent…something for her. Not love. A something that makes me give in and help her whenever she asks for it.
There’s no forgiveness in True’s heart where she is concerned, but because I know he will regret it later in life, I’ve chosen to forgive her for the both of us.
~
We arrive at our office downtown in twenty minutes. On the outside, it’s a plain, nondescript, unadorned edifice hidden amongst showy and contemporary architecture. On the inside though, Red Cage Investigations and Private Security goes all out on things that matter. We make sure our employees are comfortable and have every tool and tech gadget needed to get the job done effectively and with minimal hiccups. We are the leading private investigation firm for a reason.
Our first-floor receptionist, Katy, sits up with a stricken expression and a tight smile when she sees me approaching. As True comes in behind me, her forced smile morphs into a wide, sincere grin. “Welcome back, Mr. Garza.”
That’s how it is around here. I’m the “mean” one, and True’s the “nice” one. And even though we’re identical down to the T, they easily and unerringly tell us apart from just our demeanors.
Can’t blame them. I’m a crabby motherfucker half the time and I don’t smile unless I’m around people who makes me want to smile. Trueman, on the other hand, is full of charisma and charm. He smiles and he winks, and he doles out compliments and encouragement like licorice. And when I piss people off, he cleans it up.
Suffice it to say, he’s the favored boss around here, because Torin is even worse than I am, and Tripp hates being in the office so he’s never here unless he has to be.
As True moves to the desk and starts chatting up Katy, I head for the elevator. He’ll stop and chat to everyone on the way up and I’m not in that kind of mood right now. We have three floors, four departments, and about forty in-office employees, so yeah, he’ll be a while.
When I get to the conference room on the third floor, Guy, our head of tech, is setting things up for our virtual meeting with Torin. Tripp, surprisingly, is already here, his feet kicked up on the table as he dicks around on his phone.
“Hell has frozen over,” I say as I shove his feet off the table. “You’re actually on time for a meeting?”
He points his phone in Guy’s direction. “Only because that four-eyed, suspender-wearing prick lied about the start time.”
Guy shrugs unapologetically but focuses on the task at hand.
“Don’t blame him.” I throw my weight down in one of the chairs. “You’re a lousy fucker.”
He flips me the bird with one hand and continues scrolling on his phone with the other.
At twenty-five, Tripp is four years younger than True and me. He’s still in the youthful, booze-party-sex phase of his life and hardly takes much seriously except this job. Which, to us, I guess is all that matters. No matter that he’s late for every meeting and hates the office, he delivers one hundred percent on every task assigned.
“How do they let you fight with those locs?” I ask him.
“‘Cause I’m good at getting my way.”
We’re all baffled about Tripp’s golden hair, considering both his parents have jet black hair. Our dad had—Italian— an insatiable appetite for black women. Where True and I are fifty-fifty on both genes, and Torin’s black genes are stronger, Tripp’s an anomaly. His hair—much like his complexion and his eyes—is a burnished gold that grows faster than he can trim it. He gave up a few years ago and started wearing it in groomed locs.
“Did you win your last fight?”
He shoots me a glare. “If you came to see me fight, you’d know.”
“Told you, I can’t stand and watch you get pummeled in a cage,” I say. “I won’t be able to stop myself from jumping over the fence and beating the shit out of your opponent. Don’t even know why you do that shit. There are better recreational activities, bro.”
“Then don’t fucking ask.”
“Okay, I think we’re all set here,” Guy interrupts. “It’s about one AM in Russia—the time he thinks is safer to call—so we’ll just wait for him to connect.”
Torin’s the head of the company. Red Cage was the thing he’d always wanted, and what the rest of us didn’t know we’d be good at.
Back in Colorado, his stepdad, a vet and a hero to him, ran a small private investigation company. Taught him a lot. He told us he always knew it’s what he wanted to do.
His stepdad died, then his mom less than a year later, and that’s when he came to live with us. Torin and dad never got along well though, but when dad died just a year later, he took it hard. Probably from suffering so many losses.
He joined the army, did two tours, then came back and started Red Cage.
By that time, True and I were both just going through the motions in college. I was majoring in business only because True was, but really, I’d had no fucking clue what I wanted out of life—except her.
Until Torin pitched Red Cage to us. True had laughed it away, but I was all in. It was the first thing I showed any real interest in, since her.
Joining Red Cage meant going to a secret camp for eleven months in Virginia for training, which included learning hand-to-hand combat, tactical firearms training, at least two languages—I chose Russian and French—tech, weapons, artful breaking and entering, detective skills, interrogation skills, problem-solving skills, laws and regulations…the works. I remember the pressure of having to learn so much in a short space of time, but it’s one of my most epic experiences to date.
True finished college, and after I returned and when he saw how jacked and sharp I was, a whole new person, he came on board.
Tripp went off to train straight out of high school, skipping college altogether, much to Mom’s rage.
