by Emerson Rose
“Cal, I appreciate your help as well, but if you’ve got a problem with Sasha, you can turn around and walk out the door right now.”
“I don’t have a problem with you, ma’am, it’s your ex-husband that I have a problem with. Do you have any idea what you’re getting involved with, Xander? This guy is big-time bad news. You thought Star and her goons were trouble, Enrique Sanchez makes them look like a flea on a Great Dane.”
“Sanchez… I’ve heard of the Sanchez drug cartel on the news. Could they be the same family?
“Yeah, when you said his name was Enrique, I started digging. I found your marriage license online.”
“You did?” Sasha says sounding unusually surprised. She was married to the man, why would finding a marriage license be strange?
“Yeah, it wasn’t easy, but it’s there.”
“I was never sure if we were legally married. I never saw the license, and his uncle married us.”
“Nope, it was all real, lady. You were married to the biggest drug dealer in Mexico’s son. Those people almost never divorce. The only way out of that family is in a casket. How’d you manage that?”
“He’s mentally ill, bi-polar. He was in a manic state and had found a new woman to fixate on, so I asked him, and he said yes.”
“Yeah, well you got lucky, sort of.”
“What do you mean sort of?” I ask.
“He’s still hounding her, isn’t he? A piece of paper saying you’re divorced isn’t going to stop this guy. He’s psycho, certifiably crazy.”
“Okay, let’s move this up to the office before Tori wakes up.” I lead them down the hall to my office. When I sit down, I turn on my computer monitor and move the mouse around until I can see Tori sleeping in her room via the security camera. All this talk about psycho drug cartels has me on edge. I want to keep an eye on my baby at all times.”
“I’m going to put on some clothes. I’ll be right back,” Sasha says pulling her robe tight around her.
“Okay,” I say watching her go. When she’s out of earshot, I look Calvin straight in the eyes. “Just how dangerous is this?”
“Twenty-five on a scale of one to ten. It couldn’t be worse. I’m telling you this guy is a loose cannon who doesn’t take his meds running around with unlimited funds and bad-ass connections.”
“Shit.” I lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling.
“Man, I know you dig this chick, and she’s a cool nanny and all, but is she worth all this trouble? She could get ya’ll killed, like both you and Tori cold-in-the-ground dead.”
“Yes, she’s worth it,” I answer with conviction. “I know I haven’t known her long, but she’s special, like the one special. I want you to do everything humanly possible to protect them both.”
“Okay, you’re the boss. I just thought you should know what you’re getting into. You talk to anybody at the FBI or the DEA yet?”
“I have a call out to both.”
He nods looking impressed. “You got some big connections?”
“I don’t know about ranks, but I’ve done some serious work for a few higher-ups.”
“You think Enrique was here yesterday?”
“He was here,” Sasha says entering the room dressed in a pair of cut-off jeans and a sweatshirt. “I got three texts from him. That’s why I freaked out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” I say raising my voice.
“I… I didn’t want you to get involved. I thought if he went away, I could quit this job and everybody would be none the wiser.”
I shake my head and close my eyes. “So you were just going to quit?”
“Yes, to keep you both safe, I was.”
“What about your safety? Did you think of that?”
“I’ve been running from him for a while now. I know how to deal with him.”
“Oh? Is that why you got your face smashed in two weeks ago?”
“I’ll admit that surprised me. I wasn’t expecting him to go that far, but he would have left me alone for a while if he hadn’t seen me here.”
“And why did he see you here? Don’t answer that, I’ll do it for you… because he is following you, watching you, and keeping tabs on you. He may have granted you a legal divorce, but he’s still married to you in that crazy head of his.”
“Sasha, what did the texts say?” Calvin asks trying to route the conversation elsewhere.
“The first one said nice digs. That got my attention because he knew where I was staying.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Then Victoria called for me to hurry up. We were going to the beach, and she was waiting on the patio. He text me yeah hurry up, Sasha, I want to see your face or something like that, and I knew he was within earshot. I snatched Victoria up, and we set the security system, and I called you.”
“Was that it?”
She’s quiet for a moment, and I know there’s more. She doesn’t want to tell me what he said. “Sasha?”
“No, there was one more message.”
“What was it?”
She crosses the room and takes a seat next to Calvin across my desk. She lowers her eyes to her lap where she is wringing her hands. “He told me to get another job, or this one would be obsolete.”
I take a deep breath and blow it out. Okay, so he’s threatened my family. We can handle this.
“Xander, I think we should get you all out of here for a while,” Calvin says.
“No, Zion is coming home soon, and it doesn’t matter where we go, he will find me if he wants to. And you can’t leave your practice anyway, you have patients to see.”
She’s got a point—three of them. I can’t ask Zion to go traveling around when she gets discharged from the hospital. She needs time at home to recover. And I have work. What bothers me the most about her comment is that her ex-husband could find us anywhere.
“She’s right, we can’t run from him.”
“Well, then the only alternative I can see is hiding from him. Y’all are gonna have to stay inside as much as possible and have a team of bodyguards with you every time you leave.”
“That’s already been arranged. Tito will be your bodyguard, and Mark and Matt have eyes on the house at all times starting today. That, with the security system and the panic room, ought to do it.”
Sasha looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, and Calvin frowns.
“Um, so how long are you planning on keeping us locked up here in your fortress?” Sasha asks with a touch of sarcasm.
Again, she’s got a point. “Until we have a solution to this problem.”
“There is no solution to Enrique and his family. As long as he’s interested in me, he will be trying to make my life miserable.”
As long as he’s interested, I wonder what would make him uninterested?
“What happened to his girlfriend, the one he brought home before you got divorced?”
“I don’t know. When I moved out, I never saw her again.”
“Daddy?” Tori’s voice comes from down the hall. Shit, we aren’t any closer to a resolution than we were before Calvin got here.
“Yeah, princess, in my office,” I call out. “Calvin, you can go. We will talk later but keep me updated. Sasha, I want to play this down as much as possible to avoid scaring Tori. Can you two be ready to go to the clinic with me in an hour?”
Calvin stands unfolding his overgrown muscles from the too-small chair and meets Tori at the door. “Hey squirt, how ya doin?” he says to her.
“Good. Why are you here?” Kids. They’re so blunt.
“Just had a meeting with your dad and Miss Sasha here, heading out now.”
“Oh,” she says looking from one of us to the other with curiosity or suspicion, I can’t tell which.
“Come on, sweetie, let’s go get you dressed. We’re going to work with your dad today.”
She scrunches up her face like a wrinkled old apple. “Why? I thought we were going to the Zoo and surfing,” she whines.
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“We just want to be safe for a little while after yesterday,” I tell her.
“But it’s boring.” She lets her head fall back and hunches her shoulders like this is the worst news ever.
“Sasha will be there, she won’t let you get bored, and we won’t be all day. I’m going to work on arranging some time off so all three of us can hang out and do things together.”
That brings her head back to a more natural position on her neck. “Like…”
“Like a staycation. That’s where you’re on vacation from work, but you stay home instead of going out of town.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Let’s go get ready,” Sasha says taking Tori’s hand and leading her from the room. I shove my hands through my hair on either side and tug at it. How the hell did this happen? Last week I was plotting how to get Sasha to go out with me, and this week I’m protecting her from her crazy ex-husband who just so happens to be the son of a major drug cartel kingpin.
Sometimes life throws you a major curveball, and you have to learn how to swing a bat.
19
Sasha
Victoria and I dress quick like bunnies and hop downstairs to make French toast before we go to work with Xander. I feel like shit tagging along, but it seems I don’t have much choice in things anymore.
Fucking Enrique. Fuck him and his perfect black, wavy hair and deep chocolate eyes that drew me in. Fuck his tall, lean body and his boyish charm that made me fall for him. And fuck him for being able to spot a weak, naive woman from a mile away to take advantage of.
There was a time when he took me to Mexico when he was so mean to me, that I thought he might have brought me there to sell me. It would have been so easy for him to do. There was no one who would come looking for me, no family other than my mom, and she thought Enrique was the shit.
But then he married me, and I thought oh well he’s weird and a little rude, but nobody’s perfect, right?
Wrong.
Xander Sullivan is perfect—as perfect as a man needs to be anyway.
The doorbell rings yanking me from my thoughts. My hands are in soapy water washing the breakfast dishes. I don’t like to put them in the dishwasher when there are only a few. Xander is at the top of the stairs when I look up.
“Got it. It’s Tito,” he says letting him in.
Ah, great, the bodyguard is here. I look at Victoria, and she’s looking up at her father who is greeting a handsome Hispanic man with salt and pepper hair.
“Tito, this is Sasha and Victoria or Tori. Girls, this is Tito. He’s going to be hanging out with us for a while making sure everybody stays safe, okay?”
Victoria looks at Tito and then at her dad and back at Tito sizing him up, and there’s a lot of him to size. Tito is at least six-foot-three or four, muscular, but not bulky like Calvin. Tito is lean and well groomed. He is impeccably dressed in a dark pair of jeans and black button-up shirt with shoes so shiny I could use them to put lipstick on.
“It’s nice to meet you, Tito. Sorry, I’m finishing up the dishes. I can’t shake your hand.”
“No problem, ma’am. It’s nice to meet you, too.”
I crank my neck to see Victoria behind me. “Psst, Victoria, say hello to Tito,” I whisper.
She’s still checking him out, but by now she’s made the decision to accept him and waves a small wave.
“Hey, little lady,” Tito says in a southern accent. I have a feeling those two are going to get along well. He sounds like a Texan right off of Dallas. Perfect.
Victoria and I exchange eyebrow-raising looks, and I drain the water from the sink. “You’d better go grab some things to do today while we’re at the clinic.”
“Okay. Why do we gotta go to the office if we got a Tito?” She says his name slow as if she’s not sure it’s a name at all.
“To be honest, I’m not sure. Maybe your daddy wants to be close to you today?”
“Huh?”
“I think maybe he was worried yesterday, so he wants to spend the day with us today. Maybe we can all go visit Zion after work?” I look at the stairs where Xander and Tito are coming down.
“Tito?” Xander asks Tito.
“At the hospital?” Tito asks.
“Yes.”
“We should be fine. I’ll have Matt stay here and keep an eye on the house,” Tito says.
“There you go. One visit to the hospital to see Zion coming right up,” Xander says.
Victoria cups her hand on the side of her mouth and whispers across the island, “Why’s Daddy asking that big man if we can go?”
I dry my hands on a towel and round the island. “Well, since Tito’s going to be keeping us safe, he’s going to make decisions on where we can go. It’s only for a while, don’t worry.”
“Daddy’s not keeping me safe anymore?”
“In a way. He hired Tito because he’s a professional. That means it’s his job to make people safe like it’s your daddy’s job to make people pretty.”
“I like Daddy keeping me safe. I don’t like strangers.”
“You like me, don’t cha?” I say crossing my fingers that she can accept Tito without a fuss.
“Yeah, but you’re like me.” Her eyes get big and round when she turns to Tito. “And he’s not.”
“Do you mean because I’m a girl?”
“No, because you know about the bad men and cuz my daddy made you pretty. He likes you.”
“You trust your daddy, don’t you?” She nods her head. “Okay then, I think if your daddy trusts Tito, then we can, too. Let’s give him a chance. Who knows, he might be fun,” I say faltering on the word fun. Tito looks strong and intimidating and handsome, but fun? I don’t know about that.
“Okay.”
“Great. Go get your stuff so we can get going.” She jumps down and takes the long way around the living room giving Tito a wide berth. I approach Tito and Xander who have been observing me talking to Victoria from across the room.
“She’s going to get her stuff. I think she’s okay with the bodyguard thing, but she’s wary.”
“That’s how she is with all strangers except for you.”
“Yeah, so she says.”
“Did she say why?”
“She says she likes me because I know about bad men and because her daddy made me pretty, and he likes me.” I roll my eyes, and he chuckles pulling me to his side.
“I did make you pretty hot, you have to admit.”
“You made me look like I did before my accident, and God was responsible for those looks, buddy.”
“Okay, you’re right. I still like you, though.”
“Thanks, I like you, too.”
“How’d she know you know about the bad men? You never told her about Enrique did you?”
“God no. I told her that I have nightmares about a bad man, nothing more.”
“That’s all it takes for a child to bond. A moment, a memory, a dream… they’re very intuitive,” Tito says. I’m impressed—good looking and smart.
“I don’t know a lot about kids, but that sounds right.”
“I’m from a family of ten. You have questions about kids, just ask,” Tito says.
“Ten? Oh my God. Victoria’s going to adore you. Did you know that’s why she loves Dallas so much? She wants to live in a huge house with all of her extended family,” I say to Xander.
Xander looks out the glass wall to the ocean, and his arm tightens around my waist. “That’s one thing I can never give her.”
“Why not? I mean I get that you can’t all live together in the same house, but you have four brothers and some with families. Why don’t you invite them out here?”
“At the moment, I’m trying to keep you both safe from a Mexican drug cartel for starters.”
I poke him in the stomach which hurts me more than him. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. We’ll talk about it another time. I need to get to the clinic. I have surgeries this morning that I had to push back.�
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Victoria races down the stairs carrying her pink sparkly backpack that’s bulging at the seams. She’s getting used to packing up for the boring office, poor thing.
“Ready,” she says standing next to Xander and sliding her hand into his.
“Me, too. Let me grab my purse.”
Sometimes life is nuts, and you need a bodyguard named Tito.
20
Xander
How to get rid of a drug lord’s son, can you Google that? I’m almost done with my last surgery for the day, and instead of thinking about Mrs. Lipinski’s much-improved appearance after her face-lift, I’m considering murder.
People like Enrique don’t take no for an answer—ever. There are only a few ways to be free of him. First, we could disappear, but I’m not inclined to leave a practice I’ve been building for years—one that earns more than any other plastic surgery practice in the United States. The second is murder, but there are obvious drawbacks to that plan as well. Third, is prison—forever—but that’s not even foolproof. He might be behind bars, but he’s still filthy rich, and he can pay to have someone terrorize us.
So what then? Who do you ask for advice on things like this? Hell if I know.
I shower and dress in my street clothes before joining Sasha, Tito, and Tori in the break room. “Hey, is everybody ready to get out of here?” I say striding into the room.
I look around and see Sasha sitting on the couch with Tori’s head in her lap, both sleeping, and Tito is sitting next to them at a table with his legs crossed reading the paper with a cup of tea.
Tito’s an odd duck. I did some work for him about ten years ago, and he’s been my go-to for serious security problems ever since. Tito is smart and no-nonsense. He doesn’t let feelings get in the way of doing his job, and that’s what I like best about him.
“Looks like an uneventful day,” I say sitting down at the table.
“Those are the best kind.”
“I’d have to agree. How long have they been asleep?”
“Only a few minutes. The little one was dying to go outside all morning, but Sasha kept her distracted.”
