No Exit

by LENA DIAZ,

  Cyprian clenched his fists in frustration. “Then at least tell me whom you’ve appointed as the Watcher. It’s unacceptable having some unknown person report every detail of my life, every single day, back to you. Tell me who he is, so I can have some peace knowing he’s not watching me in my own home. Is it Sebastian? Tarek? Someone else?”

  “First of all, I didn’t appoint the Watcher. The Council did, as a whole. Second, if you knew his identity, you’d always be on your best behavior around him. Kind of ruins the whole point of a Watcher—to make sure you aren’t sneaking around and breaking the conditions of your probation. Surely even you can understand that.”

  Cyprian jabbed his finger in the air, pointing at him. “I’ve proven myself a hundred times over since last year’s incident. There’s no justification for continuing this medieval torture.”

  Marsh’s lips curled in derision. “Incident? Really? Mason Hunt. The Hightowers. And dozens, dozens, of others were impacted by your so-called incident. And you think a few months of probation are sufficient?” He shook his head. “If you’d told me over the phone that this was the real reason that you wanted to see me, I could have saved both of us some time. EXIT’s enforcement arm is an essential tool for keeping this country safe. Having it run by someone who sleepwalks on the job and doesn’t provide the rigorous leadership required of the position is a mistake of monumental proportions. You want your probation to be over? Petition the Council. We’ll have a healthy debate at the meeting coming up. But don’t expect me to argue for your side. Because when it comes to trusting you, my vote is no. It will always be no.”

  Marsh turned his back on him in dismissal, as if Cyprian weren’t even there. Which was just as well. Because Cyprian was clenching his teeth together to keep from pouring out a stream of vitriol that would make Marsh’s ears burn, words he knew he’d later regret because Marsh could use them against him in the Council meeting when he presented his appeal.

  The hatred and fury coursing through Cyprian’s veins, tensing every muscle, took enormous control to tamp down. But somehow he managed it. Barely a minute later, Sebastian appeared in the doorway.

  “The floor is clear. And Tarek couldn’t verify that anyone was in the elevator.” He shrugged. “Could be a false alarm. But we initiated the lockdown. And Tarek’s got the list from the security log. Thirty-three employees are in the building. He’s accompanying a security guard to personally account for everyone’s whereabouts.”

  “Excellent,” Marsh said. “Now, if there truly was a security breach, if someone was up here, you’ll know it. And that, Cyprian, is how you maintain order and ensure the sanctity of EXIT’s enforcement arm—by facing problems head-on, without ignoring them until they become major . . . what did you call them? Incidents?” He motioned to Sebastian. “Get me out of here.”

  Cyprian stood unmoving as they left. His face flushed hot, and he was certain he could feel his blood pressure spiking. No one, no one, had ever spoken to him like that before. Certainly not in front of employees. This situation was unbearable. It had to end.

  As soon as he couldn’t hear any footsteps, he tugged his suit jacket down, smoothed a wrinkle from the fabric, and headed to the elevator. When the doors closed, he punched a speed dial on his cell phone. The line clicked.

  “Do it,” he said.

  MELISSA PULLED JACE into the first-floor main hallway and stopped. “Look.” She motioned toward the lobby, just visible through the opening at the far end. Two security guards stood by the front doors. One of them shook his head at a small group of employees on the outside.

  “We’re on lockdown.” She kept her voice low. “They’re not letting anyone in or out. Security must have figured out that something is going on. Maybe someone saw Tarek come downstairs with a gun. I have to warn them about Sebastian, too. And have them send a guard upstairs to check on my father.” She started forward.

  Jace grabbed her arm. “Hold it. You can’t go out there, not without knowing where the gunmen are. It’s too dangerous.”

  She frowned. “The security guards are right there. All we have to do is run to the lobby. We’ll be safe.”

  “I’m not betting your life on that.” His hold on her arm was like steel. He scanned the hallway, studying the doors and the signs over each one. He suddenly sucked in a breath as if he’d seen something and pulled her through one of the doorways into the cafeteria.

  Without slowing down, he towed her past the food cases and buffet, past the cash registers, into the main dining area.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We’re about to have company.” He shoved her into a chair and ran to the conveyor belt that diners used to dispose of their trash and leftover food. He grabbed two trays just before they could disappear into the trash chute and plopped them on the table in front of them.

  “Tarek and a security guard are going to step into this cafeteria any minute,” he whispered as he sat down across from her. “Until we know exactly what’s going on, we need to play it cool. Don’t mention anything about what happened upstairs. To anyone.”

  She frowned. “Is that one of your bodyguard orders?”

  “It is. Trust me, Melissa. Don’t say anything. Not yet.” He glanced past her. “Pick up the fork. We’ve been here all morning, eating, while you interviewed me for a job. Sell it.” He grabbed the fork from his tray and laughed, his face shifting from intense concern to lighthearted like the flip of a switch. He began to describe where he used to work as if they really were conducting a job interview.

  She looked at the fork on the tray in front of her, then back at him. Her eyes widened when she saw what he must have seen—Tarek and a security guard reflected in the mirrored wall behind Jace. The guard was carrying a pen and a piece of paper, and the two of them had stopped at the only other table with diners, on the other side of the room. The guard checked off something on the paper, like a schoolteacher taking roll.

  “Pick up your fork,” Jace insisted. “Now.”

  She grabbed the dirty fork, shuddering with revulsion as she played with the half-eaten food as if it were her own plate. Jace gave her a barely perceptible nod of approval.

  “Miss Cardenas.”

  She started in surprise and looked over her shoulder. Tarek frowned at both of them. His gaze dipped to their plates. But it was the security guard beside him who’d spoken.

  “Andre.” Melissa smiled warmly. “How are you today? And Tarek.” She couldn’t hold on to her smile looking into his cold eyes, so she focused on the guard. “Is something wrong?”

  “Sorry to trouble you, Miss Cardenas. We’re tracking down a possible security issue. Nothing to worry about. Just checking on everyone in the building to make sure they’re okay. Looks like you’re finishing up breakfast. I hope it was good.”

  “Always. We have the best cooks in Boulder.”

  He nodded his agreement. “And the gentleman with you? I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t remember meeting you.”

  Jace set his fork down and held out his hand. “Jace Atwell. Miss Cardenas is interviewing me for a job.”

  The guard shook Jace’s hand and checked the piece of paper he was holding. “You must be the visitor another guard checked in this morning. He didn’t record your name. I’ll be sure to talk to him about that.” He wrote Jace’s name down, then drew a line through it. “That’s everyone.”

  Tarek didn’t move.

  Melissa frowned. “Mr. Vasile, is there a problem? If you don’t have enough work to keep you busy, I’m sure Jolene would love your assistance moving heavy boxes. She’s been wanting to rearrange one of the file-storage rooms for quite a while.” She arched a brow, selfishly enjoying the red flush that crept up from Tarek’s collar. It was a tiny victory. And since he’d been after her with a gun earlier, she didn’t feel the least bit guilty.

  “Sorry to have bothered you, Miss Cardenas,” he replied. “I’ll check with your father to see what . . . tasks . . . he has for me.”


  “See that you do.” She turned her back on him to face Jace again. But she half expected a knife to come slashing down to bury itself in her spine. “Mr. Atwell, I believe you were explaining about your most recent position.”

  “In Savannah.”

  “Right. With Dawson’s security?”

  “Yes.” He rattled off details about his employer for a full minute before he stopped. “They’re gone.”

  She dropped the fork in disgust. “Please explain to me why I just lied to a security guard who could have protected us, and why I didn’t tell him that Tarek had a gun. How was that a good idea?”

  “You really think that rent-a-cop could intimidate Tarek? Not a chance.” His gaze flicked past her, and the renewed urgency in his expression had her stomach clenching with dread.

  “Remember what I said about my one client who didn’t follow my instructions,” he whispered. “Do not say anything to your father about what happened upstairs.”

  “My father?” She blinked in surprise to see her father in the mirror. The couple at the table across the room had stopped him, probably to ask about the lockdown. And standing beside him were both of his assistants. The security guard was nowhere to be seen.

  She stood in indecision, and Jace immediately joined her, placing his hand on the small of her back as if to reassure her—or more likely to remind her of his instructions. In spite of the doubts and questions that she had, in spite of those corkboards on her wall back home, it didn’t seem right not to tell her father what had happened. But what if Tarek and Sebastian still had their guns with them?

  They’d been in the conference room with her father. They wouldn’t have left without his knowing about it. Was it even possible that he didn’t know that they had guns? Wouldn’t he have been the one to tell them to leave the conference room and perform that search?

  Her father and his shadows started toward her.

  “Don’t tell him you were upstairs,” Jace whispered urgently, just before her father stopped in front of them, with his assistants on either side.

  He introduced himself to Jace again, and her father’s gaze flicked down to their plates, as Tarek’s had earlier. “You probably saw Sebastian Smith and Tarek Vasile last night, Mr. Atwell, by my car.” Cyprian waved toward them. “They’re my executive assistants.”

  The men shook hands, and Melissa was amazed at how calm and friendly Jace appeared. She needed to take lessons from him on how to not look flustered.

  Cyprian smiled at Melissa. “I hope the lockdown didn’t alarm you. Everything appears to be in order. A false alarm.”

  “False alarm?”

  He waved his hand in the air. “Someone thought they saw a stranger roaming the halls without an escort. The building has been searched. Everything is fine.” He took her hand in his. “Tarek tells me you’re interviewing Mr. Atwell. What position did you decide upon?”

  She hesitated, feeling compelled to confide in him. Loyalty was so important to him. That had been drilled into her since she was little. How could she not tell him what she’d done? She opened her mouth to say something. Jace’s fingers flexed against her back in warning.

  Safe. Somehow, even though she barely knew this man, he made her feel safe. But when she thought about confessing to her father what she’d done, even once his assistants weren’t around, all she could think about were those boards back home, and that feeling of safety evaporated.

  And that scared her more than anything else.

  She forced a smile. “Actually, Mr. Atwell won’t be working for our company, specifically. He’ll be working directly for me. I’ve decided to take your advice and hire a bodyguard.”

  His brows shot up. “Mr. Atwell? He’s not even with a service. He hasn’t been vetted. You can’t have had time for a background check.” He arched a brow at Jace. “No offense intended, of course.”

  “Of course,” Jace said.

  “We’re going to take care of that background check right now,” Melissa said. “Our next stop is Human Resources, to start the paperwork.”

  Her father glanced at her plate again before offering his arm. “Tarek can take him to HR for you. Did you forget about the planning committee meeting? It starts in ten minutes.”

  Damn. “I guess time got away from me.”

  Jace’s jaw had just gone rigid. He looked like he didn’t want to let her out of his sight any more than she wanted him to. And for the first time in her life, she was nervous about being alone with her own father.

  Needing an anchor in this sea of uncertainty, she grabbed Jace’s hand in an awkward hold that was more drowning victim grabbing a lifeline than an actual handshake. He squeezed her fingers and gave her a firm nod with a “you can do this” look in his eyes before letting go.

  She swallowed hard. “See you later, Jace.”

  “Count on it,” he promised.

  Her father escorted her to the door while the others followed. “I thought you didn’t like eggs.” He held the door open.

  She paused. “Eggs?”

  “On your plate. There were eggs. I tried to get you to eat them when you were a toddler, and you’d always throw them on the floor in disgust. I gave up by the time you turned four.”

  She hesitated, then started forward again. “Tastes change. People change.”

  He gave her a curious look. “Yes, I suppose they do.”

  Chapter Six

  By the time five o’clock rolled around, and Jace was grudgingly returned to Jolene’s keeping, he was coiled tighter than one of the suspension springs in his Grand National. He couldn’t sit still, in spite of the curious smiles that Jolene kept sending him. Instead, he paced the floor in front of Melissa’s office door, waiting for her latest, and hopefully last, meeting to end.

  He could only think of a handful of times in his life more frustrating than today had been. Considering all the missions he’d conducted, that was saying something.

  Everyone seemed to have conspired to keep him from having more than a few stolen moments with Melissa. The only reason he hadn’t forcibly barged into Cyprian’s office and yanked her out of one of their endless meetings was because of the whispered assurances she’d given him whenever they managed to pass each other in the halls. She swore everything was okay.

  But that didn’t stop him from worrying. Especially since Tarek had made it his sacred duty to act as Jace’s personal shadow. He monopolized Jace’s time, keeping him holed up in security most of the day with the flimsy excuse that his Navy SEAL background made him an excellent candidate to review EXIT Inc.’s security procedures for potential flaws.

  When Melissa’s office door finally opened, an older woman with glasses hanging from a gold chain around her neck stepped outside.

  “Thank you so much,” Melissa told her. “I appreciate that you put a rush on this.” She thumped the manila folder in her hand.

  The woman beamed at Melissa, nodded at Jace, and headed into the hallway.

  “Ready?” Jace asked.

  “Ready for what?”

  “To go home. Your home.”

  At her blank look, he blew out an impatient breath. Either she’d developed excellent acting skills since this morning or her daily routine had numbed her perception of danger. She’d probably convinced herself that everything was okay, that they’d both overreacted. Maybe she’d even told herself that her father’s assistants wouldn’t really have hurt her if they’d discovered her hiding upstairs, that they were just concerned about her father’s safety, like his bodyguards who escorted him between home and work every day. In other words, she was in denial.

  He rested his arms on the door frame above her. “You did hire me as your bodyguard. Remember? Where you go, I go.”

  “Oh . . . right.” She frowned. “I seem to recall that we needed to talk terms first.”

  He leaned down close to make sure Jolene couldn’t hear him. “If you think after this morning’s little jaunt upstairs that you’re leaving here alone, unprotected, t
hen you’re dreaming with your eyes open. Not gonna happen.”

  She thumped his chest with the folder. “If we’re going to work together—”

  “We are.”

  Her frown deepened. “If we’re going to work together, then you’d better stop the caveman stuff right now. I don’t like being bossed around.”

  “Then you aren’t going to like me at all. Because that’s one of my terms. You follow my orders.”

  The folder crinkled in her grip. “I suppose you want some outrageously high salary, too.”

  He crossed his arms and threw out a ridiculous amount, just to see her reaction.

  She gasped. “Are you serious? That’s, that’s . . .”

  “Outrageous?”

  She sputtered, then looked past him. Her mouth tightened. “Deal. I’ll get my purse.”

  He turned around. Sebastian stood just inside the reception area, not even bothering to pretend that he wasn’t watching them. And although Jolene might not have noticed the slight bulge of the pistol on Sebastian’s hip beneath his suit jacket, Jace did.

  He narrowed his eyes in warning. As soon as he sensed Melissa’s presence at his elbow, he reached for the book bag he knew she’d be carrying. Without taking his gaze off his adversary, he hefted the bag under one arm and grabbed Melissa’s hand.

  He tugged her to the doorway and would have bulldozed through Sebastian if the man hadn’t stepped aside at the last possible second.

  A few minutes later, they were in Jace’s car on the long drive to Melissa’s house. He expected her to bombard him with questions, but other than telling him her address, so he could key it into the GPS when they’d first gotten into the car, she didn’t say anything. She nervously tapped her nails on her thigh and kept looking in her side mirror as if she expected to see a fast car zooming up behind them at any moment.

  Once they were on the highway, Jace pressed Melissa’s hand to stop the tapping before it drove him insane. “No one’s following us. You can relax.”

  “How can you be sure?”