Screw it. He wasn’t big on doing what he should do. Fortune favors the bold.
He stood and crossed to her desk, setting his hands down, he leaned forward. She looked up at him, surprised, as he began to speak from that vantage point.
“Sharing an office with you,” he began, his voice more ragged than ever, “seeing you all day every day...in my book, that’s not losing a bet. That’s winning the fucking lottery.”
Her breath hitched and she licked her lips. Damn, he wanted to lick those lips.
“Meeting time!” Cristal announced as she flung open the door.
Raiza quickly stood, her sudden motion knocking the tape dispenser off of her desk. Mateo reached out and caught it before it crashed to the floor. After replacing it on the desktop, he noticed that Raiza moved it about an eighth of an inch to the left and straightened it.
He shook his head. OK, so maybe all the office gossip about Raiza being OCD held a little truth, Mateo thought.
“Am I interrupting something?” Cristal sounded more than a little amused.
“Nope,” Raiza said briskly as she grabbed her iPad and purse and brushed past Cristal in her hurry to leave the room.
Mateo's eyes automatically traveled to the sway of her hips. He honestly hadn’t meant to look at her ass as she exited; he had really tried to break himself of that habit. But, damn...it really was one fine ass.
Cristal cleared her throat, reminding him of her presence. He snapped his gaze up to meet hers as she asked faux-innocently, “Enjoying the view?”
Mateo had initially looked up expecting to see one very pissed off Cristal, but instead she just smiled and shook her head before heading out of the office. Just as the door was about to close, she shot one last parting remark through the remaining crack, “I gave in to your near-constant pleas to move into this office with my best friend, Mateo. Now, you kids better behave in here.”
He looked around the small room and immediately only saw it in terms of a collection of surfaces that he wanted to “behave” with Raiza on. The desks, the walls, the chairs, the floors...he sighed. Damn. What had he gotten himself into?
Chapter Three
Raiza finally started to feel her heart rate return to normal as she sat in ‘her’ chair (third one on the left side) for the Monday morning meeting. Normally, Cristal sat beside her but seeing as she was now a partner at the agency, Raiza assumed that she would be seated with Dominic at the head of the rectangular table.
As the Red Hot staff shuffled into the room, the buzz was all centered on the Thrive Therapy offices and what pieces of information everyone had gleaned. The staff were all trying to fit those individual pieces together to complete the puzzle.
As she tilted her head to see who was speaking in hushed tones in the hallway, she saw a plain clothes detective, who was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome, just outside the conference room huddled closely to Cristal. Dominic appeared out of nowhere, stepping beside Cristal as he possessively placed his arm around her waist.
Raiza shook her head. It was like a dog marking his territory. Cristal, however, didn’t even seem to notice and continued her conversation without missing a beat, gesturing to Dominic then back to tall-dark-and-handsome. Raiza assumed she was making introductions. Raiza noticed the look in the detective’s eyes as he took note of Dominic’s protective stance. He took a step back, then, to include Dominic in the briefing.
Cristal and Dominic had been stuck living together as husband and wife in an undercover operation a few months back and had been inseparable ever since. Raiza was glad for both of them. They deserved happiness.
She felt a tug at her heart. She wouldn’t mind a little of that kind of happiness coming her way. Not the fall-madly-in-love kind that her friends seemed to be experiencing; she wasn’t under any kind of delusion that that kind of love was possible for her. Nope, she would just like to have maybe a friends-with-benefits situation…as long as the benefits were 'light you on fire' H-O-T!
Dominic and Cristal made their way into the room with the detective following behind. The room quieted as everyone took their seats. Raiza realized that this would be the first meeting that Red was not running. He had officially handed over the reins of the agency last week. After doing so without any kind of grand fanfare he immediately packed up and headed down to Cabo San Lucas on a fishing trip.
An ache formed in her chest. She was going to miss seeing him around every day. Red was the only father figure Raiza had ever had in her life. She had lived with her Grandma until she passed. That had happened when Raiza was eleven. She had then spent her pre-teen and teen years being shuffled around from relative to relative. Her mother had suffered from drug addiction and she had never known her father.
She had a big family, lots of aunts, uncles and cousins. There was never a shortage of places to go. However, she never stayed with one family more than a few months before they would ship her off to another.
The nomadic lifestyle did not give her a sense of belonging. In fact quite the opposite had occurred. She was the outsider with no hope of fitting in. No real support system to rely on.
Until Red. He had given her a chance when no one else would. When she was initially hired at Red Hot she had been a bait girl, which basically entailed her tempting and catching cheating husbands. But she immediately realized that undercover work was not something she could do on a long term basis.
There was no control, no structure when you were undercover. And even though the agency always went to great lengths to ensure all of their agent’s safety in the field, it was still too unpredictable for Raiza’s peace of mind.
So Raiza had decided that if undercover wasn’t what she wanted to do then she needed to find out how else she could be indispensable to the agency. She had begun coming into the office when she was off the clock. For months, when she hadn’t been out on assignment, she was at the agency, learning every angle of the business. She had known she belonged here, she just hadn’t found her niche. She had quickly learned that the tech guys liked to talk about their work and surprisingly she understood what they were talking about.
After a few months immersing herself in their virtual world, she had asked Red for a transfer to the Cyber Division and within six months she had been promoted to head of the department. She loved her job, loved the people she worked with. They were her pseudo-family.
“Ok, if everyone could please find a seat,” Dominic directed.
As Raiza looked around, she noticed three new faces. First, detective tall-dark-and-handsome from the hallway. Second a young girl, probably early twenties, blond with huge green eyes. Raiza assumed that she was the new girl that Cristal had brought on for undercover. Last was a tall guy that was built like a house. He had that 'ex-military' look, so it was probably safe to assume that he would be security/undercover.
Cristal cleared her throat as she stood next to Dominic at the front of the room, “All right, guys, let’s get started. We have a lot to go over.” Everyone quieted down, giving Cristal their full attention.
“First up I would like to introduce Detective Pearson, he has a few things he’d like to say.”
The detective stepped away from the wall he had been standing against. “Hello, everyone, as Ms. Hart mentioned my name is Detective Pearson. I am here regarding the investigation of the break-in and homicide at Thrive Therapy. I am going to need to interview each of you within the next twenty-four hours, if possible. I will be using the room across the hall to hold the interviews. There will be a sign-up sheet next to the door. Please fill in your name, next to the time that is convenient for you. Are there any questions?”
Ty, who was in the security/undercover division, spoke up, “What can you tell us about what happened next door?”
“As of right now it looks like a robbery gone bad. We think the victim caught the assailant in the act. There were signs of a struggle. The victim looks to have expired due to a single shot to his chest.”
“You said
it was a robbery gone bad. What was stolen?” Ty followed up.
“That’s all that I am at liberty to divulge at this time. When we have more information to give you, I will pass it along to either Mr. Charles or Ms. Hart and they can fill you in.”
As the drool-worthy detective finished non-answering, Ty's phone rang and he excused himself to go and take the call.
After the door shut behind Detective Yummy, Dominic stood, “Alright, people so let’s do everything we can to help the police in this investigation. I don’t know about all of you, but I don’t like the idea of something like this going down in our backyard.”
Cristal added, “At this time, law enforcement only wants to interview each of us, but you know the drill—if anyone sees anything or remembers anything pertinent, make sure to let Dominic or I know, we will be in constant communication with LAPD until this is resolved. Like Dominic said, this all happened in our backyard, which is a little too close for comfort.”
“Moving on we have a few announcements,” Dominic again took the floor, “First off I would like to introduce you all to the two newest members of the Red Hot family, Alyssa Cane and Christian Samuels.”
The two newbies stood, Christian nodded his head once in way of greeting, Alyssa lifted her hand and gave a small half-wave, they both sat back down.
“Christian will be working in both undercover and security, and Alyssa will be starting off in our cyber division until she gets some self-defense training, then she will be rotating between cyber and undercover.”
Raiza realized that the path Alyssa would be taking was the exact opposite of the one that she herself had walked down at the agency. Well, to each his—or in this case her—own, she thought.
“Raiza,” Dominic interrupted her inner-musings, “Starting tomorrow, Alyssa will be shadowing you.”
Her eyes automatically cut to Cristal’s. Her ‘so-called’ friend! So, not only had they decided that she would be sharing her office, they had also decided to add 'babysitting' to her list of duties.
Lovely. Just lovely.
Cristal looked her straight in the eye, employing her patented Cristal-move by showing absolutely no emotion. That’s fine. Cristal didn’t have to do anything for Raiza to know that she knew this was all B.S. She couldn’t wait till this meeting was over so she could have a heart to heart with Miss Cristal Hart.
Dominic continued, “We have several new cases. Kristie Parks has hired us for security and electronic recon; she has been receiving some unsettling e-mails. Ethan, I want you to take lead on security. Why don’t you bring Christian with you to do the prelim, show him the ropes.”
Raiza thought that was an odd choice. Usually when there was anything to do with security and virtual surveillance, Mateo was the obvious go-to guy, seeing as he worked both divisions. She shook her head. Oh well, not her call. Maybe Dom and Cristal were just trying to shake things up a bit. Or maybe, since this would be such a high profile case, due to the fact that Kristie Parks was the current reigning bubblegum pop princess among the tween set, they wanted both security and surveillance to have their own lead.
“And Jerry,” Cristal interjected, “You will be taking lead on the virtual side of the case. I want you to find out anything you can about where those e-mails are physically coming from.”
Hmm, normally the case would have been given to Raiza, and as head of the department, she would have distributed it accordingly. She wasn’t quite sure why there was a break-down in the chain of command. She certainly was going to find out though. She had a sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t going to like the answer.
“Ty, you and Eliza will be working a workman’s comp case. There is some undercover involved, details are in your inbox. And, finally, Raiza and Mateo, you will be working a cheating spouse case. Please stay after and we’ll brief you on the specifics,” Dominic said as he motioned for Cristal to take the floor.
As Cristal spoke about the personnel changes, mainly explaining the office mate musical chairs that was happening, Raiza mentally checked out of the meeting. She was trying to calm herself down from the craziness of the day, and it was only 10:15 am. How in the name of Prada would she be able to make it through the rest of the day standing?
Chapter Four
Mateo had known that his interest in the sexy siren sitting across from him were far more than merely professional since the first time he had laid eyes on her four long years ago. He had tried to ignore his feelings. Primarily by distracting himself with other things—mostly other women—but it had not worked.
He still wasn’t absolutely sure if he would ever act on the hidden desires he was harboring, but he had definitely tried to stop denying their very real existence. Raiza Diaz was by far the most hard-working, determined—not to mention smartest—women Mateo had ever had the pleasure of knowing. And, to call her 'attractive' almost seemed like an insult. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with a body that could easily be registered as a lethal weapon.
But, honestly, what attracted Mateo to her most was her innate ability to always keep her cool. No matter what situation Mateo had ever seen her in, she always maintained an air of dignity, class, and grace.
Of course, some people in the office thought it was more like an air of superiority—but not Mateo. He thought it was smokin’ hot.
Maybe he was so attracted to that quality in her because, as far back as he could remember, he was always taking care of both his unstable mom and two out-of-control little sisters. He and his siblings all had different fathers. Growing up, their mom, Eliana, was always either with the loser-of-the-hour, or on the hunt for the next one.
Eliana Kostas never wanted to be alone. Not that she was ever actually alone…she had her three children. But theirs was not the company she wanted.
Nope. His mom’s energy and attention was always focused on the rotating men in her life, which left Mateo, as the oldest, with all of the responsibility for insignificant little things like...oh...laundry, food, keeping the lights on, and a roof over him and his sisters’ heads.
It had not been easy, by any means. He got his first job at eight. It was a paper route. Within six months, he had begun mowing lawns for the upscale neighborhoods that surrounded the less than desirable area he grew up in. By the age of ten, he had two ‘employees’ (i.e. two other boys from his neighborhood) in his landscape business, three paper routes, and was paying the utilities, groceries and half the rent.
He had made sure his sisters had clean clothes, backpacks, and food. He saw to it that they did their homework, got good grades, and very little exposure to any of the seedy elements his mother allowed in their home. It hadn’t been easy, but no one had ever promised him an easy life.
He knew now, as an adult, that his upbringing had scarred him in ways that he wasn’t even consciously aware of. One glaring example of the damage that had been done was the fact that his relationships never lasted very long.
Mateo had zero patience when women complained and whined about ridiculous things like clothing or a manicure. Another pet-peeve was when they manipulated situations to get their way.
Also, the second he started feeling that whichever random woman he was dating was getting too attached, he took that as his cue to run so fast it would make your head spin. You put all those ingredients together, and you definitely did not have a recipe for a healthy relationship.
As far as he knew, Raiza hadn’t been in any kind of serious relationship in the four years that she had worked at Red Hot. He wasn’t exactly sure what the reason for that was. He had heard through the office grapevine that her upbringing had been tough, but she had never spoken directly to him about it. And unless he heard something from the horse’s mouth, he tended not to put too much stock in the information.
Now as Mateo watched Raiza, sitting directly in front of him—chewing on her bottom lip, he sensed that she was one more ‘announcement’ away from completely losing her shit.
He wasn’t sure what this new case that
they had been assigned to work on together entailed but he hoped that it didn’t involve anything that pushed Raiza too far outside of her comfort zone. She needed control.
He may find the nervous habit she had of pulling her full red lower lip between her teeth sexy-as-hell, but he knew her well enough to know that the only time said habit made an appearance was when Raiza was feeling out of control…and not in a good way. Not in the way he had dreamed of making her feel out of control.
The staff meeting was adjourned and Raiza and Mateo remained seated. Dominic and Cristal both sat down, Cristal next to Raiza, and Dominic next to Mateo.
“Do you still have your connection over at the Omni?” Dominic asked Raiza.
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“Ok, we need you to plant eyes and ears in room 418 today before three p.m.,” Dominic explained.
Mateo saw the look of panic that flashed in Raiza’s eyes before she quickly masked the reaction. She glanced down at her phone, “It’s already eleven. You couldn’t have given me more of a head’s up?” she asked somewhat tersely.
Cristal stepped in, “With everything that happened next door it’s been a crazy morning. And we only received this case at nine a.m. The mark's wife called and said that she found records on credit card statements that her husband spent every Monday afternoon there, best as she can tell, arriving after four o’clock and always checks into the same room. She wants visual and audio confirmation of his suspected affair.”
“The mark is Hector Maldonado, he owns three of the largest shipping docks in Los Angeles. All his info is in your inboxes.” Dominic picked up his iPad as Cristal, Mateo and Raiza followed suit.
Mateo looked at the profile of the man that they would be staking out. Forty-six years old. He was a father of three boys—ages fourteen, eleven, and nine. Married nineteen years to Annabelle Maldonado, age thirty-four.
Friction (Red Hot Private Eye, Novella, Vol. 2) Page 2
