I clutched Karin to me, my mouth on hers, desperate to hold on to the feeling of her curves beneath my hands, the heat of her body tangled up in mine as I spilled deep into her womb.
The fantasy splintered apart, and reality poured back in with its disappointing clarity. I was alone, jerking off in my bed. It might be time to reassess my life.
Chapter 14
Karin
Despite what the weather report said, I managed to catch a few minutes of pitiless, glittering sunlight before the storm rolled in. I snapped photos as quickly as I could. The local seafood restaurant was one of our agency’s newest clients, and I wanted plenty of exterior shots while the light held out. I’d already taken a few interiors, but I planned to do the bulk of those when the place was empty before opening the next day. They’d plate some food for me and I’d set up my lightbox and get a few beauty shots of their specialties. I’d been promised a free lobster lunch afterward.
The last few angles I wanted were completed quickly as the clouds rolled in. I finished up and noticed a couple of guys looking at me. Photography equipment drew attention a lot of times, and people were curious about it. I’d had plenty of people come up to me to ask what the light meter was or why I used a short lens and stuff like that. I had a couple cameras strapped over one shoulder and my tripod set up. So it was no surprise that people were looking, but these two dudes were watching me pretty intently. They weren’t chatting, nor were they approaching to observe me and ask questions. They looked downright unfriendly, staring holes in me. They looked a little rough around the edges, frankly, and it gave me the creeps.
I packed up quickly and headed back to the agency so I could check out my proofs on the computer. I had three big monitors—a sweet setup for editing—and the little screen on my digital camera didn’t exactly show all the detail I needed to see when I culled shots and chose the best ones. Once I settled into my studio space and beamed the pics to the program, I ran a slideshow of all my shots. I clicked on a few and deleted them, then zoomed in on others. A few of them had some background action I hadn’t noticed while shooting.
The two guys who’d been staring at me were showing up in the back of several exterior photos. Tall Leering Guy was very visibly handing money to Scarier Leering Guy in two of the pictures. I wasn’t sure that it was anything illegal, but it looked suspicious, especially when I added in the fact that they were watching me like it was their job. The way they’d looked at me had me on edge. I felt a little shaky, even though I was safely in my studio and had left them behind at the seafood restaurant’s parking lot.
Since Elise had left for her doctor’s appointment and the secretary wasn’t in this afternoon because we were closed, I was there alone. I had let myself in the back way with my key and knew Elise would’ve locked up when she left. When I heard the front door rattle, I felt my stomach clench. Fuck. Someone was trying to get in. The O’Sheas would all have texted or gone to the back door or both. Elise and the secretary had keys. Deliveries were left out front if the closed sign was flipped, and potential clients didn’t go trying to break in if they wanted our services and we weren’t open. I stood there, hand to my chest, holding my breath. Cold fear splashed over me. I crept to the door of my studio which was to the far right of the front door. I cracked my door open and peeked from way down low. There was one of the guys from the parking lot. He was peering into the storefront. I closed my door soundlessly, carefully and prayed for him to go away.
I wanted to call Mickey. I wanted him there with me to hold me and tell me it would be okay, or to come with all the O’Shea ex-SEALs and beat the shit out of the guy and chase him off. I wasn’t going to call him. He was not my boyfriend. He was barely my friend. Even though he’d come. I knew in my bones he’d come if I called him, but I wouldn’t’ stoop to that. I was a city girl. I could handle myself just fine. I heard the door rattle again, but there was no pounding, no breaking glass. I waited, chewing on my lip, holding my breath, sweating through my shirt completely. When I peeked again, he was gone.
I sat down, made myself take some deep breaths I’d practiced in yoga for years. Turns out that meditative breathing doesn’t do shit when I’m in fight or flight mode. Thunder cracked as the storm started rolling in. I sat down at my computer and logged back in. I tried to work on the images I’d been selecting, but my leg was bouncing hard. I was wired. The silence wore on me, but I was afraid to put music on. I might miss hearing someone try the door again or break into the agency. I wanted to leave, but I had work to do. This was my workspace. I wouldn’t be so spooked I was driven out of it. Besides, crossing from the back door to my rental car didn’t appeal to me very much. Someone could be waiting to jump me or lying under my car, ready to grab my ankles. Shaking but determined, I stayed and selected my top ten images for Elise to go over tomorrow.
I heard the back door open and I sprung to my feet. “Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered to myself, trying to be silent. I had the lights off in the studio, just my monitor was on. I looked around for someplace to hide. I had a pile of backdrops and canvas piled in one corner. I eyed it and wondered if it was worse to hide and be found or to face whatever it was on my feet. I decided to stay on my feet. I also cued up the emergency services number on my phone.
“You here, babe?” Elise called out. I clutched my chest.
“In here!” I called back. I hurried to the door and opened it, “lock the back door.”
“Why?”
“No reason, just habit. I guess from being in the city,” I shrugged. I didn’t want to worry her. She didn’t need any more stress during her pregnancy.
She looked at me a little skeptically but turned the deadbolt to humor me. I relaxed a little.
“So, how was your appointment?” I said.
While she told me about how the baby was measuring ahead of schedule, I vowed to tell Brendan to keep a close eye on Elise. I didn’t want to risk anything happening to her. Especially if I’d stumbled across something that spelled trouble.
Chapter 15
Mickey
After a few more photos of my last dive group posed on the beach, I handed them back their phone and waved them off. They had been a terrific bunch, a set of grandparents and their teenage grandkids. We’d had a blast together, and it was a great note to end the workday on. I toweled off, pulled on some clothes and checked my phone. I had a missed call from Brendan, and I called him back.
“What’s up? Is the wedding off?” I teased.
“I wish you’d quit joking about shit like that,” he said, his voice tense.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just come straight to the pub,” he said.
“Tell me now,” I said, my gut clenching.
“I’ll fill you in when you get here,” he said and hung up.
My instincts kicked in immediately. Something was off. I didn’t waste any time closing up and getting to the pub. I didn’t let myself go down a rabbit hole of hypothetical disasters. If I started that, I would waste energy and focus. I knew better. So I pushed aside any worries until I could find out the reality.
As soon as I got there, I saw that all my brothers were there. Brendan was ushering them into Connor’s office while another bartender covered for Tommy. This meant nothing good. I heard alarm bells going off in my head, and I followed my brothers into the office and shut the door.
“What’s the crisis?” Billy asked, his usually affable tone, all business.
I glanced around and saw every O’Shea man standing in some variation of the same posture. No slouching or leaning for us. We had our feet planted shoulder-width apart, and our arms crossed over our broad chests, waiting.
“I talked to Karin this afternoon,” Brendan said, “she told me something that concerns me, and I wanted to fill you in on it.”
“What’s the story,” Connor asked.
Brendan nodded. “Today, Karin was taking pictures down at Carlito’s on the Wharf, and two guys were watching her. She packed up
pretty quick and left because she was spooked. She goes to work, checks out her proofs, and sees something going on in the background. I had Elise at the doctor when Karin was working at the agency. She was there by herself. Evidently, someone tried the front door a few times. She peeked out, and it was one of the guys from the photos. I asked her to print me a copy of the photos to see if there was anything we need to be concerned about.”
He handed around some papers. Billy got them first and swore under his breath, “Fuck me. Mick, look at this. Is this who I think it is?”
Before I could reach for the picture, Connor leaned over from the other side.
“That’s Carlos Dominguez.”
I shut my eyes for a second. I slowed my breathing, ticked the boxes on my focus training. Tamp down emotion. Put it in a box. Visualize the target. Concentrate on the mission. But for the first time, the mission was keeping Karin safe. There was no box big enough or strong enough to contain the emotion that carried. Fear bled cold through my veins for an instant.
Karin had captured the island’s most notorious drug dealer in the middle of a transaction. She had photographic proof. If the cops got their hands on this, they might finally be able to put away that sleazebag. They’d been trying for years. He was already a problem when I’d moved there, and his network had grown. Mostly his crew preyed on locals, but a couple times a year, some girl on spring break would get a bad batch and wind up in the hospital or worse yet, disappear for a few hours or a day and come back roughed up and hollow-eyed. A few of his guys liked to party with the tourists and by party, they meant dope them and assault them. None of Dominguez’s men had ever ventured into the pub. They didn’t want to tangle with a family of ex-SEALs who would be more than happy to turn vigilante if any of the pub’s customers were victimized.
Just because we’d managed to keep Dominguez and his network off of our territory didn’t mean they hadn’t just brought trouble to our door. Elise was about to be an O’Shea. She was family. And I’d be damned if anyone laid a finger on Karin. I cracked my knuckles and Connor cleared his throat.
“What do you think we need to do?” Billy asked Brendan.
“We’re going to protect the girls,” I said, stepping up. “If Dominguez was at the shop, it means he knows Karin might have seen something.”
“So where do we start?” Tommy asked.
“I want top of the line security and surveillance equipment installed at the agency, both entrances, and around the cabins, too. I want it installed and operational within twenty-four hours. I don’t care what it costs.”
Tommy nodded and got to work.
“We need a panic button app on the girls’ phones,” Billy said. I nodded.
“What else?” Brendan asked, already scrolling his phone.
“Look,” I said. “Let me know what the plan is. I’m going to talk to Karin now,” I said.
I bailed so fast I didn’t even look back. I felt like we had a handle on the situation—surveillance, security, a panic option, the possibility of in-person guards, potential law enforcement involvement. My brothers could take the plan from here. I needed to get to Karin as soon as possible.
I wouldn’t feel right until I had eyes on her. Until I knew she was safe. Then I might just keep her within arm’s reach for the rest of her life. Getting mixed up in a goddamn drug cartel her second week living on the island. I swear this infuriating woman was going to take ten years off my life at this rate.
Chapter 16
Karin
Staring crazily at the door with the TV on mute wasn’t working very well at calming me down. I eyeballed the boxes in the corner, but I couldn’t bring myself to face them. I’d sleep in a chair. As if I’d sleep anyway. I had a baseball bat propped between my knees. I was jumpy as a cat.
I had thought I was overreacting at first, or I’d hoped I was. But when I talked to Brendan and showed him the pictures, I knew I wasn’t. He had told me the guy was a major drug dealer on the island named Carlos Dominguez. He sold drugs, ran some black-market shit, and may or may not dabble in assaulting college girls on spring break or at least letting his crew get away with it. Drugs—that was bad. Big deal, sleep with the fishes, do not fuck with these people bad. Throw in the recreational roofies and we had a true crime scenario that meant I might never fall asleep again. Brendan had told me that we needed to be very careful. He didn’t want to freak Elise out either, but he wanted to keep her safe. The thing was, I didn’t know if safe was even a possibility at this point.
A knock sounded at my door and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I grabbed the bat and got to my feet. I wanted to burst into tears.
“Karin, it’s me,” I heard Mickey say from the door. My heart eased its way down out of my mouth and continued pounding like I was about to die, but I felt something like relief just from the sound of his voice. It unstuck me and I ran for the door and opened it.
I wanted to go right into his arms. But he brushed past me and immediately started searching the place. I trailed after him, suddenly afraid that someone was lying in wait. I hadn’t thought to look around. I finally stood in the living room and waited on him. He came out of the bathroom and nodded, letting me know we were alone.
He came up to me, crowded me a little, “You okay?” he asked. He looked at me with such concern my knees turned to water. I blinked fast and hard, no tears, no weakness. I nodded that I was okay, but my chin trembled and told him I was lying.
“I’m a little freaked out. I don’t know what to do,” I said, my voice shaky.
He took me by the chin and made me look up at him, “Hey. I’ve got you,” he said.
Something settled in me then. I nodded. I acknowledged that he did, in fact, have my back on this and that he was going to be there for me. Even though I got scared and broke up with him, this man wasn’t going to let me down. Tears started in my eyes, but I set my jaw and didn’t let them have their way. It was all I could do to keep my hands at my side. I was tense and afraid, and he was there. I wanted to feel his arms around me. I wanted to cry, knowing I was safe while he held me. I didn’t give in to that. It wasn’t fair to him, and it was a weakness.
I felt his eyes on my mouth. I wanted that kiss so bad I could have willed it into being, but I stepped back. I sat down and gestured for him to sit, too.
“Nice bat,” he said wryly. “What happened to the waterbed?”
“I sold it,” I said. “Drained it with a hose out the window back there, listed it online, and here you go.”
I leaned over and reached into the drawer where I kept the remote. I pulled out four hundred bucks cash and handed it to him.
“What’s this for?” he said.
“Maybe it’ll help pay back what you spent fixing this place up. The waterbed belonged to the resort, so there’s the money from it. I got a new bed.”
“You mean the thing in those two boxes?”
“Yeah. And the mattress, you probably saw it in the bedroom.”
“You’re sleeping on a twin-size mattress still in the plastic?”
“Yeah. I’ll get the bed put together this weekend maybe,” I said, like everything was normal. Like my big problem was I was so busy with work I hadn’t put my new furniture together.
“I bet that snap together shit bed cost a fortune to ship. It’s cheaper to get something local,” he said.
“Rookie mistake,” I said. “I just wanted something small and cheap.”
“Cost more to ship it out here, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like the height of luxury. Is it plastic or particle board?” he said. I shrugged.
“It’s supposed to be white,” I said, “I think it’s particle board with a plastic wipe-off coating.”
“Sounds classy,” he quipped, “not planning on any sleepovers anytime soon?”
I shook my head, “No. It’s just me. No plans to do anything but work and dodge drug dealers.” I tried to sound more robust than I felt.
“Listen
, we’re all working on a plan to keep you safe, you and Elise.”
“God, that’s the worst part!” I burst out. “I may have put her and the baby in danger! I can’t believe I didn’t just make sure nobody was around when I took the pictures. I was so preoccupied with beating the storm, catching the last of the light—I didn’t even—"
“What? Check to make sure no one was carrying out a narcotics transaction in the middle of a parking lot? Wandering into the frame to commit a felony? This is not your fault, Karin,” he said firmly. “Don’t beat yourself up. I mean it. We’re going to figure this out, and I’m here.”
“Shit!” I said as a lightning flash flooded the room with uncanny yellow brightness from the windows right as thunder crashed. I jumped and Mickey’s hand clamped down on my arm.
“I’ve got you,” he said again.
This was extremely comforting to me. I felt sentimental toward him, a surge of affection, but I held myself back.
“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t let myself say more to him.
We sat there for a minute, staring at the muted TV.
“Do you even turn the captions on, or do you just read lips?” he asked.
“I didn’t want the sound on in case I missed hearing something.”
“Like someone breaking in?”
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Hey,” he said again. He took my hand and held it. He didn’t lace our fingers up or do anything suggestive. He just held my hand like we were in this together.
“I appreciate you coming by. I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Are you kidding me?” he said, “Karin, you know me better than that.” He actually looked a little wounded.
“I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m not your responsibility, Mick. We’re not even really friends,” I said, my voice thick with misery.
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