Tempting the Heiress

by Nana Malone

He blocked the next hook. Then he kicked me in the chest.

  I coughed, but it didn’t even slow me down.

  I went after him again, still raw and hurting. All I could think of was that I’d promised to keep Mayzie safe. I’d promised to keep Neela safe. But I’d miscalculated somewhere. This whole time, from the moment Willa showed up, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence or an accident. She had always meant to meet up with us. And Satorini showing up was a consequence of that.

  “You can’t have the baby. You’ll have to kill me first.“

  And then there was a prick right in my neck. I tried to stay on my feet. Mayzie. Poor Mayzie. I had to get to her. But when I took a step forward, my knees didn’t go the way they were supposed to. They were on lock, and I couldn’t force the muscles around them to engage.

  Then I was falling. Falling down the rabbit hole, unable to reach the white rabbit.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what, Mr. Reynolds. I’ll leave you here to wonder where you fucked up in your life, and I’ll take my daughter. Thank you very much.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Wish I could say I was sorry, Mr. Reynolds, but you know how it is. Children belong with their parents.” Then he aimed his gun and shot me twice in the chest.

  The darkness took me quickly. It didn’t matter how hard I fought, I’d failed both my girls.

  Neela...

  The boat ride back to the main island was a quiet one. Instead of taking the ferry, Willa had managed to get us a private charter on the kind of vessel no one would go looking for if it sank.

  Eventually, Willa leaned over. "Where is your sense of adventure, Neela? This could be fun."

  "Only you would think that this was fun." I was worried about Jax. I was worried about Mayzie. Would either of them forgive me for leaving?

  Probably not. But if I could keep Willa from bringing more pain to Mayzie’s door, I had to do it.

  She stayed silent after that. I couldn't help but wonder if Jax was right about her. Willa and I had been friends since we were children. She was always the wild, untamed one. But was she still my friend?

  What kind of friend puts you in danger? What kind of mother puts her own child in danger to save her own skin?

  I had to ask those questions. Because no matter what I did, I couldn't see things the way that Jax saw them. I could only remember the Willa who would stand up for me, who'd battle her mother to let me have some freedom. The Willa who told boys she wasn't going to date until someone asked me out. That was the Willa I saw when I looked at her.

  But if I was being honest with myself, it had been a long time since I had seen that Willa. This Willa, I did not know.

  Once we were on the main island, we flagged a taxi, and I directed it to where I’d had Bex stash the decoded ledger pages. I had the phone copies, of course, but I didn't think Willa would be satisfied enough by those to finally put an end to our nightmare.

  It didn’t matter. I had to have faith no one would get hurt. That was the terrible choice that I had to make. But one step at a time. Willa might know what to do with the information we’d decoded when she saw what was in it.

  When we jumped out of the taxi, Willa glanced around. "Where the hell are we?"

  "You said you wanted to go to the ledger, so that's where we’re going."

  "At some yoga studio? Jesus, anyone could have access."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. This isn't very secure. What if someone saw you go in here?"

  "Well, for starters, I had Bex store them here, if you don't mind."

  "You let that ridiculous assistant of yours hide something that important?"

  "She's not just my assistant. And Bex is a whole lot more trustworthy than..." I stopped myself. I wasn't there to judge Willa. I was going to get her what she needed, and then we could go back to our lives. Me, Mayzie, and Jax.

  Yes, but how does Willa fit into that happy family picture?

  With the key I’d found in Willa’s house, I opened the backdoor to the yoga studio she owned.

  "This is very reckless."  Said Willa. "You have no idea what the ledgers are worth."

  "I’ve got a good idea."

  Hopefully, I was doing the right thing. Inside the studio, I turned off the alarm, and shut the door behind us. Then I led her down to where I told Bex to hide the ledgers. Outside the bathroom, Willa tapped her foot impatiently. "We are running out of time. Why on earth did you stash the ledger here?"

  I’d paid for a membership when Willa first bought the studio, and I had just kept it up. Even though the studio was closed, they still had open rooms for use if you had a membership code.

  I tapped in my code from memory and mumbled, "Well, it seemed like the perfect hiding place."

  "You hid them in here? But I haven’t been here in years. Why do you still come here?"

  Rolling my eyes, I tugged open the side door and answered her. “I know you’re surprised I would do anything without your express permission. But, yes, I still come here. Too lazy to cancel I guess. And I’m grandfathered in at old pricing.”

  Willa rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so melodramatic. I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t still come here. I’m just surprised."

  I opened the door and led the way to the bathroom. "Like you used to always say, no grown man I know would voluntarily go near a tampon dispenser. I had Bex hide the documents in a bag and seal them. Just in case they were necessary."

  Willa cracked a laugh. "What? Where I used to stash my party favors?"

  “Drugs. The word you're looking for is drugs.”

  “God if you were so upset with what I was doing, why did you ever hang out with me?”

  I shook my head. “You won’t ever get it will you? You were family to me. I always figured I could keep you out of trouble. Guess I failed.”

  She was silent at that. After all, what could she say? Finally, she said, "But the ledger. It’s safe, isn’t it?"

  I hoped to God it was. I was counting on the translations getting Willa on her way. “Yes,” I lied. “But remember, if I give this to you, you need to do whatever you're gonna do with it and get this danger away from Mayzie. Sort it out, Willa. Mayzie doesn’t deserve this.”

  She rocked on her feet. “Yeah, fine. Whatever.”

  I opened the dispenser and reached behind the back panel and pulled out the scanned copies of the ledger.

  Willa frowned at me. "That isn’t the ledger."

  "Oh, I know."

  "Are you fucking kidding me? I need the real goddamned ledger. Not copies."

  "This is the ledger. The photocopied first half of it."

  "Are you fucking serious right now? You are playing with my life here."

  "I promise you, I'm not. Everything you need is in these documents."

  "I need the actual fucking ledger. And from the looks of it, this is only half. I need the whole thing, Neela. They will fucking kill me if I don’t have it. This doesn’t have the fucking account numbers. Everything hinges on that and the other cipher. It was going to give us TRICLO!"

  A ball of ice formed in my gut as the truth seeped in. "What do you need the account numbers for? This is enough to take to the authorities. Or at the very least buy you some time."

  Willa paced and ran her hands through her hair, tugging at the darker roots. “Fuck, Neela. Why do you always have to fucking do this? Why?”

  She stared at me, and then she reached behind her back. Shit. I knew what was coming. "When did you figure it out?"

  "I wasn’t sure, honestly. But Jax knew. And you solidified my concerns when you weren’t over the moon to have Mayzie back. When you weren’t more concerned with her safety than yours. When you described how you’d gotten away. More importantly, I know that Jax was on the king’s detail and practically an expert at losing a tail. Not to mention he grew up in these islands, so he knows every nook and cranny. No way could you have followed us to King’s Island.”

  She sighed. “You’ve known all along.”

&
nbsp; “I hoped I was wrong. But the guy who attempted to grab me off the street… I could have sworn I saw him following us yesterday. He had a tattoo on his left wrist of a bird or something? Maybe a swallow? He’s Mayzie’s father, isn’t he?”

  Willa cursed under her breath and pulled the gun out from behind her back. “How did you know?”

  “Again. You gave yourself away. You have the same tattoo on your right shoulder now. Not to mention, the decals on Mayzie’s walls are of swallows. I put two and two together. I knew as soon as I saw him that I had to get you away from her.”

  "Fuck. Why are you always so damn smug? All you had to do was get the ledger, figure it out, and hand it over. But no, you always thought you were better than me. A better person.”

  “Newsflash, I’d never put Mayzie in danger because of money.”

  “I’m doing this for her. I owe a lot of money. And those properties are in her name. I can’t sell them, so what was I supposed to do?”

  “You shouldered too much risk. That’s on you. You wanted to steal the money that's in those accounts. You needed my brain to do it.”

  “Look, it's not personal."

  "Oh, it's extremely personal. This is about a good old-fashioned heist, and the friend you used so you could get access. Well, I'm not helping you."

  "Oh, you're not helping me? Even for Mayzie? You can have the baby. I just need the money so I can disappear."

  "Well, I would very much love for you to disappear. But I can't decode that for you without the actual other half of the ledger."

  She waved the gun at me. "I swear to God, I will kill you."

  "Yeah, but then I can't decode it for you at all, can I?"

  "You will, because if you don't, I'll go back to that pretty little boy toy you have, and I'll kill him. I'll kill Mayzie too."

  I flinched. "She's your daughter."

  "I never wanted a kid. She's a baby. I'll just drop her off to the nearest fire station. I don't care. I want the ledger. And you're going to give it to me."

  "You would not hurt Mayzie."

  "Can you be sure of that? You better take me to it, or you’re dead. I assume it was Bex who hid it for you? Call her."

  "I'm not calling her."

  "Call her, or I'll kill you. It's really simple."

  "Do you think I'm afraid to die?"

  "No, but I think you're afraid of what I'll do to Jax and Mayzie, so call."

  She handed me her phone. I knew I'd played the wrong hand and Jax had been right all along. Willa had never been my friend. She'd always been using me. And now I'd put my whole family in danger.

  Eighteen

  Jax…

  The gray in my vision started to fade away as I came to.

  Motherfucker that hurt.

  Thank God for Ariel’s rule #1. If you’re on the job, unless you’re sleeping, wear a fucking vest.

  And thank God, the vest had taken the majority of that hit. My brain started to clear. My fingertips were numb and tingly. But everything moved the way it was supposed to. My chest hurt like a son of a bitch, but that was bound to happen. I tried a tentative breath. It hurt, but it was somewhat manageable. And then I lifted my hand.

  No blood. The vest took both hits. But no doubt I was going to sport one hell of a bruise.

  Mayzie.

  Shit. I rolled to my side and pushed myself up. I managed to crawl to the closet to get the baby. But she wasn’t there.

  That motherfucker had taken her.

  I ran for the sat phone, pulling it out from the compartment under the bedside table. I dialed quickly even as I ran to open my laptop.

  In times like this, it was important to have a backup plan.

  Ariel answered right away. "What’s your status? I sent a car to the ferry landing after I got your SOS, But Zia and Tamsin haven’t seen them yet."

  "I was hoping you were going to tell me some good news. She should have been there by now."

  "No dice."

  "Shit."

  "What's wrong on your end?"

  "What's wrong is someone shot me and took Mayzie. I'm going after her."

  Ariel used some inventive swearing I hadn’t heard since my military days. "How? I need someone to tell me what the fuck is going on."

  "I think I was right. Mommy dearest is bad news. The guy who helped her steal the ledger and fake her death and who tried to kidnap Neela is the one who took Mayzie. Michael Satorini. He’s also Mayzie’s dad, so it’s one fucked-up family reunion. Then when Willa was safely out of the picture, we got visitors again. I'm not really one for coincidence."

  "You think this is about Neela after all?"

  "It has to be."

  "She needed Neela to decode that ledger because she couldn't do it herself." I could hear Ariel typing on the other end.

  I rubbed the back of my neck as I checked to make sure the tracker was on. Next, I strapped up with weapons. "Yeah, but there is no guarantee that Neela would be able to decode it. If she hadn’t found the cipher, it would never have happened."

  "She would have always found the cipher. My theory is that Vanhorn was one of those callers about a missing piece of inventory. It prompted her to look in the gallery. And maybe that was Willa’s plan.”

  Fuck, my head. I needed to clear it. “Okay, so Willa and Satorini pull off the heist. Steal the ledger from Vanhorn for a client. Except they decide to keep it for themselves and remove the middle man. They have the ledger, they have the cipher, but they can’t read it. The heat gets too close, so they decide to go dark. Pretty hard to run with a kid, so of course Willa fakes her death and leaves the ledger with the one person who would be able to crack it. But given there’s a diamond cartel on her ass, and whoever hired her is also looking for her, she splits the locations of the ledger and the cipher and pulls a Houdini."

  "All the while she’s made sure her resident code cracker has access to both pieces." Ariel's voice was tight.

  "And Neela being Neela, she couldn't let the puzzle go. She had to keep picking at it. Keep trying to solve it. It’s how her brain works. She won’t let anything go until it makes sense to her. So basically, she ran off with the person who has possibly been trying to get at her this whole time."

  "There's no way to know. And let's face it. Neela wanted to believe Willa, so there wasn't much you could do."

  "You know, as bodyguards go, I might be shitty."

  She snort-laughed. "Maybe. But I'm the one who told you your prime directive was the baby. Like Bipps, I thought the worse we’d deal with was a kidnap and ransom crew. Not a fucking diamond cartel."

  I prayed that, like usual, Mayzie had Bunbun in her grip. If you tried to separate her from Bunbun, she would scream her bloody head off. I'd realized that on the first day and had a feeling that tracker might come in handy eventually. And it was a good thing I'd thought of it.

  “I have them.” She rattled off their location.

  I'd grabbed my cache of ammo. I had no idea how many people I was going to have to fight. But there was no way I was letting Satorini keep her. It was my job to protect her. She'd become my own. And once I had her safe, I was going to go get her mother and bring her home safely too.

  Jax...

  Luckily, Mayzie was still on Lord’s Island. The motherfucker who’d taken her had her stashed not even half a mile from the street I’d grown up on. Just outside of the city center, things went wilderness quiet.

  I drove up to the quiet suburban house and parked down the street. Everything looked all nice and cozy. I took my tablet with me, trying to appear as normal as possible with my all-black getup and duffle full of enough weapons to arm a small militia.

  I did two walk-bys at the house. From what I could see, there were four men. Two guards on watch outside, two inside. The ones outside, I could handle. What I didn't want to do was spook the crazies inside and have them hurt Mayzie in the crossfire, which meant I needed to be quiet and efficient. Good thing I had experience with that.

  The first
guard was easy. He had his back to me. One hand around his mouth, one arm around his neck, and I dragged him back just as I’d been taught during Special Forces training with the Winston Isles Army. I moved the body to the back bushes where he'd be less conspicuous. But God only knew how long he'd stay that way. I needed to keep the body count low. I'd have to move quickly.

  The other guard turned just as I was coming up on his back. He reached for his weapon, so I had to be a little less neat with that one, a little less clean. My knife sliced across his throat, spurting blood everywhere.

  I moved the body over by the big oak to the side of the house. I hid it as best I could and then went for the door. There was a man in the kitchen with his back to me. "Hey, Phelps. Where the hell did you put the—" He turned around and froze, reaching for his weapon. I downed him with one bullet.

  Head shot.

  The problem was there was a lot of noise as he went down. Another voice called from inside, "What the fuck is going on in there? If this baby starts crying one more time, I will fucking feed you to her. She won't eat anything I give her."

  "That's because she doesn't like regular baby food, you asshole." I couldn't help but be pleased that Mayzie was giving this motherfucker hell. He came around the corner of the kitchen, saw his idiot friend, and dove back around the corner. As he ran, I chased after him. Fuck.

  I had to get to him before he got to Mayzie. I had to get him before... He turned around, gun aimed, but I fired first. The bullet hit him in the shoulder, and he went down.

  "Who the fuck are you?"

  "What? You and your friends shoot me in the goddamn chest and you don't recognize me?"

  "You were dead."

  "Well, it seems that rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. You can thank your friend Willa for that one. She just said it to me two days ago."

  The asshole's eyes went wide as my foot stepped on his arm that was leaking all over the place. "Who the fuck sent you, Santorini?"

  He tried to dislodge my leg with his arm. But then I shot him in the other one too.