Chapter 2 - Don’t Look Behind Me
There was blood across Roman’s right knuckle.
Not much.
Just enough to make Tessa understand what had happened outside the door.
Roman looked at her face first.
Then her throat.
Her arms.
Her hands.
His examination was quick, clinical, almost cold.
“Did anyone touch you?”
Tessa shook her head.
Roman’s shoulders loosened by perhaps half an inch.
Behind him, one of the men who had chased her lay unconscious against the wall. Another had disappeared around the corner, although a dark streak across the floor suggested he had not walked there willingly.
Tessa stared.
Roman stepped sideways, blocking her view.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes lifted.
For three years she had seen him irritated, amused, exhausted, impatient, even quietly angry.
She had never seen this.
There was something terrifying in his calm.
“Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“My legs are numb.”
Roman crouched.
Tessa instinctively stepped backward.
He stopped immediately.
That stopped her too.
His expression changed.
Not anger.
Something quieter.
Roman extended one hand but did not touch her.
“I’m going to help you stand.”
She swallowed.
“Okay.”
Only then did he place his hand beneath her elbow.
His grip was surprisingly gentle.
Tessa stood.
Her knees buckled.
Roman caught her.
For one strange second she was pressed against his chest, one hand gripping the front of his white shirt.
Neither moved.
She could feel his heartbeat.
Fast.
That frightened her more than the blood.
Roman Valorie had been afraid.
For her.
Tessa released his shirt.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“For what?”
“For things that aren’t your fault.”
The words sounded oddly personal.
Before she could ask what he meant, voices rose downstairs.
Roman moved instantly.
He placed Tessa behind him.
“Stay close.”
They descended through the warehouse.
Carmine and another man waited near the loading bay. Hodges was kneeling beside a forklift with his hands restrained behind his back.
His face changed when he saw Tessa.
Roman noticed.
“So,” Roman said quietly. “You recognize the woman you tried to have killed.”
Hodges shook his head.
“No. Boss, you’ve got it wrong.”
Tessa froze.
Hodges looked terrified.
But not of Roman.
His eyes kept moving toward the eastern loading doors.
Roman followed the glance.
Then the warehouse lights went out.
Tessa gasped.
Gunfire exploded from outside.
Glass shattered.
Roman caught her around the waist and pulled her behind the forklift.
“Stay down!”
More shots tore through the windows.
Carmine returned fire while the driver dragged Hodges behind cover.
Roman shielded Tessa with his own body.
She felt something warm strike her cheek.
“Roman?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Not mine.”
Then Hodges screamed.
Tessa turned.
A bullet had struck him high in the shoulder.
But the shot had come from outside.
Someone was trying to silence him.
Roman understood at the same moment.
“Keep Hodges alive!”
The shooting stopped almost as abruptly as it began.
Engines roared beyond the loading bay.
Carmine ran toward the window.
“Two SUVs heading north.”
Roman did not pursue them.
His attention remained on Tessa.
That was the first thing Carmine noticed.
It would not be the last.
Twenty minutes later, Tessa sat inside Roman’s armored sedan wrapped in his suit jacket.
Her hands would not stop shaking.
Roman sat beside her.
Neither spoke until the warehouse disappeared behind them.
“I want to go home.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You cannot go home.”
“My cat is there.”
Roman stared at her.
Of every possible objection, that had apparently not occurred to him.
“My cat,” she repeated. “His name is Walter. He needs medication.”
Roman looked toward Carmine in the front seat.
“Get the cat.”
Carmine blinked.
“The cat?”
“The animal, Carmine.”
“I understand what a cat is.”
“Then why are we discussing it?”
Tessa made a sound.
It took Roman a second to realize she had laughed.
It was tiny and shaky and dangerously close to becoming a sob.
His expression softened.
Then her telephone vibrated.
Tessa looked down.
Unknown number.
A photograph had arrived.
Her stomach dropped.
It showed her apartment building.
Taken tonight.
Beneath it were six words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED UNDER THE DESK.
Roman took the phone.
His face became unreadable.
Another message appeared.
This time, there was a photograph of Walter sitting inside Tessa’s apartment window.
Tessa stopped breathing.
“They know where I live.”
“Yes.”
“Roman—”
“I’ll get him.”
“What if they’re waiting?”
“They are.”
The certainty in his voice terrified her.
Roman forwarded the photograph to Carmine.
Then he made a call.
“Do not enter Quinn’s apartment. Lock down the block and watch every exit.”
Tessa stared at him.
“Who are they?”
“That is what I intend to discover.”
“No.”
Her voice surprised them both.
Roman looked at her.
“I mean who are you?”
Silence filled the car.
Tessa continued before courage deserted her.
“I have ignored things for three years. I told myself I didn’t know enough to judge. Tonight people tried to kill me because I delivered payroll envelopes for you.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“You deserve an explanation.”
“I deserve the truth.”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
Roman looked through the tinted window.
When he answered, his voice had lost its executive polish.
“My company is legitimate.”
Tessa waited.
“Parts of my business are not.”
“What parts?”
“The parts that caused tonight.”
She gave him an exhausted glare.
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“Then answer me.”
Roman turned toward her.
“I control cargo routes, protection networks, private gambling operations, and several businesses that exist in a legal gray area.”
“A legal gray area?”
“That was diplomatic.”
“You’re Mafia.”
Roman said nothing.
Tessa leaned back.
“Oh my God.”
“I have never trafficked narcotics. I do not traffic people. Civilians are off-limits. Those rules are absolute.”
“Congratulations on your standards.”
Roman almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Carmine’s telephone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Boss.”
Roman looked forward.
“What?”
“We found someone inside Miss Quinn’s apartment.”
Tessa went pale.
“Walter?”
“The cat’s fine.”
She exhaled.
Carmine continued.
“The man isn’t.”
Roman’s gaze sharpened.
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
“Identification?”
“No wallet. No phone. But he had this.”
Carmine held up a photograph transmitted to his screen.
Roman stared at it.
Tessa leaned closer.
It was an old employee badge from Valorie Logistics.
The photograph belonged to a man Tessa recognized immediately.
“Daniel?”
Roman looked at her.
“You know him?”
“He worked in accounting.”
“When?”
“Before me. He trained me my first week.”
Roman went completely still.
Tessa remembered Daniel Harper as nervous and kind, a man who brought homemade muffins on Fridays and disappeared suddenly after supposedly accepting a job in Boston.
“What happened to him?”
Roman’s answer came slowly.
“Daniel Harper died three years ago.”
Tessa stared at the screen.
The badge had been found on a dead intruder inside her apartment.
And printed across its back, in faded black ink, was a handwritten message.
Roman read it once.
Then again.
His face changed.
Tessa reached for the phone.
“What does it say?”
Roman hesitated.
That frightened her.
Finally, he turned the screen.
May you like
Four words were written there.
ASK ROMAN ABOUT YOUR FATHER.
