He’d get desperate though soon enough the longer Giovanni had the blueprints.
It just made me wonder what he could have been planning.
Why had I seen him today?
“How did he know about me? How did he know where to find me?” I asked blowing out a ragged breath. There was so much to factor in.
“Jesus.” Wes nodded.
“He must have been watching you,” Ethan surmised. “Xander, we have to get the prints as soon as possible and wrap this up. We can’t allow that man to get them.”
That fucking went without saying.
“The fingerprint mold should be ready for later. Give it another two hours or so. Giovanni needs me on a job tonight, so you guys go to the chamber ahead of me. Wes you take the lead.” I looked from Ethan to Wes. “I’ll meet you the minute I’m done.”
That was how we had to roll out the plans for tonight.
Ethan nodded. “Sure. I’m going to see what the other team on lookout can do, and intel. They may be able to run some searches on the area for Balthazar.”
That would help. “Do everything.”
“Of course, Xander, please focus. I know what seeing him means to you but focus. Balthazar is a very unpredictable man. His presence could mean anything. It could be a warning in the sense of showing you that he’s around and a player in this game.”
I didn’t think it was only that.
Something was coming. Something was about to happen.
I guess that left us in the same situation.
Move fast.
I returned to the chamber an hour after I did the drop off with Frankie.
It was two in the morning. The search while I was away was on the whole right section and the guys hadn’t found anything.
A search on the next section of a hundred vaults came up with nothing too. That took me and the guys four hours.
I couldn’t express how pissed off I was when we spent all that time to come up with nothing. Worse when I had to leave because I had to be at the casino for work in an hour.
Wes continued though with the other guys.
I planned to return again tonight if they weren’t successful.
The day was the longest ever and yesterday’s event with Balthazar had gotten under my skin in the worst way. I just kept thinking about Jia.
It worried me that Balthazar had just come into the casino. A place she worked. He’d come in as the essence of danger itself.
Only last week I worried sick that she could get taken by the Ra. Now I knew it was Balthazar all along the worry over her was amplified a hundred fold.
Of course I’d be worried sick. After all he killed the last woman I cared about.
Over the last few days I hadn’t spoken to Jia, but the little glimpses of her helped. Today though, she wasn’t there and I didn’t know why.
Diverting my focus from where it should have been I decided to make my way to her place just to see her. It was nine, and yes I was making another reckless mistake by even thinking about her but I couldn’t focus properly on anything with her on my mind.
At least before I rushed off to be reckless I spoke to Wes first, just to let him know where I was going. I’d thought it was right to tell him.
Frankie was parked up outside Jia’s house as usual. I went to him first and the minute he saw me he frowned.
He frowned and rolled his eyes at me as he rolled his window down.
“You have some death wish don’t you kid?” he asked. “What part of stay away from the boss’s daughter don’t you get?”
“I just want to see her,” I told him. “She wasn’t at work today.”
“Yeah, because that asshole Armand upset her that’s why.”
“What did he do?”
He shook his head. “She wouldn’t tell me. But do we really need to ask? That guy actually makes me sick. He gets all the opportunities ever, more than any of us because he’s someone’s son, who’s a friend of a friend’s family and he screws around taking all the liberties in the world.”
“I get it,” I agreed.
“If you do you won’t go adding to the problem. Xander, she leaves in a few days. This isn’t healthy. It’s not good for her to keep seeing you. There’s going to have to be a cutoff point somewhere.”
I knew that. I absolutely knew that. I just didn’t want to make the cut.
Not yet.
“Does it have to be tonight?” I asked.
He scowled then chuckled. “You asshole. Fine, make it quick.”
Quick, fast… everything was in haste.
I nodded my thanks and proceeded into the house.
It was so quiet. In the house my footsteps echoed.
I found her in the sitting room.
She jumped and it seemed like she was expecting Armand.
When she saw it was me her face lit up and she flew over to me, straight into my arms.
God help me, I weakened at the feel of her. I weakened and became a shadow of the man I was supposed to be the second I touched her.
When she backed away the effect was like heat leaving my body.
“Please, God no… is this goodbye?” She shook her head and gazed at me, eyes fixed on mine begging me to say no.
It wasn’t goodbye in the sense of me leaving. Realistically though this should be me taking that stand to cut off this connection between us.
“No.” I heard myself say. “I’m just looking in on you.”
The relief in her face was evident. “I’m okay for seeing you, but Xander… I hate this.” She winced.
“I know… Frankie said Armand upset you. What did he do?” I didn’t know why I was asking. It wasn’t like me doing anything would help. It wouldn’t help one bit. It would just make things worse.
She looked down at the ground then back to me with tears in her eyes. “It’s best I don’t say.”
I reached out and touched her cheek. “Tell me.”
“He wants me to sleep with him. I can’t.”
The anger that coursed through my blood was something I never quite expected. Anger was the only emotion I could feel on hearing something like that. It was the only response.
What was I really supposed to do here? Keep watching?
I was well aware that I wasn’t supposed to be in this scenario. However, there had to be some element of right and wrong here that couldn’t be ignored.
How was it right for me to stand by and watch her go through this?
And with the way I felt about her…
Which was what?
There was a reason why I kept coming back, why I couldn’t leave well enough alone, why she was the first person I thought of protecting.
Why I felt like this now.
Like she was mine.
It was her who reached up to touch my cheek now.
“You can’t do anything. You mustn’t.” A little smile pulled at the corners of her beautiful mouth. “Xander…it means a lot that you came tonight. Looking in on me.”
The little touch made my skin tingle. The only response next was to kiss her.
I bent low and pressed my lips to hers.
Within seconds the kiss turned hungry, heated with desire. Mine for her, hers for me.
She moved back out of the kiss and that little smile turned saucy. It reminded me of the nights when we’d created that bubble of passion and lived in it.