by Rachel Woods
“When did you get it?” Rae asked.
Sione was wondering the same damn thing. Who the hell would send her a burner? And for what?
“It came a week ago,” Spencer said. “Courier service.”
Shady said, “And you’re sure it’s from—”
“Who the hell else would have sent her a burner phone?” Rae cut Shady off.
Shady asked, “Has he contacted you?”
“Not yet,” Spencer said. “But I wish he would.”
Sione’s stomach twisted a bit. Shady’s and Rae’s responses had suggested they knew who’d sent the burner, but Spencer’s reply had confirmed it. Spencer knew exactly who the sender was, and she was waiting for him to get in touch with her.
Rae asked, “You do?”
“I’m ready for him to be out of my life for good,” Spencer said. “That’s not going to happen until I give him—”
Shady interrupted with, “But you can’t give it to him unless he gives you—”
“Right,” Spencer said. “I know that.”
Rubbing his jaw, Sione took a deep breath, not sure he wanted to hear any more. Not sure he needed to hear anything else. He had a feeling he knew who’d sent the burner to Spencer, but he didn’t want to be right. He was praying he was wrong, praying she wasn’t waiting to hear from the man who had blackmailed her and taken advantage of her, forcing her to do favors to pay off a debt she owed him.
Slowly, Sione let out a breath, feeling pathetic for eavesdropping, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk away. He had a feeling Spencer was talking about Ben Chang. Somehow, the bastard had contacted her, maybe because he wanted her to do another favor. More deliveries of fake passports and money to another group of women stupid enough to get involved with Ben. Women who could end up like the three women Spencer had made deliveries to in Belize—dead. Each of them murdered, shot in the head and—
His cell phone vibrated.
Cursing under his breath, Sione removed the phone from the inside pocket of his sports coat and stared at the screen. His banker in Belize. What now? he wondered, hoping nothing was wrong as he turned and headed out of the butler’s pantry.
“You can’t worry about that envelope until Ben calls you,” Rae said. “So let’s get back to more important matters.”
After popping a melon ball in her mouth, Spencer asked, “What’s more important than that damn envelope?”
The envelope was the key to her freedom from Ben Chang.
Ben had blackmailed her into traveling to Belize to look for the envelope—that was the “favor” he’d forced her to do, but she hadn’t really done the favor; she hadn’t completed all the “steps” Ben had required her to take. The final, and most important step, had not been completed.
Spencer hadn’t delivered the envelope.
She would have to, one day. When she least suspected it, Ben would make his way back into her life, sly and insidious, like the slimy snake he was, and demand that she take the final step. Spencer would be ready for him. She still had the damn envelope in the bottom of that bright blue Hermes Birkin bag. Easily accessible, it was hidden in the bottom drawer of the bureau in one of the guest bedrooms that no one had ever used.
Spencer was willing, and anxious, to complete the final step. But only if Ben would hold up his end of the bargain and give her the evidence he’d used to blackmail her into doing the damn favor—the surveillance tapes which clearly showed her stealing Rolex watches and stacks of cash from a drawer in his closet.
“Spence, did you really just say that?” Shady asked. “That envelope is not more important than—”
“Shady, please, okay? I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Girl, you have to talk about it,” Rae said. “But not to us. You have to discuss it with Sione.”
“I can’t do that,” Spencer said.
“Why not, Spence?”
“Because I’m not sure how I feel about it myself,” Spencer said. “It’s going to change our lives.”
“Yeah, but in a good way,” Shady said.
“You don’t know that,” Spencer disputed. “Who knows if we’re ready? I mean, John and I are still trying to figure out this relationship. Don’t forget, there are things about me that he doesn’t know, things I can never tell him. Things that, if he found out about them, would make him hate me.”
“Girl, whatever,” Rae scoffed. “You think that mofo ain’t got no secrets? You think he’s told you everything about himself?”
“Nobody tells anybody everything about themselves,” Spencer countered. “I know that there are things John hasn’t told me. John and I are still getting to know each other. So, yeah, there are things I don’t know about him. But what I don’t know isn’t anything bad.”
“How do you know that?” Rae asked.
“Remember what Ben said?” Shady asked. “Something about Sione isn’t really what you think?”
“Ben said that he and Sione were more alike than you thought. Don’t you wonder what he meant by that?” Rae asked
“Ben was just trying to trick me. He didn’t want me to trust John because he was pissed off that I’d fallen in love with John,” Spencer said.
Lips pursed, Rae said, “Well, I think—”
“I don’t care what y’all think,” Spencer snapped. “John is nothing like Ben, okay? John is kind and decent and caring. He’s not some blackmailing criminal who probably murdered three women.”
“You really think Ben killed those women?” Shady asked, skeptical.
“Girl, that don’t make no sense,” Rae said. “Why would Ben tell you to deliver money and fake passports to them if he was gonna turn around and kill them?”
“I don’t even want to understand Ben,” Spencer said. “Who the hell knows what goes on in that psycho’s twisted mind?”
“All right, whatever,” Rae said, sighing. “You still haven’t told us what you’re going to do.”
Frowning, Spencer pushed her empty plate away. “Because I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“You’re not going to be able to keep it a secret forever,” Rae said. “Sione is eventually going to notice.”
“I know that,” Spencer snipped, exhaling her annoyance.
“Spence, you have to tell him,” Shady said.
“I know that, too.” Spencer dropped her face in her hands for a moment and then trailed her fingers down the sides of her cheeks, trying not to cry as she looked at her sisters. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to have to find a way to tell John that I’m pregnant.”
4
The Woodlands, Texas
Carlton Woods Gated Community
Spencer was in the shower, and since she’d made it clear she didn’t want company, Sione figured he might as well look at some budget reports his assistant manager had emailed him. After grabbing a file from the desk in the study nook, a circular alcove to the right of the terrace doors, he crossed to the bed.
Settling against the pillows stacked against the headboard, with his legs stretched out toward the tufted footboard, he opened the file and scanned the latest projections, paying close attention to the budget variance. The numbers weren’t making sense. Sione suspected his confusion was due to something he’d been trying to ignore for the past week—the things he’d overheard Spencer talking about with her sisters. Or, more importantly, the things he hadn’t heard.
“I’m ready for him to be out of my life for good,” Spencer said. “That’s not going to happen until I give him—”
Shady interrupted with “But you can’t give it to him unless he gives you—”
The him Spencer wanted out of her life was Ben Chang. Sione was sure of that. What exactly did Spencer have to give Ben to get him the hell out of her life for good? Sione doubted there was anything Spencer could give the bastard to make him go away forever.
The situation bothered him.
He was sick of Spencer thinking she had to be tough and fierc
e, never admitting or acknowledging fear. She was still keeping things from him. She still didn’t trust him. He’d tried like hell to convince her that he would protect her and fight for her. He would be on her side even when everyone was telling him he should break up with her because he deserved better than some beautiful liar.
The pillow rumbled beneath Sione, and he sat up, confused.
What the hell?
He heard a faint buzzing, then picked up the pillow, and saw a cell phone wedged between several accent pillows Spencer had stacked against the headboard. Frowning, Sione picked up the phone and glanced across the bedroom toward the short hallway leading to the en suite bathroom. The shower was still going.
Staring at the phone, his confusion quickly turned to clarity as one particular speculation captured his thoughts, refusing to allow him to think of any other conclusion. He was holding the burner phone he’d overheard Spencer talking to her sisters about last week.
Conflicted, Sione debated whether or not to answer the burner or check the text message or the voice message or whatever the vibration indicated. He didn’t want to snoop or pry into her business.
Sione sat up, turned the phone on, and glanced at the screen. It was a text. Glancing toward the en suite, he listened to make sure the shower was still running and then read the message. We’ll make an even exchange, sweet girl. An even exchange? What the hell did that mean? Sione took a deep breath. There were more messages, several texts sent days before. Scrolling to the first message, from two days ago, he read through the messages.
We need to meet, sweet girl
When? Where?
next Thursday. Toyota center after the basketball game.
After the game? It’ll be too crowded. How will I find you
Don’t worry, sweet girl. I can pick you out of a crowd.
Fine
Bring what you owe me
And you’ll bring what you promised me?
We’ll make an even exchange, sweet girl
Heart pounding, Sione read the chain of text messages several more times, trying to rationalize it, trying to pretend it couldn’t mean what he knew it meant, what he was hoping it didn’t. There was no way he could fool himself into thinking he didn’t know who the text message was from…
Ben Chang.
The bathroom door opened. Wary of being caught holding the burner, Sione leaned over the side of the bed and tossed the phone under the nightstand. Rising quickly, he grabbed the file and opened it. Spencer came into the room, wearing one of the silk kimonos she liked to wear, showcasing those fabulous breasts, swaying and bouncing beneath the thin fabric.
Instantly, he felt himself growing stiff as a board.
“Well, I made a mistake.” Spencer hurried to the bed, then crawled across it, and curled up next to him, resting her head on his chest.
“A mistake?”
“You were right.” Placing her palm on his chest, she walked her fingers from the right pec to the left, reaching to touch his biceps. “It was no fun being in that shower alone.”
He eased an arm around her and picked up his report again. “I tried to tell you, but you didn’t listen.”
“John…” she started. “I, um…”
He looked down at her, wondering why she’d trailed off. What was she about to tell him? Maybe the truth about the burner phone? Curious, he prompted, “What is it?”
“Nothing.” She squirmed a bit, and he sucked in a quick breath as her nipples pressed against him, making his groin tighten.
“Nothing that you want to tell me?”
“Nothing that you would understand,” she said.
“How do you know I wouldn’t?”
Spencer angled her head to look up at him. “Because you’ll probably think I’m worrying for nothing.”
Wary, he asked, “What are you worried about?”
“I’m worried that you think I didn’t want to make love the other night…”
Sione leaned back against the headboard, half-listening as she went on about how she really had been tired. Part of him thought about bringing up the subject of marriage and her issues with the institution, which he believed was the real reason why she’d been distracted during sex. Another part of him, a more demanding part, was still wondering about the burner phone and the texts.
“John?”
Startled, Sione glanced down at her, his heart pounding.
“Did you hear me?” Spencer asked.
Embarrassed he hadn’t been paying attention, Sione pulled her closer. “What did you say?” He shifted, pissed he’d allowed the past to make him lose awareness of his surroundings.
“Are you upset that I was tired the other night?”
“What I’m upset about is that…” He put the file on the bed table and then pulled her on top of him so she straddled his hips. “I didn’t get to have any fun with you in the shower, so…”
“So you want to have a little fun in bed?” She leaned forward, kissing him.
“I want to have a lot of fun in bed,” he struggled to say, while he still could, before the desire he felt for her overtook him.
5
The Woodlands, Texas
Carlton Woods Gated Community
On her hands and knees, Spencer had her head low to the ground and seemed to be peering under the nightstand.
Sione stopped near the foot of the bed to watch her, wondering what the hell she was doing.
Minutes ago, he’d walked into the bedroom and stepped out of the driving shoes he’d been traipsing around in all day, listening to a hard sell from a guy anxious to unload several apartment complexes he owned in the Greenspoint area. Sione was interested, but it wasn’t a good idea to seek investors for a new acquisition when the situation with the tree houses was tenuous.
Tired and slightly frustrated, he shrugged off his jacket, remembering how he’d slid the phone under the nightstand two days ago, hoping she wouldn’t catch him with the burner. She was looking for the phone, he figured. Probably, sometime within the past few days, she realized she didn’t know where it was, probably concluded she must have misplaced it. Most likely, she’d been searching for it and hadn’t found it, even after retracing her steps over and over. Now she was frantic, panicking because she needed the burner.
Bring what you owe me
And you’ll bring what you promised me?
We’ll make an even exchange, sweet girl
Sione exhaled, rubbing his jaw. Since finding the burner phone and reading the chain of text messages, he’d thought about almost nothing else. The more he turned it over and over in his mind, deducing and examining it from all conceivable angles, the more he was absolutely certain that Ben Chang was behind the scenes, pulling all the strings.
The way Sione figured it, Ben planned for Spencer to meet with one of his associates. Probably some low-level triad enforcer, like that bastard Tommy Fong, the son of a bitch with the green snake tattoo who’d followed Spencer to Belize to terrorize her. Fong had been given orders to attack Spencer, but those sadistic directives hadn’t come from Ben Chang, it turned out.
Pushing the thoughts of Fong from his mind, Sione cleared his throat. “What are you doing down there?”
Spencer gasped and then stood, using the nightstand to help her get up. “Oh, I was, um…” She faced him, pushing errant tendrils of hair back into her loose chignon. “I was looking for my earring.”
“Looking for your earring?” he repeated, wishing he wasn’t so suspicious.
“Yeah, I was taking it off,” she said. “And I dropped it and I thought it rolled under the bed table.”
“Oh…” he said. “You want me to move the table so you can—”
“No, that’s okay,” she said, her response quick but not enough to make him suspicious. “It wasn’t under there.”
“Was it the earrings your grandmother gave you?” he asked. “Those pearl ones you misplaced when you were staying in my casita at the resort?”
Her eyes
narrowed imperceptibly, a slight hint at possible suspicion of his question, but then she shook her head and walked away from him. “No, not those…”
Sione turned around.
Spencer stood near the settee at the foot of the bed, pinching her right earlobe. “The diamond hoops you bought me a few months ago.”
Sione knew the earrings—a fifteen-thousand-dollar “just because” gift he’d purchased on a whim. Removing his blazer, he tossed it on the bed, went to the settee, and sank down onto the plush cushion. Spencer sat on his lap, snaked an arm around his neck, and kissed him. “So, how was your day?”
“Encouraging,” he said.
“Encouraging?” She kissed him again and smiled.
“I may have a new investor.”
“That’s great news!”
“Hopefully,” he said. “It’s a potential investor.”
“I have no doubt that you’ll convince this potential investor to become an actual investor,” she said.
“I’m taking him to dinner Thursday night,” he said, waiting for her reaction, wondering what she was thinking. Was she afraid he might ask her to come with him to the dinner? Was she desperately thinking of some half-assed excuse just in case he asked her to accompany him?
“Thursday night?” she asked, her voice just an octave lower than shrill with a hint of worry. “Where are you taking him?”
“I told him he could pick the place,” Sione said. “Since I don’t know anything about Dallas.”
She frowned. “You’re meeting him for dinner in Dallas?”
Sione nodded, irritated by her obvious relief. “And since you hate Dallas—”
“Most Houstonians hate Dallas,” she interjected
“Right,” he said, remembering. “So, I won’t ask you to tag along.”
“Well, I would, if you wanted me to,” she said, giving him a few more quick kisses. “But, I can’t.”
“Why not?” he asked. “You got plans for Thursday night, too?”
“Oh, I um…” She glanced away. “Just going to a Rockets game with an old friend from high school.”