The Heiress

by Cassia Leo

  Ollie laughed even louder. “Third-degree burn!” he said, pointing at Zane.

  Zane pushed Ollie’s finger out of his face and turned back to me. “Why the fuck do you have me watching this girl’s apartment in the middle of the fucking night?”

  I sighed as I wrapped both hands around my glass and tried not to think about how I was leaving Kristin’s apartment unattended while we were sitting here. “Because it was her dad…”

  Ollie’s laughter sputtered to a stop. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  I tore my gaze away from the glass and looked back and forth between Zane and Ollie. “My boss…the one who died in the accident… He was her father.”

  Ollie scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion. “Did you meet her at the funeral or something?” he asked, then he smiled as he shook his head. “That’s sick, man. You’ve got sick moves with the ladies, bro.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t meet her at the funeral.”

  “Then how the fuck did you come at her?” Zane asked, a note of anger in his voice.

  As much as Zane liked to talk about cheating on Yasmin and pretending like girls were just objects to be toyed with, he actually had a very low tolerance for men who disrespected women. Having grown up in a household of females, and dealing with the aftermath of his cousin’s rape in high school, Zane did not fuck around when it came to men who took advantage of women.

  “Ah, fuck,” I whispered, as I realized I’d probably already said too much. I couldn’t let Zane and Ollie in on the arrangement I’d had with Sabrina, but I also couldn’t lie to my best friends. “I’m supposed to be…interviewing her or something.”

  “Or something?” Ollie said. “Or what…fucking her? Is that what you mean? Why the fuck are you being all hush-hush about this? Spit it out, motherfucker.”

  I drew in a deep breath and tried to ignore the feeling that everyone in the bar was staring at me. “It’s just…I told you my boss was rich, and…so now that he’s dead, all that money has to go somewhere, but…my new boss asked me to do a little…reconnaissance.”

  “Reconnaissance?” Zane interrupted. “Is that what you were hired to do? ’Cause I seem to remember you telling me you got a job as a bodyguard, not a fucking Secret Service agent. What the fuck?”

  Shit. If Zane could already see where this was going, and he was this annoyed, that meant the situation was even more of a clusterfuck than I thought it was.

  I shook my head, then downed the rest of my beer. “Forget it, man. I know what I have to do. I’m gonna take care of this. Trust me.”

  Zane and Ollie looked at each other, then Ollie said something I’d be repeating in my mind as I lay in bed later that night. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re into, Danny, but you’ve got your sisters and bro to think about. Don’t fuck that up.”

  Come Clean Again

  I woke on Wednesday morning with a sense of dread weighing on me so heavily, I could hardly drag myself out of bed. Today was the last day of the three-day shutdown I had orchestrated at Cantina Joe’s. Kristin would return to work tomorrow. As much as I dreaded this conversation, I had to tell Kristin the truth about me and, most importantly, the truth about her father today.

  Once Kristin knew the truth, there would be no reason for Sabrina to try to remove her from the equation. And Zane could go back to using his late nights and early mornings to play video games, the way he normally did after he worked the late shift.

  Once I was showered and dressed, I disabled the anti-theft tracking service in the Range Rover. If anyone tried to look up its last location, it would ping from my apartment building. Then, I shot off a text to Zane. He responded to my message from his burner phone with a seven-word reminder of last night’s conversation at Tino’s.

  * * *

  Me:

  I’ll take it from here. Thanks for helping me out. I owe you at least two pitchers for this.

  * * *

  Unknown:

  Fuck the pitchers. Think of your family.

  * * *

  Harsh words, but he was right. I had been thinking of my siblings’ long-term futures when I made the deal with Sabrina, but I hadn’t been thinking of their immediate futures. I should have considered the possibility that, other than being completely immoral, the deal I made with Sabrina might actually be illegal.

  Blinded by the possibility of a huge payout, of not having to stress about money anymore, I allowed my greed to overrule my reason. Plain and simple, I was blind and stupid. Maybe I was more like my convict father than I thought.

  I pulled onto Hughes Avenue just in time to see Zane’s car turning the corner to leave. It was still dark out. I hated to wake Kristin this early, but I was selfish. I wanted one last quiet moment with her. I figured it would be safer to meet her early in the morning, before the morning shift change, where Gene would normally come in for work at eight a.m.

  Gene and Barry were obviously still working for Sabrina, despite her claims she had laid them off. I didn’t know what kind of work they were doing for her, but I had to assume the worst. I also couldn’t allow them to keep Kristin and me locked away in our apartments like prisoners.

  The phone rang twice before Kristin answered. “Daniel? It’s so early,” she said, her voice groggy and rough.

  “I know. I’m sorry to wake you. I just wanted to show you something. Can you take a ride with me?”

  She cleared her throat before she responded. “I’ll be down in a few.”

  Of course, I couldn’t allow her to come down by herself. Luckily, it seemed Kristin’s neighbor had broken the buzzer again. I raced up to the fifth floor and waited in the corridor outside apartment 502. My heart raced at the thought that I was being reckless by asking Kristin to go out in public with me. But I had managed to keep her safe since we came back from the Hamptons. I needed to share this one thing with her before I made her hate me.

  She came out of her apartment with her brown hair in a messy bun, wearing a pair of pink sweatpants and a faded black tank top, but I’d never seen her look more beautiful.

  “You’re stunning,” I said, planting a kiss on her forehead.

  “Yeah, real fucking gorgeous,” she said, closing the door behind her.

  “Did you lock the door?”

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “Uh, yes, Dad.”

  I smiled at her joke, though inside I cringed at the irony that she had jokingly called me Dad right before I was about to tell her the truth about her real dad. Despite my efforts to remain inconspicuous, I was beginning to realize that Kristin was quite observant. As we walked to the Range Rover, she shot me another crazy look as I used my body to block her when a stake-bed truck drove past us.

  “You should think of applying for the Secret Service,” she said with a chuckle as she slid into the passenger seat.

  “Very funny,” I replied before I closed the passenger door and took a quick glance up and down the street.

  As I got into the driver’s seat, I could feel her staring at me.

  “You’ve been pretty jumpy lately. Mind telling me what the fuck is going on?”

  I smiled as I pulled away from the curb. “I’ll tell you everything very soon. I just need you to see something first.”

  She shrugged and slumped down in the seat, not bothering to change the jazz radio station as she made herself comfortable. Good. The lower she sat in the seat, the safer she would be if we were ambushed. The more relaxed she was, the less likely she was to be seriously injured in a car accident.

  I was completely aware that my thoughts sounded like the thoughts of a paranoid crazy person. I had accepted that my behavior would seem overprotective and possibly extremely strange to Kristin. It was a small price to pay to keep her safe.

  We arrived at Orchard Beach about fifteen minutes later, having encountered very little traffic on Pelham Parkway at this early hour. Switching off the car, I sat for a moment, savoring the quiet companionship of this amazing woman. Then,
I reached out and grabbed her hand and brought it to my lips.

  “I’m going to show you something you’ve probably never seen, but you have to promise me that you won’t forget who showed it to you.”

  She laughed. “This better not be a trick. I don’t want to go out there just so you can show me a tent where the bums go to jerk off.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “You think I’d do that to you?” I said, shaking my head. “Get your mind out of the gutter and follow me.”

  I made sure to glance around as we exited the SUV, letting out a sigh of relief as I saw no other cars in the dark parking lot. Grabbing her hand, I led her down the beach access road. We passed the empty Pelican Bay Playground on our right, before the narrow road deposited us onto the promenade.

  “Have you ever been here this early?” I asked as we approached the waist-high railing that separated the paved promenade from the sandy beach.

  She grabbed the railing as she looked sideways at me. “No, I’m not crazy. I don’t wake up at the crack of dawn like you do.”

  “Only when you’re in the Hamptons, right?”

  She smiled at my reference to how she woke up early after we spent the night together. “That’s different. I don’t get to wake up in the Hamptons every day.”

  “Well, you’re in for a treat, young lady. This is by far the best place to watch the sunrise in the Bronx.”

  She turned toward me now, tilting her head. “And how do you know the best place to watch the sunrise in the Bronx?”

  “Look over there,” I said, pointing across the water toward Oyster Bay, where a hint of golden glow began to creep up the horizon. “This is where I come every morning—well, haven’t had a chance to run for the past three days—but this is where I come most mornings to run.”

  Her gaze was still focused on the horizon, where I’d directed her to look. “Wow…” she whispered as the sky burst into an array of golden light shooting out of an apricot sun. “What’s the name of that feeling you get when you see something too beautiful for words?”

  I stood in awe of her as she stood in awe of the sunrise, unable to tear my gaze away from her. “Kristin.”

  She smiled as she flicked her head around to look at me. “It’s not called Kristin,” she said, then she landed a weak shove to my shoulder. “Why do you come to the Bronx to run? Aren’t there better places to do that in the Village?”

  I shook my head. “Kristin, I don’t live in the Village.”

  Her smile quickly faded. “What do you mean?”

  I stole a glance at the glorious sunrise I’d seen a thousand times before, then I looked her in the eye and steeled myself for her reaction as I said, “I live in the Bronx, not too far from you, actually. I don’t drive a Range Rover, and I don’t have a beach house in the Hamptons. I’ve been pretending to be someone I’m not, someone with a lot of money, so I could get close to you…for my boss.”

  She cocked her left eyebrow and chuckled nervously. “What? Is this some kind of joke?”

  I shook my head. “I fucking wish. I began working for your father, Michael Beck—”

  “My father?” she interrupted. “What are you talking about, Daniel? You’d better not be fucking with me.”

  I held up my hand. “Please just breathe. I know this is a lot to take in, but I need to tell you everything.”

  She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  I nodded. “Okay,” I began. “I started working for your dad, Michael Becker, a couple of months ago. But we were in an accident about a month ago and…he died.” I gave her a moment to absorb this information before I continued. “Michael was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. When I went to collect my last paycheck, my new boss, Sabrina—whom you already met—was reading some kind of journal your dad had left behind. There was a lot of stuff in there about you and your mom.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched together in a pained expression that ripped me apart. “My mom? My mom knows about this?”

  I shook my head adamantly. “No, your mom knew nothing about this.” I braced myself as I prepared to tell her the worst. “Sabrina must have thought I was going to tell someone about you and that was probably going to affect how much money and control she got over your father’s company. So she offered me a ridiculous amount of money…if I got to know you and reported to her what I found out.”

  Her lips began to tremble as tears collected in her eyes. “You were paid to be with me?”

  “I wasn’t paid anything,” I assured her. “Sabrina expected me to find out something about you that would make you unworthy of your inheritance, but I told her you deserved every penny of it.” I reached for her face and she smacked my hand away.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said as she began walking down the promenade. “You mean, you didn’t tell her how I nearly killed my best friend? How noble of you.”

  “Please don’t go in that direction,” I said, catching up to her. “There’s more you need to know, and it’s better if we stay still.”

  “Was it all a lie?” she said, not looking at me as she continued to walk. “Oh, God… Is your mom even dead?”

  “It’s not safe for us to walk out here. Please stop, Kris.”

  She stopped in the middle of the boardwalk and glared at me. “Don’t call me that! You have no right to call me that!”

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “I have no right to even be near you after what I’ve done. I fucked up. I hurt you, probably more than anyone has ever hurt you. I know that. And I’ll never stop regretting it. But I need you to listen to what I have to say because, as fucked up as this whole situation is, I’m in love with you…and what I’m about to say could save your life.”

  She covered her mouth as she looked up at me with pure heartbreak in her eyes. “How could you do this? What did I do to deserve this?”

  I pulled her hand away from her mouth and wrapped my arms around her, surprised when she allowed me to pull her close as she sobbed into my chest. “You need to go home and tell your mom everything I just told you. Tell your mom and everyone you know. It’s the only thing that will keep Sabrina from hurting you. Promise me you’ll do that.”

  She pushed me away roughly. “My mom wouldn’t keep this kind of thing from me. You’re lying!”

  I followed as she continued down the promenade, glancing around to make sure we were still alone. “Kristin, you have to believe me. You’re in real danger,” I said, trying to grab her arm to stop her, but she smacked my hand away again. “Kristin, please, I’m a professional bodyguard. I assess security risk for a living, and your risk is sky-high right now, unless you get home and tell your mom you know about your real dad. You need to go now.”

  She shook her head as she continued walking. “You’re a bodyguard? That explains the thing with Roger and all the paranoia. God, I’m so stupid.”

  We passed the swimming facility on our right and I tried to look into the dark shadows created by the building, but the sun hadn’t fully risen yet. Kristin and I were a couple of sitting ducks out here on this open promenade. I needed to get her back to the parking lot, to the safety of the SUV, so I could take her home.

  “You’re not stupid,” I insisted, “but you need to come back to the car with me before something bad happens.”

  “Are you threatening me?” she shrieked as she wiped away tears.

  “No!” I yelled, letting my frustration get the best of me. “I told you, it’s Sabrina that wants to hurt you. She’s the one who tried to run you down in the Hamptons.”

  She finally stopped walking, and that was when I saw it, a black Mercedes coming slowly down the access road near the swimming facility with its headlights off. Unfortunately, whoever was driving saw me see them, and they gunned the engine, coming straight toward us.

  “We have to run!” I shouted, grabbing Kristin’s arm and racing down the boardwalk toward the grassy park area ahead of us on the right.

  The Mercedes skidded right onto the promenade, ab
out a hundred yards behind us, as we began to cut across the park. The car would only have minor difficulty getting over the concrete curb into the park area, but it might be enough for us to lose them in the small wooded area along the parkway. Then, we could come out the other side of the road and flag down a passing vehicle on Park Drive.

  “Are they coming after us?” Kristin shouted as we continued running across the grass toward the tree line.

  “They’re after you!” I replied. “Don’t look back! Just keep running until I tell you to stop!”

  A loud clunking noise startled us, and we both looked over our shoulders to see the Mercedes barreling over the concrete curb and bouncing onto the grass. As we made it to the tree line, the squeal of the Mercedes’ wheels sliding over the dewy grass became softer. They would need to slow down to drive around the trees, which, unfortunately, weren’t close enough together to completely prevent them from following in the car.

  Kristin screamed as she tripped on a fallen branch. The adrenaline coursing through my veins gave me the strength to slide my hands under her arms and lift her off the ground as if she weighed nothing. We continued toward the highway, with no choice but to slow down as we attempted not to get tripped up on the brush and branches again. The sound of the Mercedes’ engine continued to get closer as it cut a careful path through the trees.

  Kristin glanced behind her and screamed again.

  “Don’t look back! Just keep running!” I shouted.

  “They’re getting closer!”

  I could see the headlights of the passing vehicles on Park Drive. “Keep running!”

  As soon as the road came into view, we burst out of the woods, racing across the narrow parkway, putting more obstacles between us and the Mercedes. But the moment we slowed down to attempt to flag down a vehicle, the first shot rang out. My first instinct was to push Kristin to the ground and throw myself on top of her.