by Sam Crescent
“I get it. Take my time, no mess, no clean-ups. I get it, Boss.”
“Good.” Boss got up, and left without another word.
Shadow stared down at the file. This was his life. He was the one that kept to the shadows and found people who didn’t want to be found. Killian could handle the job, but he always came with a lot of noise. Shadow kept quiet, and he knew Boss appreciated that.
He walked down into his basement after disarming the security measures. After flicking on the light, he turned on all the computer screens, and watched Riley sitting at her table.
While she’d been at work that morning, he’d gone in and wired her entire house. She couldn’t make a move without him knowing about it, and he didn’t feel any remorse about that either.
Chapter Three
“I’m not paid enough for this shit,” Riley muttered under her breath. The woman from down the street didn’t have time to pick up her cake and pastry order for her party, so she’d called Riley and begged her to drop everything off at her house. Riley was supposed to be coming to the anniversary party as a guest, but she had no plans of actually showing up.
Now she had to juggle the huge cake box and several smaller boxes as she tried to fit them in her cramped Toyota Corolla. She didn’t do deliveries because her car barely made it to work and back. The parking lot was usually close to empty when she left every night, but today it was bustling as the new tenant was busy setting up the bar for its grand opening tomorrow.
Once finally settled in the driver’s seat, she carefully drove out of the plaza, heading to her client’s house. She was terrified the cake would shift in the box or get damaged before she arrived. It was a lot of pressure baking for a bunch of neighbors that already saw her as the black sheep of the suburb.
The street was lined with parked cars for the party so she just settled in her own driveway, making her trek with all the cake boxes precarious at best. By the time she reached the house, she was out of breath. Music flooded out onto the sidewalk. Luckily there were some smokers on the front porch, so they opened the door for her. She found the nearest counter and set down her load, her arms grateful for the break.
“Oh, Carol, thank you,” said Amanda, appearing through the throngs of guests.
“It’s Riley,” she corrected.
“Right…” Amanda put her hands on her hips and gave her a less than discreet once over. Everyone wore their evening best, and Riley had her flour-stained scrubs on. She looked and felt completely out of place, and she hated that all-too-familiar feeling of being belittled. Her entire life had been a struggle. As an adult she’d put up barriers, convincing herself she didn’t give a shit about anyone else’s opinion. Reality wasn’t always so simple.
“Your order is all there. It should be refrigerated.”
“Will your husband be joining you?” asked Amanda. Karen came up behind her friend, adjusting a sheer sash over her shoulder. Surely they knew Riley was alone and single. Of course they did. It was like high school all over again.
“Erm, no, it’s just me.”
She wanted to run, to be in the sanctuary of her own home. This wasn’t her crowd, not that she’d ever been a people person.
When a warm hand landed on her hip from behind, she jerked. Nobody was allowed to touch her without permission. She turned around, ready to tell the asshole to keep his hands to himself.
It was him.
Mystery neighbor.
Shadow.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked.
After remembering how to speak, she answered. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Riley loved the look of shock on the other women’s faces. They appeared as dumb-founded as she felt. Still, she wasn’t going to waste this chance to get the hell out of Dodge.
“Keep it down,” Shadow said to Amanda. “Some of us have to work in the morning.” He led Riley to the front door with a hand to the small of her back. She didn’t object, not just because she was thankful to be leaving, but she liked his touch. More than she should.
Once they were outside on the sidewalk, she stopped and faced him, pressing a hand to his chest to keep him in place. “What was that?”
“What do you mean?” He wore all black, smart casual pants and open collared shirt. He cleaned up nice, but she always thought he was gorgeous in that brooding sort of way.
“Really? I mean, where are you supposed to be taking me?”
“You’re smarter than that, Riley.” The man had no expression, a blank slate with those same evil eyes. The evening dusk gave him a menacing aura. Her instincts told her she should be afraid, but she wasn’t.
She exhaled, running a hand through her hair.
“I was saving you. You told me you couldn’t stand fake people.”
“Why were you there? Trying to get lucky?” Riley couldn’t help herself. Half the time when she should keep her mouth shut, it kept on running.
He frowned. “I’m not interested in spoiled bitches.” Shadow began walking toward their end of the street.
Riley bit her bottom lip, following along with him. She’d assumed even her reclusive neighbor would fall for the Barbie doll looks of Amanda and her friends. “Well, thanks for that. You don’t have to leave because of me,” she said.
“I wasn’t there to socialize, just help you out. According to your rules, that should earn me a question.”
She smiled. “Sure, ask away.”
The street lights flicked on, the music from the party fading as they neared their homes. “You were in foster care since you were twelve. What happened before that?”
“I never told you that.” Her nerves flared up. How could he know that about her?
“If you were busting tables at fourteen to avoid turning tricks, I guarantee you were a foster kid,” he said. “What happened before that?”
This guy might be nosier than she was. Riley owed him an answer, but his question was way more invasive than asking for a simple name. She didn’t like to venture that far into her memories. They were vile, and she wished she could erase them from her head completely.
“Why do you care?”
“I have an inquiring mind. Considering you like to spy on me, I want to know what I’m dealing with.”
She frowned, grating her teeth. Her first reaction was to tell him to “fuck off”. She was good at that, putting up walls and keeping people at bay. But he was right. Riley had been snooping on him because her curious mind drove her crazy if she ignored it. She still refused to admit the truth.
They stopped in front of their driveways. She turned to face him, her hands defensively on her hips. “My childhood isn’t anyone’s business but mine. Besides, it has nothing to do with who I am today.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Then your childhood must have been really fucked up,” she said. Riley immediately regretted her words. She sounded like a bitch, but she was used to protecting herself with words when she felt threatened.
“It was.”
Then he walked up the path to his front door without another word. Riley felt like a royal ass. The guy had saved her from the party, walked her home, and asked a question. What was wrong with her?
Part of her wanted to chase after him and apologize. Again. She had no clue what this guy’s history was, and more than anyone, she knew what it was like to have a miserable childhood.
She watched him enter his house before going home. How had he known she needed saving from the party? Why did he care? A tiny piece of her heart hoped and wondered if he liked her. Relationships didn’t exactly work out for her—ever. She liked sex, liked men, but the long-term thing always fell flat. Riley was convinced she attracted assholes, keeping her dream of a normal happily ever after out of reach. Maybe staying away from Shadow was in her best interest.
For the next week, she barely saw her neighbor. She’d seen him leave the house once, and he put out his trash as usual. He ignored her as he had since she moved in, but it just felt awkward now.
After closing up late the next Friday night, the parking lot was already full, a mix of cars and motorcycles. The new bar in the plaza was attracting an unsavory crowd. A few of the units had already complained, and they’d only been open for a week. Riley didn’t really care since she was usually closed for the day before they started getting rowdy.
She’d just put her keys in her car lock when Janet rushed her from behind. “Riley!”
“Don’t sneak up on someone like that,” she said, clutching her chest.
“I can’t work like this anymore,” Janet said. “I can’t even get to my car.”
“Why not?”
“It’s over there. I’m scared to go near those creeps.” Janet held her suit jacket shut tight as she glanced over the top of the car to the other end of the lot.
“Do you want me to walk you to your car?” Riley asked.
Janet exhaled. “Would you?”
Riley nodded, putting her keys back in her purse. “No problem.” After the life she’d lived, rough guys and drunks didn’t scare her. “You should park in front of your office next time.”
“I know. I will,” said Janet. “I don’t usually leave this late, but I had a lot of paperwork to finish.”
They walked across the lot together. The loud laughter and cursing mingled with the music from the bar. The door was propped open, and a group of men were outside. Riley smelled pot, and it churned her stomach. She’d moved out to the suburbs to get away from this type of shit.
Once they came into view, the old guys stared whistling and firing off the crude catcalls.
“Just ignore them. They’re like feral dogs, don’t look them in the eye,” said Riley. She waited for her friend to get safely in her car, and then she stood back as she backed out of her parking space. Janet gave her a little wave before she disappeared from view.
“Come on over here, doll,” a gruff voice called out. “I have a surprise for you.”
Riley cringed as she walked away, putting up her middle finger without a backward glance. Drunks disgusted her, especially drunks that hit on her at eight o’clock when she just wanted to get home from work.
“Fat bitch!”
She rolled her eyes and got into her car. If there was one thing she was used to, it was insults. Riley didn’t allow other people’s opinions to affect her. Or at least she tried. It was another part of the wall she built around herself to keep from getting hurt. She loved her body and took care of herself. There were so many times she could have said yes to drugs and turning tricks, but she respected herself too much for that. It had been a constant fight for her, and it was one she was determined to win.
Riley pulled into her driveway, her mood spoiled despite her attempts to push the rude comments away. Did Shadow think she was too fat? Stop torturing yourself, Riley! Tonight, she’d take a nice long bath after dinner to unwind. She’d let the rest of the world slip away and get lost in a good book or just close her eyes and let her mind wander as she soaked in the bubbles. It sounded like a good plan to her.
By the time she went to bed that night, she expected a solid night’s sleep—not to be woken by her phone sounding off at 2:40 AM. When she sat up to check who was calling, it was the alarm at her bakery. She frowned. There was nothing of real value to steal, except day old baked goods that she’d throw out in the morning. Then she remembered the expensive mixers and supplies she kept in the back and her heart started racing.
She struggled to get dressed while fighting off her grogginess. Riley prayed it was a false alarm.
****
Shadow had wanted to find out more about Riley Church. He’d been obsessing over her since that night with the knife. The thought of a problem living next door, a woman who could unravel his secrets, didn’t sit well with him, so he needed information. Since she refused to give him anything, he got what he could from a bit of deeper digging by Maurice—more but not all. The real story needed to come from Riley.
Since his own contract was still in the recon stage, he’d had plenty of time to watch Riley on the large screens in his basement. He had her routine memorized. It had very little deviation, except tonight when she came home two hours later than normal.
She paced the hallway, her little hands in tight fists. Something had happened to upset her, and he reminded himself he needed to wire her bakery, too. When she began stripping off her clothes in the bedroom, he flicked off the screen. He didn’t need to see more. Riley already had him facing every day with blue balls. He’d always been proficient at keeping his emotions and desires in check. There wasn’t a fucking woman in the world who could get into his head or tempt him into her bed—until now. The little troublemaker with the wicked curves had gotten under his skin, and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it.
Love at first sight was a joke, something invented for cheap chick flicks. It certainly didn’t pertain to a man who’d devoted himself to killing for a living, a man who vowed never to let his emotions come first. Shadow didn’t need or want a family. Then why couldn’t he put Riley out of his head? Why was he ready to kill for her?
That night, the motion sensors he had set up at Riley’s house went off, waking him up. He barely had time to see her speed out of her driveway in the dead of night. Fuck!
Where would she be going at this hour? Once again, he shouldn’t care. She was crazy, and a huge complication to his chosen lifestyle. But instead of heading back to bed like he wanted to, he was busy checking the clips on his Glocks. He had a glass of orange juice as he pinpointed the GPS location of her car on his cellphone. She was heading back to her bakery.
He set the glass in the sink, grabbed his jacket, and headed out.
The plaza was usually empty at this hour. He’d met with Boss and other contacts in the lot at night countless times, and it had never looked like this. The bar on the corner was no sports grill like advertised. It was a drinking hole for bikers and lowlifes. They’d taken over half the parking lot. Shadow stopped on the periphery and watched Riley walking around inside her bakery. He decided to move in closer and investigate.
Shadow turned off his ignition and walked across the lot to the bakery. As he got closer, the light inside contrasted with the darkness outside, allowing him to see her tears. The front window was smashed in. He opened the front door and walked in, making Riley flinch until she saw it was him. Broken glass crunched beneath his boots.
She used the back of her sleeve to remove any evidence of tears. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw you rush off. I was concerned.”
“So you followed me?”
He ignored her, assessing the damage as he strode around. “I’m guessing it was just one of those drunks getting rowdy,” he said.
“No, this was intentional.” Riley handed him a brick with a note attached to it. He removed the rubber band and read it: Stay out of our plaza FAT BITCH!
She shrugged. “Whatever, right? I should have seen this coming. I mean, my own bakery … dreams don’t come true for girls like me.” Riley tried to replicate disinterest, but she wasn’t fooling him.
“Have you called the police?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“Good.”
He left the bakery, heading toward the bar. Riley rushed behind him.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“Whoever did this to you has to pay,” he said.
“Stop! I have insurance. Don’t be stupid, Shadow.” She tugged on the arm of his jacket, so he stopped.
“You’re not the type to let assholes walk all over you. If this bakery is your dream, then you have to fight for it.”
“It’s not so simple,” she said.
“Yeah, well, it is for me.”
He knew where Riley was coming from. Shadow had worked his way up from nothing. His mother had died of cancer when he was a boy, and then it was a mix of foster care and the streets after that. His life had been no picnic, but even though he had everything now, and more money than
he could ever spend, he didn’t have what he really wanted.
Riley’s pleas turned to whispers as they approached the bar.
“Shadow, don’t…”
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll have a word with the owner. I’m sure it can be handled diplomatically.”
“Are you kidding me?”
He scanned the crowd of men outside the bar, many older than he was, a few younger. He counted eight. There were a couple wearing cuts, which made things more complicated. Which one had thrown the brick, he wondered. He planned to find out.
“Who’s the owner of this bar?” he asked.
“Fuck off,” said one of the men, a cigarette hanging from his lips.
“He’s with her,” said another.
Shadow cleared his throat. He didn’t have a short temper like some of his colleagues. Rushing in with guns blazing wasn’t his style. Besides, this place was too close to home, a place he liked to keep separate from his other persona.
“I’ll find him myself,” said Shadow, pushing through the group of unruly men. When one of them gave him a firm shove, a switch flicked inside of him. Shadow hated bullies. He turned to the side and punched the man square in the face, sending him toppling down.
Riley screamed.
He’d started something now, something he planned to finish. Even though there were a lot of them, he wanted to handle it as quietly as possible. He’d already decided the bar had to go. That was on his to-do list for later. Shadow had made the decision the second he knew why there were tears in Riley’s eyes.
“Where’s the owner of the fucking bar?” he repeated, his voice carrying a distinct threat.
“You have a death wish?” The men began surrounding him. He could smell the smoke and cheap booze on their breath behind him.
“Someone put a brick through the bakery window. I want to know who it was,” he said.