Among the Flames (Kisses and Crimes Book 3)

by Natalie E. Wrye

  Ang and I nodded. Javi headed back into the bar with one final glance back at us, and Ang took my arm in hers, hailing for a yellow taxi. We had one in less than two seconds, and we hopped in the smelly back seat of the cab, closing the door behind us to an unnatural silence.

  The entire ride home to my place was quiet. Everything felt eerily absent of noise. Maybe because I was swimming in my own memories, drowning in the currents of my hectic thoughts. I looked at Angie.

  I think we both were.

  And all I could think about on the unending ride home was Jeff DeSantos’s gem-like eyes. The first time I’d seen them. The last time I’d seen them, on the TV screen. And the couple of times before that, one of them being the night that we’d met.

  As a full–on fight broke out with Penelope’s boyfriend, Jackson, in the middle of it.

  And then I thought about how I had seen those crystal clear eyes, just seconds later, hard and determined, as the hands beneath them dragged my boss Penelope, kicking and screaming, into the bathrooms at Tino’s bar…

  Mr. Magic

  GIOVANNI

  She knew nothing. And that’s exactly the way I liked it.

  I’d had a lot of women waiting for me in some way, shape or form since I’d hit the age of puberty. But this was different. She was different. Smart. Sophisticated. Katherine Sandaval was nobody’s fool, and even though she was nearly twice my age, that simple fact hadn’t stopped her from appealing to me.

  I wanted her. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted any con.

  She was going to be my biggest con to date, maybe the most difficult job I’d ever pulled. Because this time, I wasn’t pretending to be someone I’d made up out of thin air. This time? I was playing the role of someone real.

  The face staring back at me in the mirror at Hampton Grille’s bathroom sink wasn’t mine; it was Viktor Erikkson’s, a man who was flying over the Pacific Ocean just as I was fitting into one of his notoriously swanky Armani suits.

  The man had enough money to wipe the world’s rivers dry with dollar bills. And here I was, becoming his carbon copy, marveling at the difference that twelve hours could make when you applied a few prosthetics and a whole lot of face make-up.

  I wouldn’t have recognized myself, if asked.

  There were brown eyes where there should have been green, blond streaks where they should have been auburn. My face was fuller. My eyebrows had been pulled back. A birthmark had been molded to the edge of my cheek and I looked a well-groomed ten years beyond my twenty-nine.

  For all intents and purposes, tonight, I was Victor Erikkson, a forty year-old heir to Oil empire throne turned banker, who had never wanted a day in his life. And underneath of the expensive suit, I was Giovanni DeSalt.

  Boy from the streets. Professional imposter. Infamous “liar-for-hire.”

  I straightened the lapels of my jacket and exited the restroom. As I did, I took in the vision of my guest for the evening, Katherine Sandaval and the high-priced shoes she was shaking under the table. I slid in the seat beside her, apologizing.

  “Sorry that took so long.” I pinched the tip of my prosthetic covered nose, smiling bright. “Shall we begin?”

  She was anxious. Good. The less she looked at me, the better.

  We were there to talk a little money laundering, a little seedy money-sliding, and this meeting with Mrs. Sandaval had to go as completely smooth as her meticulously waxed legs. Senator Robert Fletcher’s accountant wasn’t known for being generous with her time. And the longer we stayed in that restaurant, the less likely we were to close the deal.

  But I wanted her on edge. I needed her to be.

  How else was I going to get access to one of the richest men in the country’s accounts?

  Through his most trusted confidants, that’s how. Starting with Katherine Sandaval.

  Correction: With the seduction of Katherine Sandaval.

  Despite the fact that Victor Erikkson was supposed to be a happily married man…

  I was in the midst of working my magic on the shapely, older woman. I pulled out my briefcase, letting my searing gaze linger on her cold one. I held in a silent laugh, knowing that her icy façade would fall at my feet.

  This was my specialty, my God-given gift, I determined. I liked to chip at the cracks. I fiddled with the breaking points in people psyches, poking at their fissures—prodding at the chinks in their armors until the only option left for the armor was to crumble.

  Melt.

  I enjoyed it. It was what I was good at. I let my hot gaze travel the length of the accountant’s body, lingering below her breasts until the speed of her pen’s clicking began to quicken.

  She was growing nervous. She blinked at me. A hesitant smile spread across her face, and I grinned wickedly, leaning forward as Katherine ultimately gave herself into me. She had no idea of the trouble she had just walked her pretty, bare legs into. But I was prepared to show her…

  How many times had I done this? Fucking people? It seemed to be in every way possible…

  And still I’d never fully gotten used to it. I used to love this part—the thrill of the kill. I remember the relish in those moments, that peak of deceit. I secretly rejoiced with that look of belief on a mark’s face right after I’d told a lie; I reveled in the sigh that released from a woman’s lips the second before I positioned myself and slipped between them.

  This should have been the climax. Katherine’s submission should have been the highlight of my night.

  So why could I not find that excitement I’d once fucking had?

  The smile I’d offered her faltered by just a fraction, and before I could pick my face up, my handy cell phone pinged in my pants. Grabbing it slyly, I saw that it was a message from Grimm. I’d hoped it’d be someone else texting me.

  But this was almost as good.

  My face finally lit up. It was here.

  My package had finally arrived.

  ***

  SIENNA

  Thank God it was the end of the week.

  At Tino’s bar, I bussed tables all night long with Parker in the back of my mind. The trip to DC was looming, and the longer I went without telling Javier and Angie about my decision to go without them anyway, the more guilty I felt with each passing hour.

  But the guilt was always swept away by my stubbornness, my self-reliance and by something stronger than the two of those… Something I wouldn’t even really admit to myself. I was taking my little secret to the grave, and if anybody asked why I was out for a few days, I was going to fake a serious case of bronchitis—blame it on a small broken bone.

  Anything but the truth.

  The truth being… I had lost my fucking mind.

  I was traveling over two hundred miles in a goddamned hoopty. To meet a man I’d never met.

  And I was doing it with my eyes wide open.

  That’s how deep my desperation had obviously become. So that Thursday night, the day before D-day, I’d packed a bag full of clothes, enough for half a week. I threw suits, skirts, shoes in the bag and on a whim, I’d removed a lace, lingerie teddy—the only decent one I’d had, and stuffed into the recesses of the suitcase before I could rethink it.

  Friday morning, I called in sick to a customarily grump Carlos and a suspicious Javi and Ang. By mid-morning, I was on the road, and at nearly noon, I was cruising into the downtown area, hands shaking, my little Corolla quaking as it sputtered into the dreary parking lot of the Double Tree Hotel.

  Close enough to the venue that Parker had picked, it was the only accommodation I could afford. Now settled safely within the city limits, my heart started to thump harder than ever before. I was tired. And exhilarated.

  Hair wild, my clothes hanging haphazardly over my body, I hobbled into the front lobby of the hotel with two suitcases and an even bigger bag of nerves. But nobody seemed to notice my homeliness but me.

  The front clerk barely glanced in my direction as she processed me for check-in. Other hotel guests walked
quickly past me, and even the luggage handler hardly looked my way when I offered up a tip.

  I must have looked the way I felt… Hungry and homeless. Stuck without roots. Again.

  I’d felt emotional loneliness as a child, adapted to physical loneliness as an adult, but as I walked to my room, key card in hand, I felt more alone than ever, the enormity of the deed I’d done weighing down on me like a shit-ton of bricks.

  The handler didn’t wait. He set my bags down by the door and departed. When he was gone, I paced, scarcely inside of my own room.

  Until isolation finally got the best of me.

  I picked up my phone, surprising myself by who I’d immediately decided to dial. He picked up after the first ring.

  He said nothing but my name. His tone was low.

  “Miss Santiago.”

  “Mister Daniels.” My own tone was clipped. “It’s nice to hear your voice.”

  “It’d be nicer if you’d let me reach out to you. All those ‘warnings’ about not calling. I’ve been sitting around, worrying for five hours that your gas had run out, a tire had blown—your Netflix subscription ended and you passed the hell out. Everything.” His voice dropped even lower. “I even worried that that maybe you just picked up and turned right back around to New York. You could have just accepted my plane ticket, you know…”

  He’d never spoken this way to me. Our phone conversations were few and far in between, mostly relegated to text and app messages, but tonight was different. I felt like I needed to hear his voice, to make sure he was real.

  Lately, he was the only aspect of my life that seemed to be. Talking to Parker Daniels let me know that I wasn’t emotionally done for, that there was passion still in my bones—at least enough to warrant a shot at me getting back into the Bureau. His voice was always disturbingly smooth. Rich and svelte and so ruggedly raw.

  Like an aristocrat from the wrong side of the tracks. A melody of a million cultures, his accent was untraceable even to my own foreigner-trained ears. I had to admit: a part of me liked it. Or, at least, was intrigued. He sounded relieved… and angry. Concerned. And I knew it shouldn’t have mattered to me whether or not he was, but it did.

  His motivations still eluded me. Balding forty-year old or not. I answered his gruffness with a retort.

  “I almost did. Around Delaware, I got a little antsy. The river made the roads feel like a bottleneck, and I suddenly felt like I was going through the tightened path of a funnel.”

  “That’s because it is. One way stop-shop. Straight to the Capital. Once you hit the city limits, you’re forever changed.”

  I bit back a groan. “That’s yet to be determined...”

  “It already has.” His answer surprised me. “The second you stepped in D.C., everyone feels a change. Didn’t you feel it? The air is richer. The heavens are soaked with money-hunger, and greed rains from the sky. It’s the power, or, at least, the appeal of it. Everyone comes here, looking for a piece of it. If they weren’t…” His silky voice sighed, “then they would have stayed where they were. Washington isn’t for the weak. If a person isn’t planning on sticking it out, then it’s better they not come here at all…”

  I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, taken aback. Was he talking about me? And if he was, then why did I get the feeling that he was warning me? Telling me to turn back?

  This wasn’t the smoothest way to introduce me to his hometown, if that’s what he was going for. I didn’t sense any of his usual sarcasm, and it scared me.

  What was Parker trying to say without actually saying it? I didn’t know.

  I scoffed. “Power, huh?” My laugh was a small snort. “Is that what brought you here?”

  His laugh was back, languid and delicious-sounding. The gruff version of him was gone. “It was independence that brought me here. Like any American, I was addicted to it. It took total control of my thoughts, my mind. Kind of the way you are to me. Taking hostage in my brain, edging out everything else until all that’s left there is you…” His voice trailed off. He laughed once again. “Not that I give much of a fuck. Having too much to focus on is overrated. I like my single-minded pursuits. Lets me concentrate on what it is that I want…” The way he rumbled the words drew a sharp intake of breath from me. I hissed against my will, and Parker kept speaking. “And I always get what I want.”

  His voice dropped.

  “I’ll see you at seven o’clock, Miss Santiago. Oh… and wear a skirt.”

  The call dropped. I stared at it in disbelief for an entire minute before moving. I wasn’t sure that I was so shocked because his come-on was so blatant… or because I liked it.

  By six forty-five, I was dressed and ready. Clad in an outfit that blurred the line between business and pleasure, I pulled up to the parking lot of the darkened restaurant Santino’s in a ride-share car at ten ‘til. Heels on, my dark hair down and hanging, I threw back my shoulders, strutting to the front door of the elaborately decorated diner in a semi-sheer black blouse… and a tight skirt to match.

  It didn’t matter that the fabric fell to my knees. All that mattered was that I couldn’t stop thinking about Parker on his, and even as I reached the restaurant’s lobby and began to walk through it, I was too preoccupied to notice that something was off.

  The entrance was abnormally empty, and when I approached the sullen host blocking the second set of doors, I hadn’t even noticed his frown. Until it deepened. He looked at me—head to toe, looking fully prepared to turn me away.

  His dark eyes slanted in my direction.

  “Are you at the right place, miss?”

  I blinked. Several times. “Uh, yeah… I—I think so.”

  He looked back at his sheet. “Name?”

  I pursed my lips. “Um, Parker.” It was the only name I could think of. “Parker. Parker Daniels.” I hadn’t thought to confirm a reservation.

  Old Dark Eyes kept perusing through his sheet. The lighting in the lobby was too low to see the look on his face this time. His glare was engrossed in the lettering on the pages in front of him.

  You would have thought it was the Holy Book to Heaven. He checked it so many times that I was getting a headache. His gaze returned to me. Finally. He nodded his head.

  “Don’t see it…” His eyes perused mine. “But I don’t think the guests of honor would mind.” He motioned to a black curtain behind him. “Right this way.”

  I followed without hesitation. Music from further inside the recesses of the restaurant started to reach my ears. The curtains or doors must have been noise-cancelling, and as I slide the silky fabric aside with my fingers, I realized that I wasn’t going to dinner at all.

  I was going to a party.

  The drinks in the maitre’d’s hands told me so, and as he turned from a marble countertop, he handed me one. I fingered the edges of the drink, debating on whether or not I should try to drown myself into it.

  What the fuck did I get myself into?

  What is it about Men

  SIENNA

  The host stared me down. Waiting. For the first time in a long time, I became frightened of the unknown. Scared stiff, I slipped a hair tie behind my hair, knotting it. The cold feel of the soft steel bind against the back of my neck made me shudder, and I turned towards the second set of curtains in the small room, unsure of what to do.

  The host parted the openings with his hand, swinging the French doors beyond them open, and when he did, an entire world opened up to me, full of smiling faces. Older smiling faces.

  And now among them… was me. The muffled music that had floated towards my ears just a minute ago was now in full-force, and Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse’s duet of “Body and Soul” blared over the surround speakers in the large hardwood-floored hall, enveloping me in a sea of sound.

  I swam away on it.

  Decorations dangled from the center of the room and streamers criss-crossed the expanse of the large dining hall. Hues of blue and silver light showered the room in decadence, bo
uncing off the multi-faceted features, and amongst the greying men and gown-clad ladies, I began to feel like I was finally fitting in.

  Anticipation and excitement hung in the air like smoke.

  Emboldened by my anonymity, I sashayed to the side of the room furthest from the DJ. Parking my ass in a seat there, I crossed my long legs beneath my conservative skirt, watching the room sway to the crescendos of Amy and Tony’s sultry song.

  And then I waited. And waited some more.

  Fifteen more minutes slinked by with no sight of Parker or anyone that could possibly pass as him, and I was starting to get antsy. The champagne at my table didn’t help either. I was on my third glass when I’d finally given up.

  My eyes had searched the room for my mystery man for too long with no avail. It was an awful admission…

  I’d been stood up. For the second fucking time.

  Nausea hit the pit of my stomach, and around the twentieth Parker-less minute, I stood up suddenly, reeling, my world keeling on its axis from the now-familiar feeling of being rejected by Parker. Twice. I’d reached the end of my patience.

  My breath began to quicken. And just as I started to remove myself from the seat, someone’s fingers curled around mine from behind. The hand swallowed mine whole.

  I spun, slowly dropping my hands to stare into the kindest set of eyes I’d ever seen. A man in his early seventies with a pair of glasses sitting below his brow and an eager look on his friendly face. He held out his hand.

  “This is a party, Miss. You can’t just stand around. You have to dance.” His voice was surprisingly strong and cheery. I could clearly hear him over the music and to my own shock, as my stare wandered around to the banner reading “Happy 50th Anniversary” hanging overhead, I nodded “yes” to the man’s request.