by Zoey Parker
Hurrying up the steps, I went in through the front door to find a couple of people waiting in the lobby and a woman at the front desk. I headed right to her.
“Hello, I’m Diana Leone. The owner of The Cut? I was told to come down…”
The woman looked at me for a second like she didn’t know what I was talking about, but then it seemed to click. “Oh, right. Mosher called you. Head right down there, second door on your left. He should be in his office.”
I thanked her, then followed her directions until I stopped outside a door that read Sgt. Mosher. I knocked. The door opened from the inside and standing by it was a man in his mid to late thirties with brown hair that was already graying and a notch taken out of his left eyebrow. He wasn’t bad looking or good looking. He was just sort of…normal. Boring, even. The kind of guy someone might pass on the street, then immediately forget they’d ever seen.
“Ms. Leone?” he asked, stepping aside to let me in.
I nodded and stepped into his office. He closed the door behind me, then indicated one of two chairs in front of his desk. Part of me wanted to remain standing, to be strong, but I ultimately decided to sit. I was afraid I’d only be strong if I was angry, and probably being angry with this Mosher guy wouldn’t do me any favors.
“I know it’s early, so I really appreciate you coming down. Coffee?”
I shook my head even though I was dying for a cup. I just wanted to get to the point already. “How bad is it?” I asked evenly.
He sighed, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his stomach. “Bad,” he told me bluntly. “But we’ll get to that in a minute.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that no, we’d be getting to that right now, but he continued on as though I were no more than a poster on the wall.
“As I mentioned, the fire department is dealing with the situation right now. On our end, I feel like we should talk about some things before you go see the damage.”
“What things?” I asked, wondering what we needed to talk about that wasn’t the actual shop.
He leaned forward again, settling his hands on the desk top. He looked pleasant, as though he were talking to an old friend about the weather. Which didn’t exactly make him likeable to me in that moment. “You’ve got insurance, right?”
My stomach dropped. “Yes, of course,” I answered. And I did. Unfortunately, it was the bare minimum. I couldn’t afford much more than that and depending on how bad the damage was, there was a really good chance the insurance company wouldn’t compensate me for much. If anything.
He smiled and nodded. “Glad to hear it. I’m sure once you contact them, they’ll be happy to cover the damages.” He reached for a folder then, seemingly oblivious to the way my face paled. He opened the file and scanned over some documents there, then asked, “I notice you’ve been late on a few insurance payments here.”
That got my attention. My brow furrowed as my mouth turned down. I crossed my arms defensively across my chest. “What does that have to do with anything? How do you even have that information?”
He lifted a shoulder in a shrug, then smiled at me as though to tell me it was all fine. “Just some standard notes I’ve got here. Want to make sure you didn’t set fire to your own place.” He said it almost like a joke, then winked at me.
My jaw dropped. Recovering, I found myself standing. “Are you crazy? Did you seriously call me down here to accuse me of arson? Of deliberately destroying my own business?”
“Whoa, whoa now.” He held up his hands, palms facing me, motioning for me to settle down. “Take it easy. I know you might be feeling a little hysterical right now, but I’m only doing my job. These are just routine questions.”
Hysterical. He thought I was being hysterical.
I was up and out of my seat before I even had a chance to tell my body to rethink that aggressive move. My hands clenched tightly against the rage that was quickly building inside my chest.
Hysterical. What an ass.
“Routine?” I demanded incredulously. “You can’t be serious!”
He ignored me, and continued perusing his documents. “Has business been good?”
“Does it matter?”
He looked up at me from his files, waiting for my reply.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to answer as honestly as possible. “It’s been okay. I doubt I’ll ever be the salon choice of the rich and famous, but I get by.”
He nodded. “And the store attached. The convenience store. Does it do well, too?”
I was practically shaking with suppressed rage, but I kept my tone calm as I said, “Yes. It does fine.”
“Good, good,” he said more to himself than to me. He was quiet for a moment, then said, “It’s hard being a small business owner. Finding the funding, then making the payments for the business on top of what you need to make personally. And raising a kid on your own, too.”
I froze. Stopped trembling, stopped breathing. At the mention of Cody, I felt my hackles raise, sensing danger before I even understood where it might be coming from.
When I didn’t answer right away, Mosher looked up at me again. He smiled. “I’ve got a little girl myself. But at least I’ve got someone to look after her while I’m at work. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if I didn’t have that kind of support.”
I stared at him. My mouth felt like it was all of a sudden stuffed full of cotton. It took me three times to swallow, then I forced myself to sit back down in the chair. A moment later, I found the words to speak. “It’s hard. But we do okay.”
He nodded. “Good.” It seemed to be his buzzword for this conversation. “I just have a couple of more questions for you, ma’am, then we can head down and take a look at the store.”
I nodded mutely.
“Do you have any other means of income to tide you over while your shop is out of commission?”
I failed to see how that was any of his business or had anything to do with the incident, but I was finally understanding that this wasn’t really about the shop or the fire. It was about taking a shot at me. At putting me in my place. And it only added more evidence, in my opinion, that Ethan Chambers was behind this whole thing. “No,” I answered flatly.
“I see. And do you have any enemies, Ms. Leone? Anyone that might hold a grudge against you personally?”
I felt his gaze on me, hot and hard, but I found I couldn’t meet it. Yes, as a matter of fact, I knew someone who was very likely to hold a grudge against me. Someone I deemed an enemy as of right now.
But I wasn’t stupid.
Chambers had connections. It was pretty clear he had enough connections to set fire to my shop and to get the police to dig into my personal background whether they had any right to or not. Which meant he had someone on the force who got his salary from Chambers, not just the city.
Slumping, I shook my head. “No, sir. I can’t think of anyone who would want to do something like this.” It was the first blatant lie I’d told, but I couldn’t risk ratting on Chambers. If he really did do this, pointing the finger at him wouldn’t make him back off.
“Great,” Mosher said. I glanced up to see him wearing a smile that I desperately wanted to smack off his face. Instead, I rose when he rose. “Let’s go take a look at the damage, shall we?”
# # #
It was bad.
I’d been expecting bad, but this was worse. The little convenience store where Jessie worked was toast. Barbequed. It looked like the site of a lightning strike mixed with a fire pit. Nothing got away unscathed.
Except about half of the register.
“The Cut is fine,” I muttered under my breath as I stared at the two places. They’d been attached and with one register between them, that desk where the machine sat was half on one shop and half on the other. Which was why it was so strange, comical almost, that just half the register was toast. Almost like someone had drawn an invisible line right where one store ended and the other began, then made sure to burn o
nly that.
Deliberately.
My hands clenched tightly into fists at my side as I stared with suppressed rage at my store. The officer—Mosher—standing beside me was talking with one of the firemen. He was a younger man, in good shape, and barely looked like he’d broken a sweat even though he’d supposedly just been fighting a fire.
“Definitely an electrical fire,” the young man said, nodding his head as though this were the most obvious and mundane thing in the world. “Probably from some loose wiring in the back storage area.”
I had to clench my teeth from screaming. The back storage area. I could have killed someone. The message ringing in my ears was loud and clear. Everyone would say this was an accident and I’d lose not only the income from the convenience store, but my insurance wouldn’t be enough to cover the damage. I wouldn’t be able to repair the charcoal that was my shop. And that storage area Ethan had wanted? A non-issue now.
Turning abruptly on my heel, I ignored Mosher as he tried to call me back over. In fact, I ignored everyone and everything around me. I was a woman on a mission. Grabbing my phone from my purse, I sent out a quick text to Jessie.
It’s bad. Closed for at least today. I’ll let you know more later.
Then I jerked my car door open, threw my phone inside, and dropped down into the driver’s side. I slammed my door angrily, then took out of there at a speed entirely inappropriate given there were cops everywhere. But I didn’t care. I had to pay someone a visit.
# # #
I got to Ethan’s Diner in record time, coming to a screeching halt in the parking lot. I didn’t care that I took up two spaces or that I’d scared the crap out of a couple of late night patrons who looked more than a little drunk.
Fuck them and everyone else who had anything to do with Ethan Chambers.
I was tired of the people he had tucked into his back pocket as much as I was tired of the man himself. And I was about to tell him as much.
The diner was open twenty-four hours, which meant that even at about four in the morning, there were several people there. A lot of them were truckers just passing through, though there were a few regulars, I was sure. A couple of them were cops. I assumed the worst of every last one of them and couldn’t even manage a shred of guilt for writing them all off like that.
One of the waitresses, a pretty little thing with tits as fake as they were big, came over to me with a pad and pen ready. “You can sit anywhere. Want me to start on your drink?”
I calmed myself enough to keep from shouting that I wouldn’t take a free water from here. Instead, I said, “I’m looking for Ethan Chambers.”
Instantly, the girl stepped back. She motioned with a hand over her shoulder, calling, “Louis!” A large man in a suit that looked out of place for a basic diner like this stood up suddenly, his bulk hidden behind the booth he was sitting at. He turned to look at the waitress. Then his gaze slipped to me and without another word he headed over to us. “Problem, Lily?”
She shrugged and gestured towards me. “This lady’s looking for Mr. Chambers. He expecting someone?”
Louis didn’t take his eyes off me as he answered, “As a matter of fact, he is. I’ll take it from here, hon.”
She nodded once, then turned away, as good as ignoring me from then on out.
I turned to Louis, about to give him a piece of my mind, but he reached out and grabbed me by the upper arm first. “Keep your mouth shut, and we’ll do just fine.”
“Get off me,” I told him, trying to jerk my arm free. I wouldn’t let his size or unfriendly demeanor scare me.
Instead of listening, he leaned forward until we were eye level, then he said, “Shut up or I’ll hurt you.”
For the first time since getting there, I finally realized I’d probably made a really poor decision by coming here. A dangerous one. But it was too late to back out now. I’d have to see this through to the end—one way or the other.
He escorted me through the back of the building and down a hallway that ended in a basic door. He didn’t bother knocking, just opened the door and shoved me inside.
There, I found the man himself sitting at his desk, a cocky grin on his face.
“Ms. Leone, what a pleasure.”
He’d been expecting me.
Chapter 6
“What the fuck have you done?”
He raised a dark eyebrow at me, his mouth playing at a smug smirk. If anything, my choice of language seemed to please him as oppose to upset him. Not exactly what I’d been going for. “Why, Diana, honey, do you kiss your son with that mouth?”
I stomped forward, slamming my hands down on his desk like I wasn’t terrified about being here in his office with a huge bouncer standing at the door. “You leave my son out of this!”
He shrugged, bothering to sit up at least a little as he spoke again. “All right. Then to what do I owe this lovely little visit?”
Straightening, my jaw worked in anger until I managed to calm myself enough to speak again. “The Cut. What the hell are you playing at?”
Letting one large hand trail along his jawline—strong, chiseled, distinct in all the right ways—he considered me. After a moment, he said, “I made you a perfectly reasonable offer, if you recall. An offer that you declined for absolutely no reason at all.” He lifted both of his hands as though to say, What can you do? “I’ve decided to take it very personally.” He smiled at me, almost sweetly if I had been blind to the lingering smugness.
Bastard.
“You set fire to my store,” I leveled at him point blank. I wasn’t interested in playing anymore. He’d taken things way too far. That was my life he was ruining!
He sat forward abruptly, slamming his hands palm flat down on the table. They hit with a heavy, loud noise that made me jump before I could stop myself. “Be careful, Diana. Accusations like that are dangerous. Haven’t you learned anything about danger today?”
I swallowed back the venom that surged at his words.
“The fact is, I didn’t want to have to do business this way. I prefer the easy, negotiable way in which we are both adults about the whole thing.” He lifted his broad shoulders slightly. “But you were being horribly uncooperative. You left me no choice.”
“No choice?” I repeated incredulously.
Ignoring me, he continued. “Now, I’m forced to leave you with no choice.”
I began to shake my head, my heart sinking. “What do you want?”
“I told you already: I want your storage.” He sat back again, his momentary burst of anger gone in a flash, just as quickly as it had come. “You have something I need. A piece of property in town without my name on it. A rare commodity these days. And that little slice of storage space already receives steady, legitimate shipments of consumable goods.”
“You want storage space? Fine, take it,” I spat, furious as I realized I didn’t have any options left. Turning him down had just cost me an income I couldn’t afford to lose. Maybe I could make it back in whatever deal he was going to throw at me.
He held up a hand. “Oh, I’m going to. You see, I had been willing to pay an excellent price for it. Monthly rent that you so desperately needed. After all, I’m not heartless.”
I couldn’t stop myself from snorting, though I instantly regretted it. I didn’t tell him that I highly doubted the existence of his heart, mostly because I saw the hardening of his eyes. He hadn’t appreciated that little sound.
“I know that adorable little boy of yours isn’t cheap.”
It was the way he said it. With hard eyes and a dangerous tone, the threat laced beneath was clear and present. He was threatening my boy, reminding me he had me by the balls. And I didn’t like it.
Without a thought in my head, I lunged. I threw myself over his desk, reaching for him, but I didn’t make it more than a couple of inches. The big man, Louis, who had been standing at the door, moved like lightning. He caught me around the waist and jerked me back, throwing me harshly into a chair. He di
dn’t say anything, but he left a large hand planted heavily on my shoulder to keep me from trying anything else.
“I told you not to talk about my son!”
Chambers only smiled at me. “In lieu of the proposal so quickly rejected earlier, here’s the new one. I will use that storage space anyway. And not only am I not going to pay rent, I’m going to charge you protection. Clearly, after the fire, you need it.”
I opened my mouth, but couldn’t find any words. What he was talking about…Pay protection? Between the cost of repairs and the lost income of the convenience store, how was I supposed to find this extra money to pay Chambers, too?