The light dawned. “It was never about us, was it? We were a stepping-stone to Rogan.”
“I suspect so. I don’t know if he was motivated by money or if it was the prestige, but Abarca wanted into Rogan’s inner circle. He had sent his résumé to us three times. I imagine he thought working with you would be the doorway to Rogan’s confidence.”
“Except we hired him specifically to keep our independence from Rogan.” It all made sense now. “So, when Mom told him he would be let go for doing a bad job and that the people he wanted to impress would be replacing him, he couldn’t handle it.”
“Now you understand.” Heart fixed me with his direct stare. I felt a strong urge to stand straight and very still. “A unit is only as good as its leader. That’s why a good leader holds herself to the highest standard. It’s not about being liked or being fair. It’s about deciding what your goal is and doing what is necessary to achieve it. Especially when it’s difficult. What happened to Abarca wasn’t the result of your actions. He made his choices. Don’t let it cripple you. You still have a job to do.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t mention it. We will build a new security team around a strong leader. I have someone in mind. With your permission, I’ll extend an invitation to interview to her and her wife. She’s a talented soldier, but she comes with some baggage.”
“Everyone comes with baggage,” I told him. “Please invite her to interview.”
“Good,” Heart said, and smiled.
I was in the kitchen, chopping up a mango, when Alessandro sauntered in and parked himself by the kitchen island. He wore a dark suit with a crisp white shirt and a conservative black tie. His jaw was clean-shaven, his hair tamed. His shoes cost more than the rest of his outfit combined. A long cashmere scarf, snow white and unadorned, hung from his neck, thrown up there almost as an afterthought. A Prime; successful, elegant, confident. Someone to be taken seriously. He would give Augustine a run for his money.
At the kitchen table Arabella raised her eyebrows and elbowed Runa. Prime Etterson raised her head from her laptop and did a double take.
I kept chopping. “Is that your I’m-going-to-see-Linus-Duncan outfit?”
He took a long look at me, inspecting my award-winning ensemble of sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt covered by a pink apron with a frilly ruffle. “Is that yours?”
I rolled my eyes, slid the chopped-up mango into a plastic bowl already containing minced onion, garlic, cumin, ginger and other spices, and picked up plastic gloves.
Alessandro eyed the assortment of cooking ingredients in front of me, taking in honey, apple cider vinegar, and small orange peppers. “What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting until 8:00 a.m. before I call him.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because he’s Linus Duncan. I have no idea when he gets up.” I put the gloves on and began slicing the peppers. “Maybe he does yoga in the morning, maybe he swims, maybe he sleeps in. Eight o’clock seems like a reasonable time to call out of the blue demanding that he drops everything and sees us. Seven forty-five, not as much.”
“I understand that. I’m asking why you’re chopping little bell peppers first thing in the morning.”
Because my cousins pitched a fit when we ran out of their favorite taco sauce.
“She cooks when she’s nervous,” Arabella volunteered.
I stopped chopping and looked at her. My sister giggled. “You look just like Mom.”
“Are you afraid of Linus Duncan?” Alessandro frowned.
“No. I told you, he’s a family friend.” Of course I was afraid of Linus. Who wouldn’t be?
Alessandro leaned forward, invading my space, and hit me with a seductive smile. “So why are you nervous?”
“I’m not nervous.”
“Do I make you nervous?” Alessandro purred.
My sister choked on her coffee.
“No.”
Leon walked into the kitchen, saw Alessandro, growled “For fuck’s sake!” and walked out.
Alessandro laughed, reached over, and stole a piece of one of the little orange peppers.
Arabella’s eyes got big. Runa opened her mouth and Arabella clamped her hand over it.
I gave Alessandro a sweet smile. “That’s not yours.”
Take the bait. You know you want to.
“Give me back my pepper. I mean it, Alessandro. You can’t have it.”
Three, two, one . . .
Alessandro winked at me and popped the pepper into his mouth. His gorgeous jaw moved.
He froze. His expression locked into a harsh mask.
“Don’t you want to say something suave?” I asked. “Go ahead. Flirt with me.”
A red flush washed over his face.
“What’s the matter, Alessandro? Do I make you nervous?”
His eyes teared.
I took pity on him. “Welcome to Texas. That ‘little bell pepper’ on fire in your mouth is called a habanero. The bathroom is down the hall, first door on the left. Don’t be a hero, Alessandro. Spit it out. I don’t have time to take you to the hospital.”
“Dibs on holding his hair while he pukes,” Runa announced.
“Fine,” Arabella said. “But I get to rub his back and make ‘there, there’ noises.”
Clearly, she and Runa were the same person.
Alessandro turned on his heel and marched out of the kitchen.
I held it together until I heard the bathroom door close and laughed. Runa put her head down on the table and squeaked. My sister giggled, making snorting noises.
“That was evil, Catalina,” Runa managed between howls of laughter.
“I told him to give it back. He saw me put on gloves.”
“He did,” Arabella moaned.
“Did you see the look on his face?” I laughed so hard, I cried a little. Some of it was probably a hysterical reaction to everything that had happened since Augustine dragged me out of bed three days ago, but I didn’t care. It felt so nice.
Leon walked back into the kitchen and slid a piece of paper on the island. “While you’re in a good mood.”
I swiped at my tears with my forearm and focused on the words. The purpose of this letter is to request full reimbursement for my personal property destroyed on January 6th by an employee of House Baylor Investigative Agency . . . Blah, blah, blah . . .
“Twenty-three thousand dollars?!”
Leon took a step back. “Remember, I’m your favorite cousin and you love me.”
“We only got paid seven thousand for the Yarrow job. You put us sixteen thousand in the hole. How, Leon?”
“I can explain. I got to the house to confront the accountant lady, and her husband ran out in his pajamas and started screaming that she locked herself in the panic room with their baby.”
“And you called the cops. Because that’s what we do when we find ourselves with a hostage situation. We defer to law enforcement, don’t we? Because they have authority and jurisdiction and experienced hostage negotiators, right, Leon? Because we can’t assume responsibility for resolving a hostage crisis since we don’t know what we’re doing. Because we don’t want anyone to die, and we don’t want to be sued.”
Leon raised his hands. “Who hasn’t been sued?”
“Us! We haven’t been sued. And we aren’t getting sued if I can help it. Did you call the cops?”
Alessandro chose that moment to wander back into the kitchen. He looked pale, his eyes were bloodshot, and his hands shook a little.
“You had to be there,” Leon said. “I made an executive decision. Time was of the essence.”
“Bullshit. It takes twenty minutes to drive from our house to that subdivision. You called here, convinced Grandma and Arabella to bring Brick over, and waited for twenty minutes for them to arrive. And then the three of you thought it would be a grand idea to drive Brick through the house. Literally!”
“It sounds bad when you put it that way,” Leon said. “But we saved a hostage.”
“No, you put the life of a child in danger.”
Arabella stirred. “Technically, it wasn’t exactly a child.”
I turned to Leon. He sighed, looking resigned, and held up his phone. On it a middle-aged white man clutched a giant orange cat.
“What is that?”
Leon visibly braced himself. “It’s Tuna. Also known as Baby.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
Leon backed away.
I dropped the knife and grabbed a habanero. “Come here.”
“What has gotten into you?” Leon backed away, keeping the island between us. “You’re always so calm and reasonable . . .”
I chased him around the island. “I’m trying to solve a murder and a kidnapping, a consortium of assassins is targeting us, we had to hire the most expensive private army in the country to keep us alive, I have no idea how to pay for any of it, and instead of making money, you decided to put us deeper in the hole. For a cat in a domestic dispute.”
“I didn’t know it was a cat until we busted down the door. He said baby, not fur baby.”
We made a full circle around the island. I stuck my hand out at Arabella. “Hold him.”