Page 16

Jade is working at the other end of my desk, opposite me, in the warehouse office.

Her face is scrunched, her nose wrinkled in concentration as she jots down numbers in columns on a piece of paper. I watch her for a while, and she is so absorbed in the task she doesn’t even notice.

Only when my phone rings does she look up and at me.

“Hello?” I say.

“Hey man, we need you at this meeting now, it’s gotten a little more complicated and we need your input with regards to the routes,” Rodion says.

I clench my jaw. I don’t want to leave Jade alone. I want to stay with her.

“I’ve got that massive delivery arriving in the next hour. I’d rather be here for it.”

“There are three floor managers at that warehouse. I am pretty damn sure they are trained enough to manage it without you looking over their shoulders.”

I sigh in frustration, eyeing Jade.

She mouths the words, “You can go, I’ll be fine here.”

I lift the side of my mouth in annoyance.

“OK, fine. I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” I sigh, frustration pushing through me.

Jade smiles sweetly and taps the back of her pen against the paper in front of her. I hang up the phone and tilt my head. “I’m so sorry. I have to go.”

“It’s honestly ok, Rad. I’ve got a lot to do here. Plenty to keep me busy.”

I stand up and walk around the desk, cupping her face in my hand. “And out of trouble?” I tease her.

“Oh no, I won’t stay out of trouble. You’re asking too much,” she giggles, teasing me in return.

I lean down and gently press my lips against hers. “I won’t be long. Maybe two hours at most.”

She nods. “We can go for an early dinner when you’re done.”

“That sounds great. I’m already hungry,” I admit. “And I’m really not in the mood to listen to my brothers arguing over routes.” I chuckle.

Leaving her feels wrong. It feels like there is a string tied to my chest and someone is tugging at it. They tug harder the further I get from her. It feels unnatural to be away from her.

But I do have a duty towards my businesses that cannot be ignored.

Driving through the city towards my brother’s place, everyone is at Rodion’s house, hosting the meeting there. I can’t pull my thoughts away from Jade.

She has fit so easily into my life. No, that’s not entirely true. It hasn’t all been easy. I smirk. In fact, she was rather feisty and cold for a long time, but right now, for whatever dose of luck the universe has granted me, she is treating me as though I might be someone special to her. Someone who holds meaning in her heart.

But how can I jump to that conclusion?

Is it just because the connection we have is so intense? Is that connection purely physical? Not for me. For me, it’s more than that. My protective nature flares around her. My heart warms and my skin burns to be near her.

No. It’s not just physical. I’ve had purely physical relationships in the past and not one of them felt like this. I hardly gave those relationships a thought in between the random nights we spent together. And I grew bored of them quickly.

I could never grow bored of Jade.

Something about her gives me a constant sense of curiosity and enticement.

I smile as I park the car alongside my brothers and climb out, walking towards Rodion's front door.

I don’t knock, I just push the door open and make my way to the dining room where we usually hold meetings like this.

They are all standing, leaning over the table and staring at a map. Rodion has his finger pressed against the massive sheet of paper.

“Here, if we come in from this side of town—“

“Hi,” I say, dropping my things onto the table and leaning forward too. “Where are we at?”

Between Rodion, Ruvim and Renat, all speaking at once, they catch me up on what is bothering them about the route they originally chose. Road work, a fire in a building and a construction site that have all developed over the past week have upset the flow of their plan.

Rodion is an overthinker when it comes to making sure operations go perfectly. He worries for our safety, he takes on that responsibility as though it was his alone to bare but it isn’t.

“Alright, I get it. Ok, so, why is it difficult to choose another route?” I run my eyes over the map, over the lines they have drawn in erasable marker.

“School on this route, and you know our rule about driving operations near children.” Ruvim points to the red marker line.

“There is a church parade for a shelter on this route on the same day we are running the route,” Rodion sighs in frustration pointing at the blue line.

“And the yellow?” I ask, glancing around the table.

“Nobody fucking likes the route for no fucking reason.” Renat throws his hands in the air. “I don’t get it. There is nothing stopping us from just switching to the yellow route.” He’s deeply frustrated, and I can immediately see I’ve hit the contention they’ve been struggling with in the meeting.

“It gives me a bad feeling,” Rigor says, clenching his jaw.

“A bad feeling?” Renat mocks him. “What did you do? Consult the oracle before you came here this morning?” He rolls his eyes.

“Pipe down,” Rodion warns him with a stern glare.

Renat mutters something no one can hear, and we all ignore him.

“Here. If we take the school route, but skip that street and travel two streets behind the school. It might add a few minutes to the drop, but we can factor that into the travel time. Nowhere near the kids, or the parade, or Rigor’s bad feelings,” I smirk and wink at Renat, who chuckles.

I’m just trying to defuse the tension.

Rigor and Rodion lean closer to the map.

“Let’s take three streets from the school and then return to the original route after that,” Rigor says.

Rodion nods. “Yeah, we can do that. That’ll work.”

My phone rings on the table. It’s the warehouse.

I answer it and my floor manager is speaking so loudly everyone can hear and I need to hold the phone away from my ear.

“Sir, there’s a fire. They tipped over the fuel tank and the forklift ran over the spill. Its inside the whole fucking place. You need to come back—”

“Fuck!” I yell, turning to run from the room.

“We’ll follow!” Rigor shouts, but I hardly pay any attention because I’m thinking about Jade and how I should never have left her alone and now she’s in danger.

She might be trapped upstairs in the office and my workers might not even realize she’s still there.

Driving like a maniac, I skid around corners and shoot through traffic lights. I don’t care about the risk to myself, which is stupid, because if I am hurt—I can’t help her. Still, the panic flooding me is so intense I can barely breathe.

The thought of losing Jade is too much to process. I push it aside and focus on the task at hand. Get to the warehouse. Step one. Nothing else matters. Stop panicking. Focus.

Once I’m in the harbor area, any remaining caution I had goes out of the window and I drive even faster.

My car come skidding to a halt right outside the burning warehouse. I can’t see flames, but I can see thick, black smoke pouring from the high doors.

I practically fall out of my car getting out too fast and running towards the stream of workers flooding out of the suffocating air inside.

And right there, in the doorway, is Jade.

She is covered in soot but gently guiding workers to safety. She is speaking to them, reassuring them and telling them where to go to get out of the way of the smoke and flames.

If someone is hurt, she pulls them to the side and guides them towards the doctor we have on sight.

I stand in the middle of the hustling chaos and stare at her for a moment before I snap back into myself. She is looks so in control, so confident and full of courage.

I rush towards her and grab her in my arms.

She lets out a little woosh of air and a squeal of fright.

“Oh. My goodness, Rad. You’re back. Thank goodness,” she mutters, hugging me back. “Those people over there got burnt and that guy got stuck under one of the crates when it fell and—“

I grab her face. “Are you ok, little starfish?” My eyes are tight on her, filled with concern.

She reaches up and gently touches my hands on her cheeks. A soft smile on her lips when she answers. “I’m completely fine,” she says calmly.

I pull her close to me and kiss her. Then let her go. “I’m going to check who is still inside,” I nod, then run into the building while Jade continues to help the workers find their way to safety.

For hours, Jade and I work with my brothers, who arrive a little after me, to clean up the mess and make sure that everyone is alright. We are lucky that no one was seriously injured, but a few people did go for treatment for smoke inhalation and Jethro managed to break his arm when the crate landed on him. Other than that, people are just dirty, tired, coughing and wanting to go home.

I send everyone on their way after making sure they don’t need additional treatment, until it’s just Jade and I left at the warehouse.

The sky is already dark above us and there is enough smoke still wafting from the warehouse, even though the fire is out, to block out any view we might have had of the stars.

“So, how hungry are you now?” Jade asks, grinning at me and looking utterly exhausted.

“I’m thinking pizza and burgers. It seems like the perfect combo right now.”

“No pineapple, though? Right?” she asks, narrowing her gaze at me.

“Ugh, no. Who puts pineapple on pizza?” I say in horror as I slip my arm around her and lead her towards my car.

“Thank goodness, for a second there I thought we couldn’t be friends anymore,” she laughs.

“Friends,” I say, a slight note of mischief in my voice.

She turns to look at me, blushes, and then quickly looks away.

Before starting the car, I quickly order our food for delivery, then without driving like a maniac, I get us home as fast as I can. Jade looks like she’s ready to fall asleep in the car.

At home, I take her hand and lead her into my bedroom, into the massive black and gold bathroom attached to my room. I sit her down on the side of the tub while I fill it with hot water, brimming with bubbles and rose scented oils that I purchased specifically because they remind me of her.

Slowly, I help Jade undress. Removing each item of dirty clothing, black and dusty from the fire, and throwing it into the washing basket.

“Covered in ash and still the most beautiful girl in the world,” I whisper, leaning down to kiss her lips.

She moans softly against my lips and closes her eyes.

From downstairs I hear one of my security men shout up to us, “Sir, your food order has arrived.”

“Thanks,” I shout back down, grinning at Jade.

“I’ll go get the food and come sit with you in the bath?”

“A bath picnic?” She giggles. “I’m in.”