Page 11 of Splintered Security (Aspen & Evergreen #2)

door number two

Ren

My phone has been blowing up since seven this morning. Christian wants a word, and I can’t put it off any longer.

I kiss Anni on the forehead, feeling her go soft under the touch. “I won’t be long, and I’ll bring dinner home. Unless you want me to cook?” Her eyes lift as do her lips, but she doesn’t choose. “We’ll figure it out. Mi casa es su casa, so do whatever you need. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I know she won’t leave. Her car was apparently near the club, but that was two nights ago. I have no doubt the City of Denver has already towed it somewhere in the metro area and is stowing it behind high fences with razor wire.

Fine by me. That means where she goes, I go with her.

We need to discuss Heath and Pueblo, specifically how he knew we’d be there. And I’m sure we need to discuss our visit with her mom, Adrienne.

There are lots of things to work through, but as I step out of my SUV at Christian and Ayla Barone’s Cherry Hills Village home, I focus on the task at hand.

I push open the door to the sitting room off the kitchen—it’s where all the staff enter and exit Barone’s mini-mansion—and head to the office off to the side.

Christian sits in the chair behind his desk and doesn’t bother to stand when I enter. “Ren.” Hell, he doesn’t bother to look up from his screen. “Have a seat.”

I do, making myself as comfortable as possible. I’ve worked for Barone for two years. I’m one of his personal security team, manage Barone Hospitality security, and even handled his household for a while.

We’ve been through some shit—his wife’s shit most recently. It doesn’t make us friends, but it has made him trust me.

More importantly, it’s given me access. My hours weren’t standard. My methods weren’t kind. My work, though, was stellar.

“Tell me what you know about Wednesday night.”

“I’ve had personal business to attend to and haven’t had the time to dig into it as much as I would like.

But, at nine fifty-four, the club received a call from an anonymous number.

A computer-altered voice stated, ‘There’s a bomb in the building.

’ It mentioned a personal vendetta and that it would detonate at ten ten. ”

I don’t mention the personal vendetta indicated a female subject. Barone is feral about his wife—and that was before . Since her ordeal, he’s feral and rabid. And unfocused. I need him level-headed and on point right now.

“I had the team clear the building and, from what I can tell, that was almost entirely successful. ”

“Almost. We have two dead chefs and one member of your team who didn’t survive. And I have a sommelier who is hospitalized with two broken legs.”

“Who on my team?”

It’s David. I’m sure of it. He never checked in.

“Rosen.”

Shit. David. I drop my head and give my man the respect of my silence before Barone’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

“Security cameras have Rosen leaving the building just before nine forty and lighting up a joint in the alley—” He turns his scowl on me as if he’s disappointed in me, as if I provided the blunt to my employee or forced him to smoke it.

“Six minutes later, key card access has him returning. Cameras picked up Rosen and another gentleman who I haven’t been able to identify walking through the back hall, carrying a duffel.

The man is dark blond with a scraggly beard and heavily tatted.

He slipped out the kitchen exit within a minute or two. ”

“And Rosen?

Christian studies me. “According to the footage, Rosen went to the mechanical room, dropped the duffel and opened it, was doing something on his phone when the notification went out to clear the building. He seemed to waiver between getting downstairs and staring at that bag. He ended up not leaving.”

“What was in the bag?”

“According to DPD? The explosives. ”

I clench my eyes shut. I hired David. I liked him as an employee. We didn’t hang out and drink beer on Sundays—I don’t do that with anyone—but I thought he was decent.

“The mechanical room was fortuitous as it turns out. Allowed for the building to almost implode instead of taking out surrounding buildings.” He doesn’t finish the thought.

He owns the block. One building destroyed is merely a setback when someone has as much money and clout as he and his wife do. A city block in Denver, however, would be costly in every way, most especially in PR.

And Barone isn’t about PR except in the sense that he controls the narrative and doesn’t ever need image assistance. He’s the charity gala type, not the image rehabilitation type.

I nod. Not in agreement, but simply in acknowledgment.

“Suicide bomber doesn’t stand up to his history or resume. Was it a set up? What are we missing?”

“That’s for you to find out. In the meantime—” He points a remote over my head to a wall of screens that run security camera footage. “Here’s the guy we’re looking for. He’s on DPD’s radar, but with only two business days since the explosion, they haven’t brought the results I’m used to.”

Pressing both my hands into the armrests, I twist to look over my shoulder at the screen and straight at the face of Troy Smith. Son of a bitch!

I fight to keep my body from showing any reaction. Any connection to me could make me liable, and that’s a no go. I don’t have any problem taking Barone down, but that’ll be me, not the Lost Mountain Rebels or some punk from the periphery .

I turn and lock my gaze with his. “On it.” It’s all I say as I push up from the chair to leave.

“Ren?”

I turn when I get to the door. “Yeah?”

He nods to my left hand. “Personal business?”

“Personal business.”

“Congratulations.”

I give a chin lift before turning and walking away. We’re not chicks. I don’t need to gush and compare rings.

Of all the things that calm me down, none are available to me right now. Hitting a punching bag is one. Sex is another. A decent run or a good hike will do when the others aren’t available.

I’m contemplating all this while fighting the niggling sensation that Anni is involved in this mess.

She was in the building. She came home with me. She asked me to bind myself to her legally.

I’ve been distracted. Unusually so, actually.

A bomb came into my place of work under my nose. By way of one of my own employees. And there’s a tie—a very real and binding tie—to my wife.

But how?

And why?

I drive faster than I need to on the way home. It’s the only outlet I have right now, and my suspicions are making me less and less comfortable with Anni being in my house alone .

I don’t know whether I need protection for her or protection from her. My gut says it’s the former. And my gut is solid.

But the timing is damning.

Anni

I’m in the pantry when Ren returns. I swear he’s going to think I have an eating disorder or something. I’m hungry and brunch burned through me hours ago. So has the fruit I found in the fridge after I got the laundry sorted and what little I own hung in his closet.

“Are you okay?” My brows scrunch together until his stern features soften a bit when he sees me.

“Yeah.” He tags me around the shoulders and pulls me out of the pantry and into a hug. He kisses the top of my head, and his body sags as if he’s exhaling for the first time since he left the house.

I look up into his face. “Bad meeting?”

“Just work.” He looks from me over my head into the pantry. “Are you hungry or hiding?”

“Hungry. I thought about cooking but didn’t know when you’d be home.”

He looks down into my eyes. His navy ones are warm and soft instead of the cold and sharp of when he first arrived .

“I’m not much of a cook,” I continue. “But I don’t burn water, so I’m not totally useless.”

“Well, let’s get you fed. And then I want to discuss Pueblo.”

I nod into his chest and let go. “What can I do?”

“Want to make the salad while I get the rest?”

“Sure, but I want wine if we’re going to talk about Pueblo.”

He holds my eyes for a longer than necessary moment, but nods. “Sure, Sunshine. Red or white?”

I shrug. “Surprise me.”

We move through the kitchen like two people who have never tried tandem cooking together. Which is to say, we’re always in each other’s way, somehow always blocking the place the other needs to be, and generally inefficient. But it’s comfortable.

He pours me a chilled white wine and himself a bourbon. I finish the salad and bail to a stool at the bar again, watching him masterfully make a dinner that looks beautiful while appearing easy to prepare.

He sets sautéed chicken and mushrooms over a minced onion risotto next to my boring side salad and takes the seat next to me.

“You’re spoiling me,” I offer after a couple of bites of dinner. “My husband can cook.” I keep my voice light as I compliment him, trying out his new title aloud to see how it fits.

“If all I have to do to spoil you is cook, you’re too easy, Wife. ”

I turn at his new nickname for me and give him a wide smile. “I’m not hard to spoil, Ren. I know shit. So when I have good, I recognize it and value it.”

“You going to tell me about the shit part?”

I nod, but drop my eyes. So much of everything is the shit part when it comes down to it. That’s the thing. “Yeah. But after dinner. It’s too good to ruin with talk of all that.”

He seems to accept that, and we eat in peace. I ask him about his time in the Army. He glosses over his tour in the Middle East, but talks almost fondly of his time in Vincenza, Italy while stationed at Camp Ederle.

“I told you I learned to cook while in the Army.”

“You said the basics. I assumed you were talking about package tacos and macaroni and cheese out of a box. Not the basics of Italian cuisine while in Italy.”

“Cooking is cooking. Ingredients are the same wherever you go. Have you not noticed how similar Indian staples are to Mexican ones? The seasonings vary and the methods and styles are different, but cooking is cooking. Rice is rice.” He points the tines of his fork at his risotto.