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CHAPTER 7
Picking the lock on the cuffs took about five minutes.
It would’ve taken three, but she was trying to be extra quiet so that she didn’t wake Knox. Poor guy was so exhausted she couldn’t even bring herself to stay mad at him for cuffing her to the headboard in the first place.
So, she’d just opened the cuffs and rolled over to get some sleep when it occurred to her that she had a call to make. A damned important one, too.
Grumbling under her breath, she grabbed her phone, slipped out of bed, and made her way to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
He answered on the first ring. “You’re late.”
She grinned, imagining him sitting in front of his wall of security feeds and desk full of open laptops, waiting for her daily check-in call. “Sorry. I was tied up.” Literally.
He muttered indistinctly for a few seconds before asking, “With the ex-con?”
Tenley frowned as she boosted herself up on the ginormous bathroom counter. “Renley, how do you know about Knox?”
“I told you not to call me that,” he groused.
Yes, which was the point, of course. “But Renley and Tenley has a nice ring to it. Makes us sound like a dynamic duo, you know? Like Batman and Robin. Bonnie and Clyde. Starsky and Hutch.”
“Bert and Ernie. Simon and Garfunkel, Chip and Dale,” he added dryly.
She sighed. “You’re a buzz kill, Ren.”
“This shouldn’t be news to you, Tenley.”
It wasn’t. She’d known Ren Solace since they were both skinny, underfed trailer park foster kids, and he’d been a dour, the-glass-is-always-half-empty-and-the-contents-are-probably-poisoned-anyway kind of guy since she first met him.
When they were both in the fourth grade, Ren was a scrawny weakling who always screwed up the grading curve because he was ten times smarter than anyone in the room, including the teacher. Those traits, coupled with his awkwardness in social situations and the fact that he was dirt poor, made him an easy target for bullies.
And if there was one thing Tenley could never tolerate, it was a bully. She’d come across a couple of kids trying to stuff Ren in his locker, and she didn’t hesitate to step in, fists flying. No one fought like a trailer park kid with a handsy foster dad. Those fuckers didn’t stand a chance. Two of them went off with bloody noses, and the one who’d first grabbed Ren earned a broken wrist for his efforts.
She’d gotten suspended for a week, but it had been worth it, because after that, Ren became the closest thing to a friend she’d ever had. He even let her stay in the spare room at his compound when she wasn’t on the road, grifting. She could call on him for anything she needed, and he never asked too many questions.
After elementary school, he didn’t need her to fight for him anymore. He hit a growth spurt the likes of which Tenley had never seen. Now, he was a beast of a man who would scare the crap out of her if he wasn’t on her side.
Ren was like the brother she never had. They never talked too much about personal stuff. He was every bit as uncomfortable with emotion as she was. But when she needed fake documents, electronic records, false identities, or security footage erased, Ren was there for her.
And to make sure neither of them ever got too mushy about their relationship, she always made sure he was fairly compensated for his work. No one should ever do work—physical or emotional—for free.
Where he’d gained his skills, she had no idea. She truly didn’t want to know. She imagined it had been in one those I-could-tell-you-but-then-I’d-have-to-kill-you-situations. All she knew for sure was that if she didn’t check in with him every night, he’d come looking for her.
And God help anyone who kept her from reaching him.
“How’d you know about Knox?” she repeated.
“You were late checking in, so I pulled up the security footage from the jewelry store. Based on that, I pulled the street cams in the surrounding areas. I saw him pull you into his car.”
She blinked. “You saw me get kidnapped and you didn’t come for me?”
He scoffed. “You weren’t kidnapped. I saw you go after him first. You obviously had it under control.”
True. But still… “You still researched him, though?”
“I like to be sure.”
That was the understatement of the century. “What’d you find out?”
