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6
ALEXIS
I’ve spent the night so many times, Valentina’s apartment is like a familiar friend. I know which cabinet holds the drinking glasses and where to find a spatula, and I know where the laundry machines are stowed and how to work the finicky gas fireplace.
Sometimes I sleep in the guest room, but more often we fall asleep in Valentina’s big, comfy bed after gorging on junk food, wine, and Netflix. But I’ve stayed here only once since she married Marco, and I miss our sleepovers almost as much as I miss her.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I inform Giana and Sabio, who are several years older than me, and serious, but not stern like the guards my father normally assigns to my detail. “There are no windows in the bathroom, and the vent is too small to squeeze these hips through. You don’t need to worry.”
“It’s our job to worry,” Giana reminds me gently, following me through the living area to where the guest room is located.
Valentina might not use the apartment much now that she’s married, but the place smells like her. I wish she was here. I could use a friend right now, and I can already tell Giana’s not going to cut it.
“You’re not actually going to watch me shower?” It comes off flippantly, like, you can’t be serious, but she’s following so close on my heels I’m afraid she might actually join me in the bathroom.
“I’d prefer to wait in the bedroom.”
“I’d prefer you wait in the living room, but the bedroom works.”
“You’ll need to keep the bathroom door open, but this is a large room, and I’ll give you plenty of privacy.”
“Rafael was joking about keeping the bathroom door open, Giana.”
“He doesn’t joke about security.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
There was a time when I’d have tortured the guards. Put on a little show for them, covering my embarrassment by making them feel embarrassed too. But I don’t do that anymore.
Guards who work for men like my father and the Huntsmans aren’t like the bodyguards who protect celebrities and CEOs. They’re lethal soldiers. Soldado in Portuguese. Soldato in Italian. Soldat in Russian. It doesn’t matter where they’re from or what they’re called—it’s all the same. These men, with a few women sprinkled about, swear loyalty and follow orders. If they fail to do either, they pay with their lives. When I realized this, I stopped fucking with them.
Do I slip my detail? Yes. More in the last year than I ever have. But I’m careful to concoct schemes that won’t reflect badly on them—at least not too badly.
My father might demote the guards and pull them off my detail, but despite what I told Rafael, he’d never order their death over my shenanigans. Although if he believes they should have been able to stop me—that’s a different matter entirely. That’s why I’m so careful not to implicate them in any way.
“Would you like me to see if Senhora Cruz has a robe you can borrow?”
Senhora Cruz. Valentina would cringe if she heard Giana call her by that name. “No. Thank you. I keep a few things here.”
I pull open the bottom dresser drawer and dig out a pair of underwear, yoga pants, and a tank top. “I’m just going to wash my face and change. I’ll shower later.”
I won’t toy with Giana and Sabio, but I have some measure of pride. I’ll deal directly with their boss on this matter. But it can wait until he cleans up the mess from tonight.
Despite all the research I’ve done, the trafficking ring isn’t something I can handle alone. Not that I ever really believed that I could handle the bastards at all—I just hoped to expose them enough that the authorities would take me seriously.
I’m on the right trail, but now that I’m getting close, I see how far over my head I am. There’s no way to infiltrate them. I don’t know what I was thinking. But once I saw the patterns emerge, I had to do something. It’s what my grandmother Lydia would have done, and Rafael’s mother, and Valentina’s grandmother Maria Rosa. The three amigas. When I was younger, I wished that I could have been born sooner and been part of their badass posse. Not that it turned out so well for them.
I’m not giving up, but it’s late and my brain is too fried to plan the next step. The important thing is that Francesca wasn’t abducted. The rest can wait until tomorrow.
I wash my face, brush my teeth, and use the bathroom, all with the door open. Giana waits across the room to make it as easy as possible on me, and I appreciate her kindness.
The doorbell rings as we’re leaving the bedroom. “It’s just the doctor,” she murmurs.
I almost tell her that I won’t be examined tonight, but before I can throw down the gauntlet, she continues.
“Dr. Arruda works at the clinic downstairs. She’s very nice. I don’t expect any problems, but,” she adds, “if anything makes you uncomfortable, I’ll be nearby to help.”
My father has few female guards, and while there was always one in my detail when I was growing up, she was more of a chaperone. I rarely saw her make any decision without consulting the male guards, and she never intervened on my behalf. It wasn’t her job to be my advocate.
