Demand (9 page)

I
don't remember finally falling asleep, but I wake to the dim glow of sunshine from a nearby window, immediately aware that Kayden is no longer touching me. Rolling over I find him gone, but a piece of paper is lying on his pillow. Leaning up on my elbow, I yank the blanket up over my chilled, naked body and read the note:

Ella,

Wrapping up some loose ends from last night. I will be gone most of the day but I'll call you when I can. Adriel is in the castle if you need him, and since you're a feminist with a gun, I warned him to keep his distance.

Kayden

PS: Close is good.

I laugh at his joke, and yes, close is good, but my smile fades quickly with the reference to last night. And while I don't feel like I could be any other me than the me I am now, I can't seem to frame the person in my flashbacks who submitted to more than being tied to a bed and left for hours.
He
took me to a club and had me tied up and whipped, a thought that has me remembering a hard, spine-bending lash that jolts me to a sitting position, my breathing turning into panting.

The sound of my ringing phone makes me glance at the nightstand, and I find that not only has Kayden set my phone there and attached it to a charger but that my journal, gun, and purse are there as well. Needing to hear his voice, I scoot over, grab my cell, and lie back down to answer. “Hello,” I say, only to hear, “You're late, Eleana.”

At the sound of Gallo's voice, I momentarily twist back around to glance at the clock, noting the eight fifteen hour. “I didn't agree to this meeting,” I say, flattening firmly on my pillow where I intend to stay.

“Obviously when I stated that my badge indicated that you would make this meeting, I wasn't clear enough. Consider this your notice. This is official police business related to both your present and past activities, as well as Kayden's, which is why he will not be joining us for coffee.”

I jolt upward, clutching the blanket to my chest. “Activities?” I say, telling myself this is a head game. He doesn't know about Niccolo. He doesn't know about the necklace. “I have no activities.”

“Furthermore,” he continues, as if I haven't spoken, “it's a courtesy that I'm giving you the opportunity to discuss said activities in an unofficial capacity, outside the castle, where the walls have ears. And I strongly believe you want this conversation kept confidential.”

“I have nothing to hide,” I say, managing to sound convincing when the idea that he knows something that puts me at odds with The Underground, or Kayden, terrifies me.

“Awfully certain for a woman recovering from amnesia.”

He's hit a nerve that Kayden and I opened last night. “We're talking now. Say what you need to say.”

“On an open line, which is unacceptable. You will come and meet me, and you will do so alone.”

“Detective Gallo—”

“If you'd prefer, I can send a car to pick you up and take you to the station.”

“Kayden works for your boss,” I remind him. “He'll never let you take me, or Giada, to the station.”

“The quite disturbing text messages Giada sent me last night will ensure otherwise. How much damage do you think she can do to Kayden and his beloved Underground, by the time Kayden frees you both from the interrogation room? You will come and meet me. You will not call Kayden, who I know is not in the castle, nor will you involve Adriel, who I know
is
in the castle.”

“You
do
know that using Giada like this makes you a bastard, don't you?” I demand, not sure if I'm more furious with him or her.

“So you've said, but that just tells me how brainwashed you are, and how important this meeting is. I'm waiting, Eleana.”

At this point, I just need to get off of this phone call and decide what to do next. “I haven't even gotten in the shower,” I say. “I need forty-five minutes.”

“You have thirty. And in case you get the idea to call Kayden, I'm having a car pull to the front of the castle, ready to take you and Giada downtown.”

My jaw clenches. “I don't remember where we're supposed to meet.”

“I'll text it to you,” he says. “And for the record, Giada didn't tell me who was in the castle. I know things. And you need to know what I know.” He ends the call with that bombshell, which implies that someone close to Kayden is running their mouth.

I pull up Kayden's number, but as I start to push the “call” button, I hesitate and grab the note he left.
Wrapping up some loose ends from last night
. And last night he was with a trigger-happy drug lord. Damn it. I'm not supposed to call unless it's an emergency, and while Giada and me ending up at the police station would be that for sure, the best way to prevent that from happening is to face Gallo and have a proverbial stare-down. If I do it right, maybe he'll back off and give Kayden some breathing room while I find out who, if anyone, is betraying Kayden. He protects me; it's my turn to do the same for him.

Decision made, I throw aside the blankets, rush to the bathroom, and make a beeline for the shower. Turning on the water, I let it warm up, and I've just stepped under the spray and tilted my head back when there's a flickering image of a man's hand coming down on my arm, his pressed white shirt cuff riding up and uncovering a watch. My head lowers and I stare forward.
Kayden's watch.

What the heck did I just see? That wasn't Kayden. It couldn't be Kayden. It's always felt familiar, but never, ever has it come to me in a flashback.

“It's not Kayden,” I say firmly, reaching for the shampoo. “So who is it?” It's a question I still haven't answered when I step out of the shower and towel off, then quickly apply light makeup and dry my hair, which now shows signs of red roots. It's a reminder that there is a small possibility that Gallo might really know something of my past. And that past might, in some way, make me the enemy of The Underground, as I feared last night. Kayden might handle that well enough, but I'm not so sure about his men, especially with me in The Hawk's bed.

Suddenly eager to get to this meeting and just know what is before me, I quickly dress in dark jeans, a navy sweater, and black knee-high boots. Once I'm dressed, I grab my black Chanel trench coat and head back to the bedroom, where I toss it on the bed and slip on my cross-body purse before reaching for my gun. The minute I touch it, I flash back to standing in a firing range, firing a weapon with my father by my side.
Charlie
, I think. His name was Charlie, and my eyes lower with the wholeness of that memory. Bit by bit, my father is coming back to me.

I decide right then that my gun is now named “Charlie” and if anyone messes with me, they will know his wrath. Placing my newly named bodyguard in my purse, I'm about to zip it up when my gaze catches on my journal. Since my memories are active today, I grab it and settle it safely next to Charlie. Then I put on my coat, shove my phone in my pocket, and head for the hallway.

On my way downstairs I think about how carefully Kayden has guarded me, and I'm not sure I can leave without Adriel following. Not to mention the fact that the castle security system seems to send an alert to everyone's phone. There has to be
some
way everyone leaves without driving the other residents crazy. Stopping at the bottom of the steps, I fish out my phone and dial Giada, hoping she's gotten her phone back.

“Ella,” she answers. “Hi. I wanted to call you, but I just got my phone back, and you were angry and—”

“We need to talk. Alone. Where are you?”

“My tower.”

“And Adriel and Marabella?”

“Marabella's in our kitchen, baking. That's her way of coping with last night. And Adriel is holed up in his office upstairs. That's his way of sparing us all his bad mood.”

“Is his office in your tower, or the store?”

“My tower, but I can come to you.”

I punch the button to lift the door between our tower and the main lobby. “The walls have ears in this place,” I say, ducking under the door and entering the foyer. “Can we go out to lunch?” I glance up the central tower stairs, where the huge wooden door to the store is closed. “Or will Adriel not allow you to leave after last night?”

“Why does he have to know?”

That's not the answer I want from her, but it's a good opening for the information I need. “I thought all the doors pinged his phone.”

“Not the garages or the store.”

Bingo.
I start walking across the foyer toward the central tower steps. “We aren't going to piss everyone off more by sneaking out,” I say hypocritically, since that's exactly what I'm about to do. “But we need to talk and eat.” As I start up the stairs, I remember Gallo's threat and ask, “Did you send Detective Gallo any text messages?”

“
No.
Why?”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“You know Matteo can hack your messages, right?”

“There's nothing to hack. What's happening?”

“We'll talk over lunch,” I say. “How's one o'clock?”

“Great. Should I come to you?”

“That's not a good idea,” I say, hating that her suggestion makes me suspicious.

“Because Kayden doesn't want me in your tower.”

“Let's give him space to cool off,” I say. “How about we meet in the store?”

“Fine. There are no text messages.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

I end the call and jog my way up the stone steps to the store, where I'm forced to wait on the electronic door, wishing like heck we had one normal door I could just open and shut. Finally, though, I'm inside the store. The windows are shuttered, but the front door is not, and the lock flips easily. The process of resetting the lock isn't as easy, though, and it takes me a few tries before I figure it out. When I finally step outside, successfully locking up behind me, I'm hit by the bitter February cold. And compared to the front of the castle, the street view here is like being on another planet. Back here there's no plaza, just a wall smack in front of me, and narrow, grayish, uneven brick roads with no sidewalks.

Aware that every moment standing here is one when Adriel could intercept my departure, I turn left and start walking, then after a few feet, I turn right down another tiny street, a cold wind lifting my hair, and freezing my scarf-less neck. While this one is just as narrow, it's quieter, without retail stores and street vendors. Desperate to get away from another gust of wind, I slip into an alcove and pull out my phone. Sure enough, Gallo has indeed texted me the meeting details, and it appears that Caffè del Cinque has become Bar del Cinque. I'm not quite sure what to make of that, especially at this early hour, but whatever the case, I key the address into Google, and discover that it's straight ahead and to the right.

Pushing off the wall, I start walking again, but I've only taken a few steps when that same sense of being watched, which I felt in the castle hallway, returns. Glancing over my shoulder, I see a couple of women behind me that seem to be chatting it up, but no one else. Still, that feeling persists, and though I charge forward, I reach under my coat to unzip my purse, keeping my hand there for easy access to Charlie.

Uneventfully, I turn the corner and arrive at “Bar del Cinque.” The door is standing open despite the cold, and Italian pop music drifts outside. I cross the threshold, pausing just inside the entryway to find what I'd consider a typical American hotspot with clusters of wooden tables and a few booths near the back. To my left, the half-moon-shaped bar has been transformed from a place to drink to a place to display a lineup of pastries and coffee cups, proving I have much to learn about how Rome operates. I wonder what it would feel like to know this place as home, the way Kayden does, and to do so with him. But if Kayden is one of the most powerful men in Europe, which surely he is, as is Niccolo, how can Kayden expect that I can stay long term, and never cross paths with him? Unless . . . he doesn't expect me to stay?

“Eleana!”

At the sound of my fake name, I scan the mostly full tables and finally spot Gallo standing by a booth in the back of the room. I zip my purse up, stuff my phone into my pocket, and move in his direction. He watches my approach, transfixed it seems and not in a sexual way; more clinical, assessing. If he thought it'd make me uneasy, he's failed. Instead, I have the sense that he's trying to figure me out and doesn't mind me knowing it, which is a bit unnerving yet also comforting. His gaze says he doesn't have the full picture of who I am—
yet.
But he's trying way too hard.

And too soon, I am at the side of the table facing him and I see that his normally wrinkled suit is fairly well-pressed today, while the shadow on his jawline appears as perpetual as the sharpness of his gray eyes.

“Eleana,” he greets me, the name sliding off his tongue much more comfortably than it meets my ears.

“Detective.”

He waves me to my seat. “Shall we?”

I take a seat and when he joins me, sitting across from me, I note the red streaking the whites of his eyes. “You look tired,” I say. “Did you stay up all night, thinking about how to terrorize me today?”

“I got up early to make a meeting,” he replies dryly, his eyes lighting with amusement, not irritation. “Nice of you to finally show up for it.”

In this moment, with his mood slightly lighter, I'm reluctantly reminded that he's rather handsome—a detail that doesn't help me keep Giada away from him. “You said this place was a café,” I say, “but the sign says
bar
. That was very confusing.”

“
Bar
means ‘coffee bar.' ”

I want to ask about Giada's text messages, but jumping into that topic might indicate the severity of my concern, so I stick to small talk. “I've been to a bar here in Rome, and it was beer and wine.”