She’s strong and fierce, just like Mom. Just like me. She’s an amazing woman and a fucking badass lioness.
“Okay, you got me,” Pilar said. “I trust you to take care of yourself, but I still expect you to check in frequently, answer your damn phone when I call and let me know immediately if you have any issues. Got it?”
“I got it,” Lydia said, grinning. Pilar reached out and wrapped her arms around her sister, squeezing her tight.
“Seriously, take care,” Pilar whispered.
“Seriously, I can’t breathe.” Lydia made a fake choking sound. Pilar let her go and shoved her gently on the shoulder.
“Right, I’m gone,” Pilar said, grabbing her bag and heading out the door.
The sun had fully set now, leaving the world in pools of gathering shadow. The air was still warm, the night very young and full of promise. Even though she had been reluctant to leave, her lioness was overjoyed to be out on the prowl.
As Pilar tossed her duffle bag in the back of the car, her phone rang. She jumped into the driver’s seat, checking the screen. She let out a gasp of exasperation when she saw it was Lydia.
“Need me already, huh?” she said, answering the phone without a hello.
Lydia laughed. “What? I’m just checking in like you said.”
They both laughed. Pilar felt warmth in her chest as they joked together. She really didn’t want to leave Lydia alone, but maybe it was time.
“I just wanted to say … maybe, it will be a cute guy, and you can finally have a boyfriend for a change,” Lydia said, teasing her. There was an undercurrent of seriousness to her sister’s tone that Pilar refused to acknowledge.
“No way,” she said, almost snapping. “I can’t get involved with a client, you know that.”
“Likely excuse,” Lydia said with a defeated sigh.
“Well, you just take care of yourself,” Pilar said. She felt like things were about to get too serious again, so she quickly changed her tone.
“And don’t you have any wild parties!” she snapped. “I don’t want my place trashed.”
Lydia laughed as they both hung up. Pilar tossed her phone onto the passenger seat and started up her Mustang, ready to head out into the deepening darkness of the coming night and all the unspoken promise it held.
CHAPTERTWO
MAVERICK
Maverick paced by his bedroom window, feeling like a penned animal. He had come straight back to his condo the night before after speaking to Nick, and now it was the following evening. He wasn’t good at waiting at the best of times, and this didn’t look like thebestof anything.
He wasn’t too shaken about the almost-kidnapping. The guy hadn’t shown any sign of really wanting to hurt him, and so far, there were no leads on who the mysteriousbosswas. Nick had told him to get home as quickly as possible and stay put. Since his condo was in a secured building, Nick was confident that Maverick would be safe there until he found an agent to assign to him.
Maverick paced out into his spacious living area, going to his computer and switching it on. He’d slept in for most of the morning as he’d tired himself out the night before … he wasn’t used to running or any physical exercise at all, for that matter … but now he was wide awake and in desperate need of something to do.
He wanted to go back to work. His research was at a critical point, and he knew that it wouldn’t take much longer for him to finally complete his experiments. Every moment he had to wait fired his nerves just a little more until he started to feel like he had ants making tracks across his skin.
Nick had warned him that the lab was probably the first place his kidnappers would try next. It was even more likely they were watching his building by this time. Maverick had been instructed not to move until his bodyguard arrived, and Maverick was now beginning to wonder how much time that would take.
He flicked around on the internet, idly searching the hotel footage from the night before. It wasn’t difficult for him to get into the secure system and find his attacker in the CCTV footage. He knew that Nick’s agency was probably on it already, but it couldn’t hurt to do his own research.
What else can I do? I’m bored out of my fucking mind stuck in here!
There was a great irony to the situation, considering that several times over the past few years, he’d wanted a good excuse to stay in bed and do nothing for a day or two. There was nothing like forced house arrest to give you a taste for being back in the great outdoors.
Not even the outdoors. Just a nice stroll down the street, a visit to the coffee shop …
Maverick paid very little attention to what he was doing as he set up the program for facial recognition. All the technical stuff was just too simple for him. Once he set up the system, he knew it would take several hours to complete.
He watched the flicking of the screens for a few minutes, making sure that the program had booted up correctly. Then he pushed his chair away from the table and went back to pacing by the windows.