I cringed as soon as I stepped in, having forgotten the decor of the hideous town bakery in the few hours since I’d last been forced to endure it. Everything was pink. The most surprising part was that my balls didn’t shrivel up just from stepping into the place. No man should force himself into such a pink atrocity.
But they served damn good cookies. “Grab whatever you like. It might be a long night,” I said, leading Hazel to the counter where her gaze bounced at each of the different choices.
She ordered two chocolate chip cookies and stepped to the side. When my turn came, I ran my finger down the glass, probably streaking it, but it wasn’t my problem. “Two chocolate chip cookies, two peanut butter cookies, two of the chocolate muffins, two of those royal icing cookies. No, make that four. And add a few more of your favorites in for a surprise.”
Tabitha, her name stitched into her apron, rushed to pull the items and place them in a box.
Hazel watched but didn’t comment on my selection. Tabitha rang everything at the register and Hazel leaned over, smiling.
“Can I have a water?” she asked, looking at me as if the water might make a price difference and I’d say no.
“Make it six waters,” I added. “We don’t have any drinks in the office building.” And I wasn’t about to drink out of the one drinking fountain Jerome installed in the lobby.
“Big plans?” Tabitha asked, trying to remember everything I ordered and punching them into her large cash register, which belonged in the nineties.
Hazel shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her nervousness growing, but I laughed off Tabitha’s comment. “No, my brother gets thirsty.”
“I’m gonna run to the bathroom quickly. The bathroom in your building is probably scary,” Hazel said, her face in a grimace as she considered the options.
Why did she think the bathrooms were scary? They were state of the art. Brand new and barely used by anyone since no one besides family occupied the building yet, but it was cute to watch her nose crinkle up as she considered it. Maybe I’d volunteer to chaperone her if she needed to go.
“More people will be there soon. The building is opening for full occupancy in the fall.”
Hazel nodded as if she didn’t care because she probably didn’t and then walked off to the bathroom. I paid Tabitha and waited by the bathroom door for Hazel to return.
Seconds ticked by as I stood beside the door and ran through the next steps to keep Hazel safe.
“Corbin!” came my name from behind the thick door. I dropped the box on the table beside me and shoved my way into the small bathroom.
Hazel, with her hair swept over her face, stood in front of the sink, her face ashen as if all the blood drained from it after seeing a ghost. She stared at the small window high in the wall and pointed at it. It was open, the small curtain fluttering in the breeze.
“He said…” she stuttered over the words and then tried again. “He said if I didn’t give up the drive they’d kill me.”
“Who?”
“The man who stuck his head in the window,” she yelled, her fingers pointing at the window again and shaking. “He had a gun.”
What in the fuck? I searched out the window, but the parking lot behind the bakery was empty. The Grandmaster obviously gave up trying to kill her before they retrieved the disk, but we needed to hurry. The Grandmaster didn’t play games, and he didn’t make idle threats.
Well, he did play games, but his games were deadly, and I didn’t want to be involved in one. I put my hands on her shoulders and led her back into the bakery. Tabitha stood at the end of the counter, her eyes wide, waiting for us to make our way out.
“Call Ridge,” I said, making eye contact with her and settling Hazel in the chair at the table where I left our snacks.
Rather than reach for a phone, Tabitha lifted her head to a random corner in the bakery and spoke to it as if she was talking to a friend. “Spencer, we’ve got a live one. Roll out.”
Another woman sitting in front of the fake fireplace on a couch reading a book chuckled. She had her gray hair pulled back in a tight ponytail without so much as a hint of shock on her face as she said, “Huxley is on cameras today.”
“Oh,” Tabitha replied, her calm demeanor irritating me. Didn’t she see Hazel was upset?
“Yeah, he lost a bet to Ridge. Something about push-ups, so he had to cover cameras for the day. Spencer took Joslin and Frankie to the beach.”
I whipped my head back and forth between the two of them, trying to pick up on their calm conversation when someone assaulted Hazel in the bathroom. “Frankie, the mob boss?”
Why would he be going to the beach with one of Ridge’s men?
The woman on the couch smiled. “No, Frankie the dog.”
They had Frankie a mob boss and Frankie the dog both in Pelican Bay? I bet the mob boss hated that with every breath.