If I knew my crew – and I did – Mateo would be the one who would finally crack and call me. Once. Twice. Ten times. Then he would send everyone home. He didn’t have the power, but if I wasn’t there, he had seniority. He would take charge. Then he would go to my place. He’d find a way in, despite the doorman and apartment he didn’t have a key to. Then he would realize I was gone. Maybe he would realize a lot of my things were missing. Or maybe not. A lot of clothing and bath accessories were still left. He’d report me missing.
Then they would all realize after a few days that their lives had changed as well.
Suddenly.
Startlingly.
No notice.
No severance.
I had screwed them all over.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t intend to.
It didn’t matter that the choice was taken from me.
These were my people.
I had promised them things. I had assured them that there was stability in my company, that they could entrust their future to me.
I didn’t take that responsibility lightly.
It was killing me to do this to them, to throw their lives into turmoil with me.
Could they even collect unemployment?
With a missing CEO?
I doubted that a single one of them would even file. They were the hungry types, eager to prove themselves, refusing to have a gap in their resumes. They’d likely be working somewhere else by the end of the week.
I’d lose them all.
I mean, I would lose them all no matter what.
That was what was happening.
That life was over.
I was over.
“No,” I said to myself, taking a deep breath as I sat off the end of the bed, knowing that when I heard myself say things, they felt more convincing. “That me is over,” I amended.
This was what most people had private, never-spoken-of dreams about. Running away from their old lives. Their spouses, kids, mortgage, car payments, bosses, jobs, families. And start over. Do it right. Be the person you always knew you were deep down inside, but life wouldn’t allow you to become.
The only problem with that was, that wasn’t my dream. My dream, my ultimate dream, was the life I had built for myself back in the city. With my job, my people, the apartment I had filled with things that made me feel happy and proud of myself.
I loved my life.
I had put all of myself into it.
It meant everything to me.
But now it was gone.
It was gone.
And I had to become someone new.
Someone that bearded brute downstairs would tell me to be. Which was likely the scariest part of this all. Not the men after me with guns and knives. Not never being able to do what I loved again.
Putting myself fully in that man’s wide, scarred, tattooed hands.
Of all people.
To be perfectly honest, when I had met Quinton Baird, I had breathed a sigh of relief. He was calm, collected, professional, in charge. I respected that. Sure, he tended to emphasize things with more colorful language than I cared for, but I could see a bit of myself in him. I knew he would at least find me a new life where I could maybe still work in a similar industry. Live in a place that I didn’t have to worry about.
Then he told me that he wasn’t in charge of my particular kind of case.
Oh, no.
That belonged to someone they called The Ghost.
Because he, I don’t know, was one or something.
And that that Ghost was named Gunner.
In my experience, I hadn’t met a lot of men in professional positions with names like street fighters.
I had maybe built up an idea of him in my head while we waited for him to show.
For the most part, he’d lived up to the image too.
Except, well, better looking.
Much better looking.
I could never claim to go for his type. The rough-around-the-edges type. The kind of man who looked like he could change the oil on his car and mowed his own lawn. The kind who had beers with buddies on the weekend. Who maybe hiked or jumped out of planes for fun.
Polished had always been my type.
Suits, clean shaves, cologne, statement watches, good taste in wine, ambition, and maybe spent their free time reading books about finance or business.
But even if he wasn’t my type, I could appreciate the appeal there. He was six-foot-three or four, towering, even over me in my heels. He had the width to go with it as well – shoulders like a linebacker, solid and firm down the center. His arms, though covered in tattoos, looked, well, bulging. Like a bodybuilder. Like a man who spent a lot of time cultivating them. I’d bet the rest of his body matched.
His hair was between blond and brown, dirty, I guess the shade would be called. Dirty blond. And his beard matched. He kept it full but groomed, and it somehow perfectly matched his rugged features.