A Surprise Favor – Chapter 15

I’m awakened in the night by doors slamming. Gasping, I sit up straight in bed.

“What was that?”

The clock reads three twenty-three. Moonlight streams in through the open window and a soft breeze ruffles the sheer curtains.

Saif grunts as he rolls out of bed. Light from the hall angles under the door with the shadow of someone’s feet. Trying to shake off the disorientation of deep sleep, I freeze in fear and clutch the blanket to my chest.

“Skylar,” Lia whispers. “Saif.” She knocks lightly before opening the door. “There’s been an intruder. Come on.” Lia’s in a t-shirt and pajama pants.

I glance at the clock again. Right. I’m asleep at the Lee villa.

“An intruder?” Saif whispers, his tone concerned.

I hop out of bed and grab my robe. Calling upon all the pilot training I’ve ever had, I shrug off the sleep like I was always taught to do in emergency situations.

Get to the bridge. Get the ship under control.

“What happened?” I ask, following Lia down the stairs.

“Don’t know. Nina’s in the security station.”

Takemo, Kalvin, and Marcelo are all crowded around the monitors, watching a video feed. Everyone is in their pajamas. I guess we all really do sleep at night.

The video feed shows a masked figure climbing over the back fence. He looks like an average sized man, not too short or tall. A full balaclava mask covers his head, and his eyes are blacked out. The dark outfit he’s wearing shimmers a bit in the moonlight. Maybe it’s some kind of material that helps him evade detection?

Everyone in the security room watches as he skirts around the pool, and my heart races.

“Was he trying to break in?” Saif asks.

“Looks like it,” Nina says, her arms crossed.

Kalvin moves closer to the monitor. “He got as far as the back door.”

Just then, the lights outside flick on, illuminating everything around him in bright contrast. He gasps as he’s caught off guard, freezing in surprise.

He bolts for the side fence, scales it, and leaves.

“Who the fuck was that?” I ask, horrified to see how close he got.

Oh shit. This is worse than I thought. Maybe I should use my time travel plant now, go back in time, and intercept this man to find out who he is. I have just enough left in my little case to get me an hour or two. It’s not much, but it’s something.

“If I may interject,” Ai says, startling us all.

Both Saif and Kalvin gasp, and my hand flies to my chest as my heart tries to board a ship and blast off from the planet. For fuck’s sake, Ai. I will never get used to her just being there without warning.

“So sorry,” Ai continues, “but I wanted to let you know it was me who turned on the lights. The intruder evaded my motion sensors, which were reduced because of the amount of activity still at the front of the property. Once I located him there, I switched on the lights and notified Nina.”

Nina nods. “I wasn’t expecting that wake-up call.”

I stare dumbly at the video feed. What in the actual fuck is going on?

How is this happening to me?

“Unfortunately, this one is going to be hard to figure out.” Nina steps away from us and adjusts the video monitors. “This man could have been someone from the press. He could have been a nosey neighbor hoping to steal something he could sell to the gossip sites. He…” She waves her hand in the air. “He could be any of the hundreds of people who have sent you death threats since the news broke yesterday.”

I swallow and a lump forms in my throat. I gave Nina access to my messages and then promptly spent the whole day ignoring them and trying to have a vacation.

What was I thinking?

“People are sending her death threats?” Takemo asks, and the steel in his voice is enough to send a shiver down my back.

“Don’t worry about it,” I tell him, but he shakes his head.

“No. Don’t do that. Don’t brush this off like it’s nothing.”

I straighten my spine and shrug off the fear. There’s no fucking way these people are getting to me. I promised myself I would stop panicking. I will not panic.

I will not make rash decisions. I’ll save the plant for something else.

“It is nothing. I have lived my whole life as a lie. I can do this too. No problem. I used the lie of the sex-obsessed, drinking and philandering pilot as a way to cover up my terrible family life. I’ll come up with something to make this go away, too.”

“Sex-obsessed, drinking and philandering pilot?” Nina asks, leaning away from me. “What’s this now?”

“Rumors,” I tell her, clenching my jaw. “A way for me to cover up my terrible home life.”

I stare straight at Takemo and dare him to think any differently. I have no idea what I’m going to do, but I’ll have to come up with something within the next day or it will never go away.

Marcelo’s stare is wary. “Maybe we can hold a press conference or something. Or do an interview?”

“Remember when Cressida did the interview with that Senna Snow woman?” I remind him.

Cressida Briar-Stevenson had just fallen from grace not long before she did the interview. She burned it all to the ground and disappeared. Only Kalvin and I know about how she ended up. Our eyes meet, and I get the feeling he’s thinking the same thing. Doing an interview with Cenobia Senna Snow is the absolute last step anyone should do.

“Yes, I’m afraid it did not go well for Ms. Cressida.” Marcelo sighs. “I’ll think about it.”

I can just imagine Marcelo brewing up a pot of coffee and getting to work on this problem right away. But it’s almost four in the morning, and we all look absolutely exhausted.

“No.” I place a hand on Marcelo’s arm. “Everyone go back to bed. The security system is on. Ai is on the lookout. Let’s get the rest we all deserve and need, okay? That’s why we’re here on this vacation, anyway.”

The guys look skeptical. Takemo folds his arms over his chest and glares at me. I ignore him.

“Shoo.” I wave them away. “Room controls, lower the lights,” I say, and the lights dim and shut off. “To bed with you all. I want everyone to sleep in tomorrow. No early morning breakfasts. I better not hear the coffee grinder before eight.”

I lead the way up the stairs, and when I make the turn for my room at the top, everyone but Nina is behind me. She’s double checking things at the security station. I have a nagging feeling the man came to stop me from getting the data drives. Right? I mean, besides being a peeper who wants to sell photos of me, I can’t think of any other reason for someone to break in.

I’m probably being paranoid.

Saif follows me into the bedroom, yawning and rubbing his head. I use the bathroom, and by the time I climb into bed with him, he’s out and breathing deeply.

There’s no sleep for me, though. I stare out the window until the sun comes up, thinking and thinking and thinking about how I can solve this new problem.

I come up with nothing.

—-

My chest aches and my eyes burn with fatigue as I open the cargo bay doors on the Amagi. Nina, Lia, and I took the car here right after a late breakfast, despite wanting to fall back into bed. Something about Saif’s pancakes puts me out every single time. He must drug them.

Lia jerks her thumb at the interior of the ship. “I’m going to check on things while you wait for Kenzie to show up.” She had plants growing in the auxiliary cargo bay and a few animals to take care of.

“Sounds good.” I yawn and sit my butt down on the cargo deck. I lean against the interior wall and direct my eyes at the door. The view is a deep azure lined with violet, another beautiful day on Laguna. I think it only rains here at night. The distant hum of spacecrafts draws closer and fades away in a constant flux of activity. Kenzie will be here at any moment.

Nina paces back and forth, looking out the door. “I don’t trust her.”

“Lia?”

“Kenzie.” Her mouth is one straight line surrounded by stress wrinkles. This is what happens when you run out of money for those expensive Athens Industries youth nanites.

“Well, good, because neither do I.”

She sits down next to me. “She’s up to something. I can feel it.”

I realize this is one of the few times I’ve been alone with Nina since she started with me as my ‘security advisor.’ Now is as good a time as any.

“Look, we need to have a real heart-to-heart chat here.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“I didn’t give you that note on Rio because I wanted you to come here and protect me.”

Nina looks out the door, taking in the spaceport’s many ships, vessels, and platforms. Her face is still, but determination is apparent in her posture.

“How did you leave me that note?” She turns to me and stares down into my soul. My breath catches in my chest. “It just appeared out of nowhere, and for a moment, I thought I saw you. But you weren’t there.”

I don’t answer. Silence sits between us like a stubborn cat until she finally gives in.

“I know why you asked me to come here,” she says, a note of resignation in her voice. “You want to learn more about the time traveling jump rings we developed.”

“Was it that obvious?”

Her returning smile is wry. “You’re one of the few who survived the meltdown on Neve. I don’t have access to the specs, though, so…”

“I think you can still help. And India and Renata Dellis would love to pick your brain.”

“So, you want to deliver me to the enemy?”

I throw back my head and laugh. “I think you’ve got this backwards. The military is the enemy. Not Athens.”

She sighs as she looks down at her hands. “I should have left the military years ago. I’m surprised you even asked me to come. I would have gone to Vivian and Gus once I was out of prison, but they don’t want me there.”

“Can’t say I blame them.”

She points at me. “I hijacked your ship, and I’m here.”

“You’re not my mother, though.”

She nods slowly. “How’s that working out for you?”

I laugh. “Terribly. Can’t you tell?”

She sobers, her face falling into a frown. “I can tell. Sorry. Look, I spent an hour earlier this morning doing research on you. I now know all about you and the reputation you built up. Anyone who’s smart can figure out it was a front because pilots are usually too practical for the kind of crazy behavior you wanted people to believe about you. But…”

I turn my face away so she can’t see the pain I’m dealing with.

“Reputations are based on a kernel of truth.”

I shoot a deadly glare at her. “You think?”

She shrugs. “If you were to ask my advice about what to do next, I would tell you it’s time to own up to your smarter side. Have that hot lawyer you’re romancing draw up a statement and you read it. That’s it. No interviews. Just you and what you say. It’s always good to hear things from the horse’s mouth.”

“Do horses talk?” I ask, trying to hide a smile.

“I’ve heard it’s possible.”

Movement three ships down catches my attention as Kenzie arrives with one of her pilots, William. I take a deep breath and force myself to focus on the task at hand. They are wheeling reinforced cases behind them, the wheels clicking on the pavement.

“We need to talk more about your family and the rumors. A lot of this doesn’t make sense to me,” Nina starts, but I wave her away.

“Later. We have business to do.”

“Morning,” Kenzie says, her voice a notch above freezing. Uh oh. She did not get in a better mood since I last saw her.

I wave her and William up into the cargo bay and close the door behind them. They wheel the cases into the central open area, away from the animals.

“Is this everything we asked for?” Nina asks Kenzie, motioning to the boxes.

“Yep. These are all the weapons we spoke about.” She folds her arms over her chest. Her pose is defiant, and I cringe. This is not going well already.

Nina kneels down and opens the lid to inspect them. With the cases open, I can see all the destruction my money bought, and I begin to sweat. This better not come back to bite me in the ass.

“Everything looks in order.” Nina hefts two guns and stands up. “All the items are present and accounted for. I’m going to store these.”

My confidence swells knowing Nina is taking care of things. I stand up and face Kenzie.

“We should leave before anyone notices I’ve been here,” she suggests.

William nods his agreement and starts heading for the door, but Kenzie lags behind.

“Skylar, it took a day to realize that everything I said about Kalvin was a lie.” Her voice is low and tight. “I don’t want to let him go. I want him back. He belongs with me, not you.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. This is not happening right now.

I’ve got enough shit on my plate without having this, too.

Is Kalvin really worth it? The memory of his smiling face and warm hands pops into my head, the way he worships me when it’s just the two of us. He’s a part of me and my network now.

He’s definitely worth it.

I shake my head and take a step forward, planting my feet on the deck. “No. He doesn’t belong to you anymore,” I tell her, my stance firm. “He’s made his choice, and it’s not you.” My heart pounds in my chest as I stand up for the man I’ve grown to love over the last month.

Kenzie stares at me before shaking her head in disappointment. “Skylar, don’t make this mistake,” she warns me. “Kalvin is mine, and he always will be. I realize now it was an error to let him go. You should give me the courtesy of turning him loose.”

Ignoring her warning, I shake my head. Kalvin is mine now, and he’s not going anywhere without my say-so. This time around, it’s not about what Kenzie wants or needs; it’s about what I want.

“Nope. Kalvin is my partner, a valuable part of my network, and I won’t be sending him away just because it’s convenient for you.” My hands tighten into fists, and my core heats.

“You’ll regret this.” She leans in. “And don’t think I didn’t see that hit piece on OEN.” Retreating, she raises her eyebrows. “You can’t afford more attention.”

Kenzie’s face turns bright red as she storms away from me, her long hair whipping left to right at the strength of her stride.

Fucking hell.

William hurries to the airlock before Kenzie can take out her anger on him. I’m relieved she’s gone, but I’m fearful of her next move.

I’m left standing alone in the cargo bay, surrounded by weapons of war that have cost me a fortune.

It seems like a bad sign.

There’s nothing I can do about that now.