Chapter Six

Myla 

Is Kyle a friend or an enemy? That is the question I have on my mind as I watch the apple in my line of sight disappear into the hallway to greet whichever hotel staff member brought us our pizza. A friend is what comes to my mind. He’s a friend. But I do not know why my gut says this, when it’s said it about no one else in a year. 

I don’t want to be a fool. I can’t be a fool and survive, but a friend would be really well timed right now. An enemy, on the other hand, could be my demise at a time when I’m finally earning freedom with Michael. I cannot forget that Michael is a man of passion. He hates as viciously as he loves, and outside of his odd affection for me, what he loves is money and possession. If ever he feels that I’ve betrayed him, I have no doubt he will lash out with the wickedness of a finely sharpened sword. 

Inhaling, I turn and walk to the shiny, light brown credenza where the flat screen TV sits, and grab several bottles of Ritz Carlton-branded water, lingering there a moment, with my mind awhirl. No one knows what Michael is capable of better than me, and if Kyle is a friend, albeit a capable friend, I still have to protect him. If he’s the enemy, I have to stay the hell away from him. And if that’s not possible, I have to prepare to destroy him before he destroys me. Destroy him. My God. What has this life made of me? A survivor, I remind myself. I’m surviving, something most in my position could not, and that is nothing to feel guilty about, especially since I have a plan to make it count. And no one, Kyle included, can be allowed to get in the way.

I turn to face the living area again, and I’ve just set the waters on the coffee table when Kyle reappears, with our food in hand. “Where do you want to eat?” he asks. “In the dining area or here?”

“Here in the living area works for me, if it’s okay with you?”

“Comfortable is always better for me,” he approves, reclaiming the chair and setting the box down on the table, while I sit down on the couch, cautiously choosing a neutral spot that is close enough to talk to him but not too close for comfort. “We have napkins and paper plates,” he adds, “unless you require something fancier than paper?”

“Are you kidding? Paper can be thrown away. Paper is good.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he says, setting a plate in front of me, his green eyes becoming a shade paler with amusement. “I’m a single guy who doesn’t like dishes.”

“Have you ever been married?” I ask before I even think about what I’m asking. 

“Never even proposed,” he says. “You?”

“Never even close.”

“Not even with Alvarez?”

“Michael isn’t a marrying kind of man,” I say, trying to shift things back to him. “Apparently you aren’t either. I mean, how old are you?”

“Thirty-five next month,” he says. “And I was in the FBI for a decade, most of which I was always undercover, and unavailable. I wouldn’t do that to someone, even if I’d have had time to even meet anyone, which I didn’t.” 

“That’s actually honorable,” I say, thinking of the many dinner tables with an empty seat for my father. “It was hard on us when my father was undercover.”

“It is hard on the families and I swore I’d never have one as long as I was inside the agency.” He starts to open the box and pauses. “Damn. I didn’t order any drinks.”

 “I got us waters, but they aren’t cold,” I say, hating that we were sidetracked before I found out more about his family. “I have diet Pepsi in the fridge but nothing else.”

“Water is fine by me,” he says, proving once again to be pretty easy to please, and eager to get to the food. “Are you ready for the best pizza of your life?”

 “I’m ready,” I say, rubbing my hands together, saying to heck with the questions, and deciding to just live in the moment and enjoy a really good pizza. “Bring it on.”

He holds up his hands, like he’s preparing us both. “I’ve been traveling so much that it’s been years since I got to enjoy this piece of heaven.” He lifts the lid and then grimaces. “They burned it. I don’t fucking believe they burned it.” He drops the lid. “I’ve been eating at this place since I was a kid and never once have they burned my damn pizza.”

“If it’s been around that long, maybe they sold out or the owners retired?” 

“Impossible,” he says, and then amends his words with, “Holy shit. The owner isn’t exactly a spring chicken. Maybe I’ve lost my favorite pizza place.” His brow furrows and he reaches into his pocket and punches in a number. “Is Adam there?” He listens a minute and grimaces. “When? Right. Well, it shows. I’m the guy from the Ritz. We just got our pizza and for the first time in twenty years of ordering there, I’m not happy. It’s ten degrees of hell it’s so burned. When can we get a new one?” He scowls. “You’re three blocks away. Yeah. No. Forget it.” He ends the call and returns his phone to his pocket. “You were right. Adam retired, and despite getting us our pizza in twenty minutes, he says it will be an hour for a new one.”

“You look so disappointed,” I say, trying not to laugh, and failing, which earns me a scowl this time. “I’m sorry,” I add, forcing a straight face. “Pizza is sacred. I’m joking around, but I get it. I love it. I need it in my life. Let’s eat it. It can’t be that bad.” I flip open the lid and stare down at the black edges of the crust. “Yikes.”

“Yeah. It’s bad.” 

“But,” I say, holding up a finger. “The cheese and sauce is the best part. Let me get us some forks.” 

“No need,” he says, grabbing the bag. “We have some.” He reaches inside, and hands me one, though he doesn’t look pleased about it. “It’s ridiculous to eat pizza with a fork.” 

“Hey, hey,” I say. “I object to that statement. Really cheesy, saucy pizza is messy and a fork keeps me from embarrassing myself by wearing it.” 

“Men do not think of such things,” he says, puffing up his chest. “That’s my Ricardo impression. You like?”

I laugh, imagining Ricardo’s mannerisms, and pointing my fork at him. “That was good. You should have been an actor.”

“I was an actor. That’s exactly what undercover work is, but now,” he holds his hands out, “what you see is what you get, and that’s exactly what I tell my clients. Unfortunately, your pizza is the same. I promised you the world’s best pizza and a man should not go back on a promise. A man says what’s he’s going to do, and then does it.” 

“Per my mother, that’s actually true, but this wasn’t your fault.”

“But I’m responsible for what I promise,” he says, and suddenly, the air has shifted, thickened, and I’m not sure we’re talking about pizza. 

And suddenly, I have to force air out of my lungs. “What are we talking about, Kyle?” 

“Many things,” he says, his eyes lightening again, the serious moment gone without answers. He lifts his fork. “Which is why I have to save face now.”

“Save face? Over pizza?”

“Pizza is sacred. You said it yourself.”

Now I laugh. “I did say that and it is. So I guess you defiled the pizza process by not using magical powers to know that it would suck tonight.” I straighten. “I challenge you. How are you going to save face?” 

He deepens his voice. “We will begin a hunt to find the best pizza in the world. A new sampling will occur nightly.”

“Nightly? And an extra hour on the treadmill will occur nightly.”

“It’ll be worth it,” he promises. 

 “On that you’re right,” I agree. “Pizza is actually one of my favorite things in the world, and honestly, I can’t remember the last time I ordered it at all.”

“No?”

“Michael is not a pizza guy.”

“Another reason to dislike him,” he says. 

“Another?”

“He’s a kingpin, Myla. I won’t pretend to like him.”

“But you’re working for him.”

“I’m working for me. Not him. And right now, I’m working for you. We should order a new pizza from someplace else, and let you enjoy it.” 

“I’m way too hungry to wait,” I say, glancing down at the pizza, “and the sauce and cheese really do look good.” I pick up a slice and glance at the bottom. “It’s not really that bad on the bottom. Just a little brown so you can skip your fork.” I take a bite and the cheese and sauce explode in my mouth with delicious results. “It’s actually really good, Kyle. Really good.”

He looks skeptical, but reaches for a slice and tries it, and nods. “Okay. Well at least they kept the recipe. Maybe I’ll buy the damn place just to save it.”

“Just like that? You’ll just buy it? Are you serious?” 

“I actually might. I have a few investments that need to keep growing.”

“What kind of investments?”

“Real estate mostly,” he says. “It’s easy to hire management and just forget about it.” He opens his water, gulps a drink and then reaches for a slice. “My security work keeps me busy.”

“So you just take random bodyguard jobs?”

“I take random jobs that pay well, and don’t require a long-term commitment, but we were talking about you and your sister before the pizza arrived, not me.”

So much for fun and laughter. “What’s wrong with talking about you?” I ask, taking another bite to ensure I have an excuse to process whatever question he throws at me next. 

“Nothing,” he surprises me by saying, finishing off a bite of pizza. “You need to trust me and I’ll be glad to give you every reason I can to make that happen.”

I set the burned crust of my slice down and straighten. “Really?”

“Really,” he says, tossing his crust onto a plate. “The sauce is still damn good, right?”

“Very. Sweet and still spicy. I love it.” And eager to take advantage of his invitation to ask him questions, I get back to the topic of him. “Why’d you leave the FBI?”

“Quid pro quo,” he says softly, a rasp of suggestion in his tone. “You give me something I want and I’ll give you something you want.” 

Is this where he tells me why he really took this job? Or what he’s really after? “What do you want?” 

 “Many things, it seems, but I’ll settle for hearing about two sisters who are birds of different feathers.” 

He’s back to Kara, which seems to support his claim that he’s been hired to keep her away from me, or me from her, but I want every tidbit of confirmation I can manage. “Tell me again why this is important?” 

“Considering the biggest fear Michael Alvarez seems to have is your sister-”

“I get it,” I say, considering he’s just repeated my thoughts from moments before. “You need to know if she’s a problem that could bite you in the ass. She’s not. She thinks I’m dead. I told you that.”

“She’s resourceful and you’re no longer underground.” 

He’s right. 

“You’re right,” I concede, and I suddenly want to tell him whatever I can to ensure she doesn’t find me. “She is very resourceful and if you’re the one who’s going to make that happen, then you do need to understand the dynamic between us.”

“Which is what?” 

“Kara and I were really very much alike. Our mother was a highly successful fashion model, who retired to open her own clothing line, and both me and my sister were helping her prepare for the launch when she died.”

“But you ended up holding onto her dream, while Kara followed in your father’s. It’s hard to see the likeness in that.” 

“Our reactions to the murder of our parents was the great divide. Kara got angry and wanted to fight crime, and I got angry at my father.”

“Why were you angry at your father?”

“He was always gone, and when he was around, he wasn’t the father I remembered in my younger years. He was a hard person, even mean, and ultimately he ended up getting my mother killed. He almost got us all killed.”

“He’d been undercover for years inside a notorious motorcycle club,” Kyle says. “I’m sure it affected him. And you were young. I’m sure that made it harder to deal with his transition back to the real world.”

“Yes,” I say. “And logically as an adult, I believe that to be true, but at the time, it had a lot to do with how I responded to the murders, and my future. And to Kara. I mean, he brought those criminals to us, and she wanted to join the same agency, and do it all over again.”

“She wanted the control, not them,” he supplies. 

“Staying off their radar was the control I wanted, and she refused,” I say, trying not to think about how stupid I sound considering I’m in Michael Alvarez’s bed. 

“Because of your father, the agency brought down a big portion of their criminal operations. He saved a lot of lives, Myla, and I’ve looked at your sister’s record. She has as well.”

“I know and it might seem like I’m not proud of them, but I am. Actually, very proud of them.” 

“You don’t seem like you know or that you are.” He lifts his hands. “You’re here.”

“This wasn’t planned. It’s complicated.”

“In what way?”

“My sister was an FBI agent when I met Michael.”

“And you shut her out because she wouldn’t accept you being with him.” 

 “No,” I say firmly. “That isn’t how this happened at all. Not at all. I wouldn’t do that, and-” I inhale with the realization that I’ve raised my voice, and let real emotion into my voice. “She thinks I was killed in a helicopter crash, and I chose to leave it that way.”

“You shut Kara out,” he repeats.

“Stop saying that. I love my sister. I was mad when she took the FBI job, but that was years ago. We got over it and never, ever did we lose each other in the process.” 

“Until Michael Alvarez.”

“It’s not how it seems.” 

“You let Kara hurt over you.”

“Stop pushing me.”

“I need to understand. You let her grieve your death. You let Kara hurt. You let her-”

“I know what I did,” I hiss, my chest tightening. “I know and-” I stop speaking, my brows furrow with a realization that has me studying him just as hard as he is me. “Wait.” I tilt my head to study him. “You called my sister by her name. You called her Kara.”

There is a flicker of something in his eyes that is there and gone in a blink, before he asks, “Isn’t that her name?”

“Of course it is,” I say, “but it was the way you said it, like it was second nature. Like you know her.” I turn a bit more toward him, my hand going to the coffee table. “What do you know about my sister?”

He rotates even further, his eyes, those green eyes, looking right at me, not a blink in sight. “I could recite the contents of her file just like yours, but that doesn’t tell me anything more about her, any more than it does about you. I need to hear things directly from you. I need to know you, Myla.” 

Still no blink. Still no hint of him making a confession that perhaps doesn’t exist. But he wants more from me. He wants too much, I think again. And maybe me looking for Kara in him, and the way he said her name, is me wanting too much as well. “The bottom line,” I say, “is that Kara and I are not estranged. Not even close. She will come after me if she gets the chance and she won’t believe I chose Michael Alvarez to be the man in my bed, by choice.”

“Did you?” 

“I’m here,” I say, shutting the pizza box, fighting a wave of anger at too many things to name that have nothing to do with him. “That should answer that question.”

“It doesn’t,” he says, and I start to stand, afraid he will see something in my eyes that will motivate him to play hero or monster, whichever he might be, but he catches my arm, heat radiating all the way to my shoulder. “But I’m here now, too,” he says, his voice soft, but no less absolute. 

“I’m not sure if that should make me feel better or scare the shit out me.”

“It should scare the shit out of anyone who wants to hurt you. Not out of you.” 

I have no idea why, but my stomach flutters like I’ve just had Prince Charming tell me that I’m his princess, which makes me angry at me, not him. I don’t do the whole fairytale fantasy thing. Ever. And I sure don’t do it now. “I know too little about you to accept that I’m safe with you, and no one else is.” 

“Good,” he surprises me by saying, his eyes lighting with approval. “You shouldn’t accept things on my word. You should make me prove it’s true.”

“Then prove it,” I say. “Right here. Right now. Prove to me that I can trust you and that you are who you say you are. Prove to me that you want what you say you want…which actually, what do you want?” My mind races through the conversations we’ve had. His way of getting what he wants. His past in the FBI. The familiar way he called my sister by her name. “Because I think there is more to your story and I want to know what it is right now.” 

“Quid pro quo, sweetheart,” he repeats. “I’ll tell you my secrets, if you tell me yours.”