The Dangerous Thief (Stolen Hearts #3)(4)
He hated her. Willa had been on her best damn behavior during the entire infuriating ride down here and somehow the guy who was supposed to be keeping her alive hated her. She wished she could shoot daggers at him through her eyes, but he had already disappeared through the door that led to the kitchen. Even though she’d had nothing but junk the past day, the idea of eating just then made her stomach turn.
She wanted to stand there and bask in her annoyance for a while longer, but her bladder had other ideas. So she walked down the hallway he’d mentioned until she found the bathroom. It was small, with just a pedestal sink, medicine cabinet mirror, stand-up shower, and the toilet. Still, it managed to feel more homey than the rest of the place. He thought her shock was because of how small his house was, but that wasn’t it at all. In Chicago, her luxury apartment was probably smaller than the square footage here. But the space was so bare, it was impossible to believe it was occupied.
The living room had one worn leather armchair and an end table next to it. That was it. No television. No sofa. No artwork. Just nothing. That was why she couldn’t believe someone actually lived here.
Before leaving the bathroom, Willa gave herself a once-over. She hadn’t put on makeup in over a day, so the dark circles under her eyes were more evident than ever and her skin was about to go into withdrawal from the lack of her normal moisturizing routine.
Out of nowhere, the image of her father firing that gun came to her and she blinked away the memory, along with the self-pity. She was here for a reason. A good reason. She couldn’t lose sight of that.
She went back into the hall, just as plain as the living room with worn hardwood floors and beige painted walls, and looked at the various doorways. There was one closed door at the very end, which she assumed was James Weston’s room. Instinctually she wanted to take the room farthest from him, but then she remembered what his role was in this. He was supposed to be protecting her, so she should stick as close as possible.
She gravitated toward the open doorway right next to his. It was small, but at least it had more furniture than the living room. There was a double bed with a plain white comforter, a nightstand, and a dresser against the far wall. Willa set her bag at the foot of the bed and then went to the window. The blinds were shut and she twisted the plastic latch until they creaked open to let in the bright desert sun.
The view wasn’t surprising. The same thing she’d been looking at for hours as they made it out here: lots of sand, with sparse bushes and vegetation and the silhouette of mountains off in the distance.
She’d always enjoyed the desert. Sure, she had never spent any time besides the drive from the Las Vegas airport to the Strip, but it was a pretty sight and the mountains had always looked so majestic in all the pictures.
But now it was almost like a prison. The miles of nothingness serving as the walls to keep her in.
No, that was a bad way to look at it. She should think of it like a moat. A protective barrier between her and the world out to get her.
She let out a breath and fell back against the bed. It was lumpy and soft at the same time, but she was so tired that she didn’t mind. Now that she was finally done running, she was going to try to catch some rest and for once not let the nightmares catch her....
1 Week Ago
Willa tripped over her own feet and stumbled forward, carefully balancing the glass in her hand so she could keep as much of the drink in it as possible. As the mixture of pineapple juice and coconut rum sloshed down her fingers, she let out a little giggle. “Julie!” she called, even as she kept her voice down and turned the corner to the entryway of the apartment. “I don’t think I can—” Willa sobered up in an instant as she saw something she couldn’t quite comprehend.
She blinked through the alcohol-induced haze in her mind and kept hoping the hallucination would fade away. Not that she’d ever hallucinated after drinking before, but this couldn’t be real. Because her current BFF, Jules Charleston, was on her knees in the middle of the floor, and Daddy held a gun to her head. A gun. Willa didn’t even know he had a gun.
“Daddy, it’s okay,” she rushed out, trying to stop things before they got any more out of hand. “I know I should’ve told you we were coming by, but my liquor cabinet broke and I was out of everything and we happened to be at this party down the street and when the bars closed, we decided to come here for a nightcap. I thought you’d be sleeping the whole time, but obviously we woke you up and I’m really sorry, but it was a totally honest mistake and—”
“Do you have any idea who this is?” bit out Jadon.
Jules knelt absolutely still on her father’s prized Persian rug. She wasn’t shaking, but her eyes were hard as stone as she looked up and met Willa’s eyes.
Willa fought through the buzz still swimming in her head and remembered that her father had asked a question. “Of course I know who she is. Jules is my friend.”
“She’s a fed.”
For a moment, Willa forgot how to speak. She knew the words coming out of her father’s mouth, but the meaning behind them—along with the gun—just didn’t make sense. “Fed? Like short for federal agent? No. She’s a college dropout who....” Willa saw the determined glare on Jules’s face. She didn’t look like a terrified girl. She looked like, well, like a fed. “What does it matter if she’s a fed?”