5. Kali

5

KALI

The knock on the door scared me so badly I practically flew off the bed.

I don’t recognize the man on the other side of the door. He’s ruggedly handsome with short hair and a scruffy beard, but I don’t recognize him as one of Nico’s friends, and I’ve met a lot of them. Plus, there’s no way that Nico could find me... not that quickly. Miles’s twin could get anyone to come up to my room to be a friend of Nico. I’m not going to trust him.

I watch him through the peephole thinking that maybe if I’m really quiet, he’ll just leave.

“I know you’re in there. I can see your shadow under the door and behind the peephole,” he says, and I move to the side of the door away from the peephole as if he can see me looking at him through it.

“Get lost, you’ve got the wrong room,” I tell him in my deepest voice.

“I don’t have the wrong room, Kali. Look, you don’t know me. I get it. I’ll text Nico, and he’ll call you and let you know I’m all right, and you can let me in.”

I watch him through the peephole as he puts his phone up to his face and types into it. When he’s done, he puts the phone back in his pocket and just stands there, almost as if he’s bored with the whole situation.

A moment later, my phone starts ringing.

I go back to the nightstand where I plugged my phone in and pick it up. It’s Nico, and I answer the call. “Why is there a guy here saying you sent him? How do you even know where I’m at?”

“I did send him, Kali. We’re worried about you. What are you doing?”

I notice he doesn’t answer the question of how he knows where I’m at. I should demand an answer, but there’s no point. The team Nico is a part of can get any information they want and pretty easily too. I shouldn’t be surprised he knew exactly where I was.

Determined not to get emotional this time, I take a deep breath. “I’m here for an interview. I just got a little overwhelmed when I talked to Anna earlier and a little homesick. I’m fine.”

I can tell he doesn’t believe me. “Good, then let Knox in so he can call me and confirm that you’re not blowing smoke.”

Knox

I can hear through the paper-thin walls her talking to Nico and see the shadow under the door as she returns. But the door still doesn’t open.

“How’d the call go?” I ask with one hand on the chipped wallpaper next to the door. I’m looking in the peephole, wishing I could see her, wanting to see her face.

“I’m fine. Please leave.” Her voice sounds strong, but I’m not going to just give up. Nico wouldn’t ask me to come check on someone if he wasn’t convinced there was a threat. And Dylan sent me the information. She is in fact being followed. Regardless of what she thinks, I can’t walk away from her. Not now.

“Listen, Kali,” I say, leaning closer to the door. “It wasn’t hard for me to find you or the room you were in. The guy in the front will give anyone information for twenty dollars. Heck, he probably would have given me a key to the room if I’d asked for it. If I can do that, whoever is looking for you will be able to find you just as easily. Why don’t you let me in? Maybe I can help.”

A few seconds go by before the door opens, and I’m surprised by the glare on her beautiful face, directed right at me. “You can’t help.”

She’s beautiful. I knew from the picture on my phone that she was, but up close and in person, she’s breathtaking. It’s like there’s a heavy weight pressing on my chest as I look at her. Her eyes are tired, and I’ve never seen anyone look as sad and almost defeated as she does right now. No, there’s no way I’m leaving here without her.

“Maybe I can give you some advice then? Or money to help out?” I offer. I’d give her or promise her anything at this point. She’s scared, and knowing that pisses me off.

She steps back, and I don’t waste any time sliding into the room. She closes and locks the door behind me. I watch as she puts the chain on and slides a chair up against the handle.

“I don’t know why you’re here. I can handle this by myself.”

I look at her shirt that has a tear across her shoulder. There’s dried blood splattered on her collar. Her hands are shaking as she walks over and picks up a sweatshirt off the bed and pulls it over her head. It’s huge on her and almost comes down to her knees. There’s no way it’s hers. I take a note of the logo on the front. Baker’s Car Repair. Making a mental note to ask Dylan to check them out, I try to ignore my reaction to seeing her in another man’s shirt. I just met her, should I be pissed off right now? Should I want to take my own shirt off and demand she put it on instead?

“Did you hear me? I said I can take care of myself.”

I’ve been standing here staring at her this whole time, and I shake my head to get my thoughts back on what’s important. “I’m sure you can. Who is it that you’re running from?”

She crosses her arms over her chest, pushing the shirt off one shoulder. I get a good look at some bruising there. Rage builds inside me that someone has hurt her.

“What makes you think I’m running from someone?” she asks.

I hold my hand up to count off the reasons. “One, you ditched your car. Two, you didn’t use your real name to get this hotel room, and three, you’ve overdrawn your account.” I leave out the fact that Nico tracked her and her erratic trail from California to here.

She huffs out a frustrated breath of surprise. She must have seriously thought she made it here without being followed. Or at least she seemed to have hoped so.

She uncrosses her arms and puts one hand on her hip. “Why should I trust you to help me? You look like you can’t manage to come out of a fistfight unscathed. Did your girlfriend give you that scratch?” she asks, pointing at my face.

Instead of being offended, I shrug carelessly. “You let me in your room. I figure that means you trust me already.”

“I let you in here so you could tell Nico I’m fine,” she clarifies.

“You trust Nico, don’t you?” I wait for her to nod before I continue. “Well, he trusts me. He wouldn’t have sent me here if he didn’t. So can’t you trust me too?”

She juts her chin at me instead of answering. I can see she’s not going to willingly spill her guts to me, so I’m going to have to push a little. “I can’t lie to Nico and tell him you’re fine when you’re obviously not. I can see you’re in a spot. Now if you tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help.”

“If I tell you what’s going on, will you tell Nico?” she asks me, pinning me in place with her brown eyes.

“No. Not if you’re honest with me,” I promise her. I figure this is the only way I’m going to get the truth out of her.

She walks over to the chair in the corner and sits down. She wraps her arms around herself and starts to talk. She’s not looking at me. She’s looking over my head as if she’s in a daze.

“Almost five years ago I was abducted by a man named Miles Tanner. It’s a long story, but his brother and friend were wanting revenge on Nico and the rest of the Haven....” She stops as if realizing what she’s about to say.

“I know about the Haven team.”

She nods. “Of course you do. So, uh, my sister Anna and I got in the middle of it. Miles, my boyfriend at the time, kidnapped me and held me for ransom...” Her face flushes a deep red, and she gets a sour look on her face. “They didn’t know my sister is married to a mercenary. They thought because I lived behind gates in a nice house, we had money. They didn’t know that was all there for protection. Anyway, long story short, Miles and his brother Victor are both dead.”

She says it matter-of-factly, but I can only imagine all the details she’s leaving out. “He’s dead? He’s not the guy chasing you?”

“It’s his brother, his twin brother. He just got out of prison, and he wants revenge. He wants to use me to get to Nico and the rest of the guys—pretty much anyone that had anything to do with Victor’s and Miles’s deaths. And I’m not doing it. I’m not putting my family in danger. Not again.”

I clench my hands at my side. I’m wishing that I had everything to do with Miles’s death at the moment, but I keep that information to myself.

She’s watching me closely. “I told you the truth. You can’t tell Nico about this.”