Chapter 8
The line clicked dead. Through the steel security bars, Marcus turned on his heel, flicked his cigarette butt onto the asphalt, and slid back into the passenger seat of the Charger. The heavy sedan backed out of the loading bay and vanished into the darkness of the industrial avenue.
I sat in the quiet of the SUV, the hum of the cooling radiator ticking rhythmically beneath the hood. Leo’s small arms were wrapped around my neck, his tears warm against my skin.
Carol opened the front door.
The phrase echoed inside my skull like a funeral bell.
I didn't cry. I had spent eight months crying in the salon supply closet, crying in the shower while the water ran hot enough to burn my skin, crying into my steering wheel after grocery trips where I had to put items back on the shelf so Ryan could buy his craft beer and Carol could have her name-brand tea. The well of tears was completely dry. In its place remained only a pure, blinding, arctic fury.
I reached for my phone and dialed Hannah.
Hannah was my business partner, the co-owner of Luxe & Co., and the fiercest woman I had ever known. She had divorced a cheating corporate lawyer four years ago, walked away with half his firm’s equity, and built our salon from an abandoned warehouse into a three-million-dollar enterprise.
She picked up on the second ring. “Lauren? It’s past midnight. Is everything okay?”
“Hannah,” I said, my voice steady, stripped of all emotion. “I’m in the loading dock behind the salon. Leo is with me. I need you to unlock the back studio door, and I need you to call Detective Miller.”
There was a half-second pause on the line before Hannah’s voice shifted into complete operational clarity. “I’m putting on my coat. I’ll be there in seven minutes. Is anyone hurt?”
“Not physically,” I said. “Ryan gave my car title to Marcus. And Carol just let his crew into my house to clean out my father’s safe.”
“Those sick, thieving parasites,” Hannah hissed through the phone. “Stay locked in the car. Keep the engine running. I’m calling Miller on my other line right now.”
Seven minutes later, headlights swept across the industrial lot from the side alley. Hannah’s black Range Rover pulled up beside the security gate, the pedestrian door clicked open, and Hannah jogged across the pavement in her shearling coat and boots, holding a master key.
She opened the passenger door of my Volvo, her fair face tight with fierce, protective fury.
“Get inside,” Hannah said, scooping Leo into her arms with the practiced ease of an aunt who loved him like her own. “The studio is warm. I turned on the space heaters and brewed fresh tea. Miller is dispatching three units to your house right now.”
Leo blinked sleepily, burying his face in Hannah’s shearling collar. “Auntie Hannah? Can we sleep on the bunk beds?”
“You bet we can, buddy,” Hannah smiled, kissing his temple before looking back at me with eyes like sharpened flint. “And tomorrow morning, we’re going to burn their entire world to the ground.”
We walked through the heavy steel service doors into the warmth of the salon. In the private back studio, Hannah set Leo down on the leather sofa, tucking him beneath two thick wool blankets. Within five minutes, exhausted by the terror of the night, my boy was sound asleep, his stuffed triceratops tucked under his chin.
I stood by the window of the upstairs office, looking down at the dark streets, while Hannah booted up her laptop on the glass desk.
“Miller’s team arrived at your house four minutes ago,” Hannah said, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “They caught two of Marcus’s men loading your television and your father’s fireproof lockbox into an unmarked van in your driveway.”
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I turned around, my heart tightening. “And Ryan?”
Hannah looked up from the screen, her lips pressed into a hard, unforgiving line. “Ryan was sitting on the front porch with a packed suitcase, waiting for Marcus’s driver to hand him a bus ticket to Atlantic City. They have him in zip-ties on your front lawn right now.”
