“Bonnie?” I asked.
I saw our bedroom door hanging wide open. But I didn’t see her inside.
“Bonnie?” I asked again.
The kitchen list fell from my hand as I rushed down the hallway. I stormed into the room and found her closet door hanging open. The drawers of my dresser were pulled out. My clothes tossed about. There were socks on the floor and blouses on the bed, and high heels were strewn about.
“Bonnie!” I exclaimed.
She left. You know damn good and well, she left.
“Fucking woman.” What was I going to do to her?
I marched out of the bedroom and leaped over the edge of the staircase. I planted my feet firmly onto the ground before I rolled my entire back upright. With a sobering breath, I walked to get my coat. I slid my wallet and my keys into my pockets, then hailed the elevator. The mere fact the guards downstairs hadn’t caught her leaving told me I needed to hire new fucking guards.
After I found her, of course.
“Sir, is something—”
I put my hand in the guard’s face. “I’ll talk to you later. Right now, I need my car. Now.”
“Of course, sir. Right away.”
I charged out of the lobby and saw my blacked-out town car pull up. I slid into the back and closed the door, shooing the guards away who followed me. They were useless, anyway, if they couldn't even keep an eye on my damn elevator to see who was coming and going.
“Where to?” my driver asked.
Where in the world would she go? “The closest grocery store, please,” I said, hoping it would be that easy.
I knew she wouldn't be there, but it gave me time to think. And as I concocted a plan of my own, I pulled out my phone. I crafted a text message to Bonnie, consisting of the items on the grocery list I could recall in my muted anger.
Because the only advantage I had at the moment was that she didn’t know I knew she was gone.
Me: Grocery list: eggs, olive oil, those tomatoes you bought last time (double), three red and three white wines, cereal, a gallon of milk (not whole), and sausage.
“We’re here, sir,” my driver said.
I looked up at the sign for the grocery store and grinned.
Me: Go to that corner store that isn’t too far away from our place. The, uh… Store Shack? Or something? That’s where I got the wine from last time. Great place.
After sending those messages off, I sat waiting for my plan to take hold.
I kept my eyes on the parking lot, waiting for her to show up. Time passed slowly, though. Thirty minutes seemed like two hours. An hour and a half later, I was shocked when I saw a yellow cab pulling in, and then she stepped out
“What the…?” I squinted to make sure it was her, but I knew that cadence. I knew that walk anywhere, despite the jeans and the sunglasses and the weird wrap on her head. What in the hell was she doing? It didn’t matter, though. None of it did.
“Wait here for me,” I told the driver.
He nodded. “Of course, sir.”
I walked up to Bonnie, meeting her by the carts. When she reached for a cart, I placed my hand onto it.
“You know, for a woman who wants me to trust her, you really know how to shatter it against the floor.”
She smiled up at me as though nothing was wrong. “Hello, Israel.”
“Take that idiotic thing off your head and look at me.”
She removed the scarf and her sunglasses. “Before you lay into me in public, though, you should know that you now have three more storefronts in uptown that have become happy clients of yours.”
What was she talking about? “Have they now?”
She nodded smugly. “Yes, they have. I convinced them, with a bit of time, to rely on us for—”
“You mean, ‘me.’”
She rubbed the back of her neck, her smile getting stronger. “We’re in this together, aren’t we?”
“Did you think that when you left the penthouse, you’d be building my trust?” That didn’t even make sense. “I thought a Moretti never went back on their word.”
Her face reddened with anger. “Don’t you dare put this on me. This was the plan all along. Had you come with me, they would’ve—”
“Had you told me what you were up to, I would’ve sent one of the guards with you.” A man stopped at the end of one of the aisles and stared intently at a box of cereal. Maybe a little too intently. “Because I know damn good and well, they wouldn’t have struck a deal with me. Only you. Because they trust you, not me. Except, now I don’t trust you. Because for some reason, you think I can’t separate business from pleasure when, really, it’s you who doesn’t have that ability.”
She frowned up at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Without those businesses, my uncle’s empire will start to crumble. Those were the businesses that brought him the most money. That fill and line his pockets. Money he uses to pay his personal security team. I suggest you get those businesses set up with different men by the end of the day. I promised them serious protection in exchange for their loyalty to us.”
I pushed the cart back. “To me.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and then smiled at someone behind me, waiting as another customer pushed a cart around us. “Whatever.”
I gripped Bonnie’s arm. “We need to go. Now.”
She wrenched away from me. “Not like that, we won’t.”
“Look around you and tell me otherwise.”
When she looked around us, she saw the men were staring at us. Both talking into their sleeves with their eyes diverting quickly away.
“Shit,” she hissed.
“Car. Now.” We were in trouble. “We’ll talk when we get home.”
I led her back to the town car, and we slipped inside. I turned around, eyeing each and every one of the men to let them know they’d been made. They were
