She hadn’t seen him since her birthday party, so when Renee walked into Matthew’s office and saw him casually leaning against the wall by the door to the adjoining room, known as the Red Room for the amount of blood spilled on the floor over the years, she stopped dead in her tracks. She hadn’t stopped thinking about him since her birthday, but after searching the hotel relentlessly and not being able to find him, she had given up on ever seeing him again.
He smiled at her as she entered the room and all she could do was stare at him, hypnotized. What the hell is wrong with me? She didn’t understand why her heart beat a little faster and her breathing quickened when she saw him. She made a mental note to talk to the girls; one of them must have the answers because Renee was completely at a loss.
They stared at each other for a minute before he extended his hand. “Christopher Reynolds.”
She could swear an electric shock bolted up her arm as she took his hand. “Renee Parnell.”
“I know who you are. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
He grinned and she could feel her face begin to flush. She tried to push the unfamiliar emotions aside, which was easily done when she heard a pained grunt come from the other side of the door.
“You found him?” She knew the answer when Christopher smiled at her. Renee heard something hard make contact with the man who owned the excruciating grunt that was instantly followed by a more pronounced howl of distress. Mr. Sweeny was in the process of learning his lesson for disrespecting her father with an ill-timed comment.
Christopher was beginning to make her nervous as he continued to stare at her in silence. She sat in one of the chairs across from Matthew’s desk, setting the folder she was carrying on her lap and trying her best not to turn her head to look back at him.
“How’s the eye?”
She had completely forgotten about her fading black eye. “Better.”
“I’m guessing you’re a baseball fan?”
She couldn’t help but smile at his question and gave a shallow nod.
“Red Sox?”
She could feel the blush rising in her cheeks again and desperately wished she knew both why she was blushing and how to stop it. “I just like the game. I’ve never played but I’ve spent some time at the batting cages.”
“Obviously,” Christopher replied with a laugh.
“What about you?”
“Hockey,” he said, as if it were the only acceptable answer.
“Ah,” she replied. “I’ve never watched it before.”
“You should check it out.”
With you? she thought, but instead said, “I will.” And she would.
They locked eyes for a few heartbeats until the guarded door opened and Matthew entered his office while wiping his hands. Before the door closed behind him, Renee saw a lifeless Mr. Sweeny lying on the floor and a pool of blood slowly beginning to surround him from the knife protruding from the back of his neck. She thought nothing of it.
Matthew was clearly agitated by Renee’s presence, casting a suspicious glance from Christopher to Renee, narrowing his eyes at her. “What do you want? I’m in the middle of a meeting.”
“My apologies. I wasn’t aware you had visitors.”
Matthew gave her a cold, hard stare, implying that he did not approve of the schoolgirl crush behavior he had just witnessed, nor did he appreciate the casual dress and the tired eyes. Renee returned the stare and waited; he would either dismiss her or he wouldn’t.
“We have a new employee,” she said as he snatched the file out of her hand. Clearly her interruption would not be presently forgiven, but after the episode in Saffron’s room, and the fact that he had told her to find someone else while Saffron recovered, she didn’t care whether or not she had interrupted a meeting.
As Matthew gave the file’s contents a passing glance, Renee was daring herself not to turn her head to the left. She did not, however, dare herself not to move her eyes, and she did so carefully and slowly, catching a glimpse of Christopher in her peripheral vision. He was staring directly at her, very still and very patient, not minding the interruption of their earlier conversation. Other than that, she couldn’t read anything in his expression that might give away what he was thinking.
Matthew thrust the file back at Renee. “She smokes.”
“Not anymore.”
Renee stood her ground. Alice was her first recruit since Sasha had left and she was going to stand by her decision. The tension between father and daughter had grown considerably since she took Sasha’s job—he was trying to break her and she was trying to prove there was nothing he could do to stop her.
Finally, Matthew conceded. “She’ll do.”
Renee gave a small, victorious smile and turned to leave the room, casting a quick glance at Christopher. The door to the Red Room opened once more and Renee’s smile turned to a scowl as Crescent and another new face exited the room. She immediately didn’t like Crescent’s young associate. Her gut sent out intense warning signals that he would eventually be trouble, and she would do well to pay close attention to those warnings. She and Crescent gave each other hateful stares before she decided to leave the room, but Matthew stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Gentlemen, this is Renee, our resident madam.” Matthew gently squeezed Renee’s shoulder. “This is Christopher Reynolds and Tucker Wilson, new members of the Family. Gentlemen, out of everything you take away from this meeting tonight, what I say next will be the most important. It’s best to remember it, because you will only be told once. I’m sure you already know Renee is my daughter. My daughter,” he focused his stare on Christopher, “is not to be touched. Should I find out anybody has harmed her, they will answer to me. Should I find out anyone has touched her without permission or injured her in any way, they will answer to me. If you know of anyone who has hurt or attempted to hurt her, you will let me know immediately.”
Matthew had been repeating these words for years to everybody who came to work for him. Two men decided to test the warning and quickly disappeared. The only one it didn’t apply to was Mr. Crescent.
Renee nodded at each of them and said, “Gentlemen, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.” Just as he had done at the party, Christopher tipped his invisible hat with an attentive smile and she had the sudden urge to giggle and blush. It was difficult to suppress the giggle and all she could do to respond was nod in acknowledgement, one corner of her closed mouth turned up into a thin smile.
Tucker stood before her with complete indifference and made no attempt to greet her. Her smile instantly faded as she gave him a hard stare of concentrated disapproval. Young, cocky, overly confident Tucker Wilson was in desperate need of a quick lesson in etiquette. Standing next to Tucker, Crescent merely watched with a thin smile on his lips.
Renee slowly approached Tucker like a cat on the hunt. “I know you’re new, but I know for a fact you have been informed of the established propriety that is required of everybody in this Family. Contrary to what you may believe, Mr. Wilson, you are no better than anybody else in this Family, least of all me. I wasn’t simply born into this Family, I have worked to earn my place and don’t appreciate being ignored when simple courtesy is all that is required.”
Tucker’s attitude and tough exterior quickly crumbled as he realized that challenging the rules was a mistake. “I didn’t mean…it won’t happen again.”
Faster than a whip, Renee’s knee met his groin and Tucker doubled over in pain, trying not to vomit. Matthew and Crescent had no reaction while Christopher silently winced.
Renee leaned over and whispered in Tucker’s ear, “You are correct, Mr. Wilson. It won’t happen again.”
She left the room quietly, closing the door behind her. She slid across the door to lean against the wall, hugging the file to her chest, and smiled, once again breathing easier as a wave of relief washed over her. Then, suddenly, relief was replaced by inexplicable excitement. She knew she would see Christopher again, and when she did, there would be an actual conversation involved. The only problem was that she had no idea what to say, how to say it, or how to feel. She pushed herself off of the wall and walked through the glass doors separating the hallway from the executive offices. Once in the hallway, she looked left and right to make sure nobody was around, then ran down the hall to the elevator. She had to find a female counterpart to talk to and she had to find them fast.
***
“What did you expect?” Christopher asked as he took a drink of his beer. The hotel bar was quiet. After his day of finding and bringing in Mr. Sweeny, then having to dispose of him in the next county, it was late and he just wanted to unwind.
Tucker snubbed out his cigarette and looked at Christopher. “Well, I wasn’t expecting her to kick me in the balls.”
Christopher laughed as the bartender approached with a questioning look. “He was rude to the boss’s daughter.” The bartender made a sucks-to-be-you look at Tucker as he exchanged Christopher’s empty beer for a full one. “It was a knee, not a foot.”
“Whatever,” Tucker said, taking a long pull off his own beer. “I still feel like throwing up.”
“Don’t let her age deceive you,” the bartender said. “She may be young, but she knows how to make a point. She’s a good girl, though. She’s got a good heart.”
Tucker let out a huff of contention and Christopher smiled into his beer before asking, “Are you going to do that again?”
“Fuck no,” Tucker said into his beer. “Lesson learned.”
“Look,” said Christopher, “I know you think you’re a big badass here, but, dude, I don’t think you understand what you’ve done. All you had to do was say hello to her. You disrespected her and got kneed for it. I would say you’re lucky that it came from her rather than Crescent or Parnell himself.”
Tucker didn’t appreciate the disciplinary lecture. Then, like a switch had been flipped, he gave Christopher a questioning look and slowly shook his head. “Oh, man. Don’t tell me…you like her, don’t you?”
Christopher took a drink of his beer to give himself a minute to think about a careful answer. “I only talked to her for a few minutes, but, yeah, I think she’s likable as long as you don’t piss her off.”
“He’s never going to let you date her,” Tucker pointed out.
Christopher’s head snapped back in surprise. “Who said anything about dating her? I just said she seemed likable.”
Tucker turned to the bartender, who was listening with rapt attention. “You should have seen the way she was gawking at him.”
“She was not gawking at me,” Christopher corrected.
“And,” Tucker continued, “the smirk on his face wasn’t telling her not to.”
“I was being nice.” Christopher felt the need to defend himself because he knew Tucker was right. Since he saw her at her birthday party, he did want to take her out, and he knew Parnell would never allow it.
“Whatever. Gotta piss,” Tucker said as he walked to the back of the bar.
When Tucker was out of earshot, the bartender looked at Christopher with all seriousness and lowered his voice. “Just between you and me, there were others who attempted to make an uninvited move on her. Neither are alive and neither are missed.”
“I never said—”
“Wait for Mr. Lundy to get here and ask when they’re both in the room. Lundy adores that girl and will do anything for her. Look, I’ve been working this bar as eyes and ears for seven years. Normally, I wouldn’t say anything and let you figure it out for yourself, but I like you, so I’m just putting in my two cents. Keep it to yourself.”
Christopher nodded in understanding and realized how much he had underestimated some of the people he had met since he joined the Family. He made a mental note to take all advice, whether good or bad, seriously. After all, nobody gave it without a reason.
“Now get out of here,” the bartender said. “I want to go home.”