Page 4 of Shield

Siena is my business now. And when this is over, I’ll get her home with me where she belongs, whether she wants to or not. Until then, I’ll do what I have to do.

2

Siena

When the car drops me off at my house, I snatch the duffel bag out of the driver’s hands, still fuming over that smug bitch on the plane.

No way that was an accident. Matti fucking put her there to teach me a lesson, to let me know that I was just one of a dozen bitches he has on the side. Now that he knows I don’t have his precious flash drive, he’s back to fucking his fashion-model harem.

Well, fuck him. And fuck his fucking flash drive. If I ever do find it, it’s going right into the garbage disposal.

My fury smolders as I shove open the squeaky gate of my chain-link fence, stepping onto the cracked walkway leading to my front door. It’s not much, just a rundown little house in a bad neighborhood, but it’s mine. On a nonprofit salary, it’s all I can afford, and the DIY repairs make it feel personal, like something I’ve built with my own hands.

But tonight, something feels off.

The door catches my attention first: it’s new. Brand new. A glossy red freshly painted door that pops next to the dingyweathered siding that hasn’t seen a power washer in years.

My heart skips. I don’t have my keys, much less new keys for this door, but then I remember Olivia’s sly grin and whispered goodbye: “Left you a little present.”

Frowning, I unzip the duffel bag and find a shiny key ring with a key sitting right on top. It’s not mine. It’s brand new, the key as shiny as the gold door lock I shove it into.

What the fuck?

Sliding the key into the lock, I push the door open, stepping inside cautiously. The familiar creak of the old floorboards beneath my feet doesn’t comfort me tonight—it terrifies me that I may be alerting someone to the fact that I’m home.

I shut the door quietly, the click of the latch barely audible, and scan the dark hallway. My breath quickens, and I force myself to move. First, I flick on the hallway light.

It’s not a big house. The door opens into a hallway that bisects the square layout, and you have the option of going through a doorway on the left into the living room and open kitchen or walk through one of the two doorways on the right side of the house, each a bedroom. The hall dead ends into the bathroom.

My bedroom is the door at the end of the hall, and the front bedroom is used for storage. I push open the door and turn on the lights.

Jesus. The room looks ransacked, like someone dumped out boxes and turned over shelves. It was messy before, but now it’s an obstacle course of toppled furniture, books, clothes, and tangled wires.

At least none of Aurelio’s men are hiding in there.

I cross the hall and hit the light switch in the living room. And blink, confused. No one is in here either, buteverything’s…different. New. An upgraded version of its former self.

There’s a sleek tufted purple velvet couch where my lumpy thrift-store purple velvet sofa used to be, a matching chair, and an elegant coffee table with clean lines in place of the barrel top one I had.

Even the lamps and the rug are new: textured, modern, and expensive-looking. It’s like my Budget Barbie setup was replaced with a showroom floor straight out of Restoration Hardware.

Am I in the wrong house?

I scan the items on the shelves and the wall. My books, my pictures, though a couple of them are in frames I don’t recognize. My plants, some in new pots.

My plants!

After a month of absence, they should be beyond dead, but they’re green and lush, their leaves practically glowing in the soft lamplight. I rush to the nearest one, hanging by the window, and press my finger into the soil. It’s damp. Someone watered them recently, yesterday, maybe even today.

What is even happening right now? Someone broke into my house to tear up my storage room, water my plants, replace my locks, and buy me new furniture?

In a daze, I stumble into the kitchen and fling open the cabinets. Some new dishes, but otherwise, everything is where I left it. I tug open a drawer by the stove, relieved to see my old scorched potholders and the silicone spatulas with burn marks from when I leave them too close to a burner. Turning, I paw through the half wall of cabinets in the pass through between the kitchen and living room, but everything is the same in there.

The kitchen doorway takes me to the back of the hall, across from my bedroom door, which is open. I lean in and turn on the light.

Again, my mismatched thrifted pieces are gone, and in their place is a gray, slatted wood bed frame, matching nightstands—two of them, where I only had one before—a chest of drawers, and a larger dresser. It’s all neat and coordinated, like something out of a catalog. The only thing familiar is my comforter and sheets, neatly made on the new mattress and my pictures, again in new frames, on the wall.

“What the fuck…” I mumble, perching on the footboard of the bed as I take it all in.

---