Page 18 of Redemption

I wait until Chloe shuffles off to her room before finishing my drink. I need a hot shower and a fresh suit. I’m going to break that fucker’s face. Whoever it was who turned Romina against me and convinced her I really was the monster in the dark is going to pay. I have her phones. When everything is in place, I’ll make contact. My team is already on the hunt. With Johnny’s family contacts in New York is wasn’t hard to track down that the agent is part of the D.C. Bureau. All I need now is a name. I pick up Romina’s phone from her bag. It’s locked. Protected by her fingerprint. I smirk. My shower can wait, getting into her phone can’t. Whistling, I place it in my pocket and exit the penthouse.

9

Chloe

It’s pretty dumb to spy on your super-villain adopted dad, but I just knew he was up to something. I went into my room, turned the shower on and got dressed into black workout pants and a matching top. I put my hair up under a baseball cap and armed with nothing else but my phone, hid inside the kitchen pantry with the door slightly cracked.

He was grinning and whistling as he left. I decided to wait ten minutes to make sure he was in the garage before I began snooping. I know he has a control room somewhere in this building loaded with cameras. Roque is kind of like God; he has eyes and ears on everything.

Just as I’m about to leave my hiding spot, he shoots me a text:

Roque:Mrs. Fritz will be there in fifteen minutes to stay with you until you go back to Europe.

Me:I don’t need a babysitter.

Roque:You’re underage. I’ll go to jail for neglect if I leave you alone.

Me:That would be funny if that of all things is what they get you for.

Roque: Go to bed.

Me:I was trying to…

As I was textingRoque back, I hear Mrs. Fritz knocking on the penthouse door. I turn the handle to open the pantry door when there’s a huge boom. The kitchen walls shake. I peer out the pantry door seeing debris spread and a bit of smoke. “We have a search warrant, Salvatore. We’re coming in. Put your arms up or we’ll shoot!”

I’m trapped. Terrified. I clap my hand over my mouth as one of the agents picks up the charred pages of Roque’s diary. All of his secret words, stolen thoughts are there. The edges are burned but the heart of his soul is still there. I checked.

“The bedrooms are clear. No one’s home.”

“Boss, there’s enough here for an arrest warrant, maybe a conviction. He left his damn diary!”

“Check out this one. It’s written by a woman. There are years of information on this guy. The stupid fuck just handed himself over on a platter in his own words, no less.”

“Check his office again. If he’s stupid enough to leave this out in plain sight, there must be more. Grab his computers.”

They move off and I know I don’t have much time. I grab my purse with my passport in it from the kitchen counter, slipping out the door. Another agent is in the hall, but his back is to me and he’s on his cell. I duck into the emergency stairwell going down two floors when I hear footsteps coming up from below. Panicked, I enter the floor where a few of his guard’s have residences. But they are also crawling with agents.

Fuck.

I call Roque. “Chloe?”

“Roque! We have a major situation! Right after you left the Feds showed up with guns and broke down your door with like a bomb or something.”

“Are you okay?”

“I hid in the pantry. I escaped. But they are everywhere. Your whole building is covered. They took the journals.”

He curses.

“Where are you now.”

I look up. “Three floors down, hiding in an alcove.”

“Listen very carefully. Go to 27807. Enter the code 5560. When you get inside go the back bedroom. Move the bed. Behind the headboard is a small door to a secret inner stairwell to the building…. Stay on the phone with me until you get there.”

“Okay.”

I creep down the hall, checking the gold numbers on the door until I find the apartment. I punch in the code and enter. It reeks of Johnny’s cologne. The man must bathe in it.

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