Free The Muscle Part Two by Michelle St. James Page B

while he conducted business on the phone or worked on his computer. Sometimes he would take a break to sit with her, and they would listen to the opera or discuss a book she was reading. He would light the pipe he liked to smoke, filled not with the gross stuff Diego liked but with an earthy, cherry tobacco that made her feel like everything was right with the world.
    Now the space felt different, charged with Diego’s energy. Violent. Angry. There was no life in the air. No music or art. Just the books on the walls — books she’d never seen Diego read — and the desk and other furniture scattered around the room.
    She moved toward the cabinet against one wall first, hoping to find the humidor her father had kept in there. It was the only thing about Diego that reminded her of her father — they both loved a good cigar — and she thought she remembered seeing him drop the key to his desk inside it once when he thought she wasn’t looking.
    But the cabinet itself was locked, and she stood for a minute, surveying the room for other likely hiding spots. Finally she went to the desk and tried all the drawers, careful not to bump Diego’s chair or touch it in any way. She’d gone to great lengths to avoid leaving behind any proof of her betrayal, even forgoing perfume so he wouldn’t smell it lingering in the air. All the drawers were locked until she got to the bottom one. When she did, she found a smaller humidor filled with cigars, and under them a tiny key.
    She took the key, then hesitated over the cigars. She had the crazy impulse to break every one of them in half. To destroy. To ruin. It was something she hadn’t felt before.
    Self-preservation, yes.
    Even anger.
    But this was the first time her rage had erupted inside of her like a tidal wave. It was as if the last year had been an earthquake and all this time the water had been slowly rolling back out to sea, gathering steam for this moment when a giant wave of fury would crash through her body all at once.
    She closed the drawer and took a deep breath. She had to stay calm. Put aside her feelings and focus on getting Sofia out of here. And that meant finding the computer.
    She worked from the bottom up. By the time she got to the top drawer, she was feeling desperate. They were smaller than the lower drawers, shallower, but the computer had to be there. Diego’s wasn’t a business conducive to carrying around a laptop. She’d never once seen him leave the house with it, and that meant it had to be here somewhere.
    But when she opened the top drawers, the computer wasn’t in either of them. Just pens and loose cigars and matches, and the other detritus of Diego’s work life.
    She closed the drawer and fought against the pit opening up in her stomach.
    They were back to square one.
    She was studying the room, trying to think of where else the computer might be, when the door suddenly opened. She barely had time to register that she’d been caught when the new guard named Eduardo stepped into the room.
    “Well, well, well,” he said. “What have we here?”
    She forced her voice steady. “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she said.
    He laughed, and she felt a chill run up her spine. “That’s where you’re wrong, nena. I work for Diego, and you’re in his office when he’s not home.” He walked slowly into the room, approaching her with something like relish while her heart beat a mile a minute. “I’m sure he’d be very interested to know that his baby sister was inside his private office.”
    He stopped at the front of the desk and ran a finger along the fine grain mahogany. “Although I’m sure we could work something out, you and I.”
    She thought of Luca on the other side of the balcony door. Could he hear their conversation? Was he on his way into the house already?
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, a little too loud, just in case Luca wasn’t already aware of the situation. “This is my