Chapter 26 You Didn't See It Coming
Elena woke up to the smell of coffee.
She laid still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet sounds of the apartment. Pierce moving in the kitchen. The low whisper of Derek's voice somewhere near the front door. The distant sound of traffic outside.
All where normal sounds. Except nothing about her life was ordinary anymore.
She touched her lips without thinking then pulled her hand away immediately.
Elena got up, splashed cold water on her face, and stared at her reflection until she felt steady enough to face him. Then she opened her bedroom door and walked into the kitchen.
Pierce was at the counter, back to her, phone pressed to his ear. He'd already changed into a fresh shirt and dark jeans, looking completely composed in a way that made her feel unreasonably annoyed.
He turned when she entered and their eyes met for like two seconds.
"I'll call you back," Pierce said into the phone, then hung up.
"Good morning," Elena said, trying hard to keep her voice steady.
"Morning." His voice was also Neutral.
She moved to the coffee maker, Overly aware of every step, every breath. He didn't move away from the counter, which meant she had to reach past him for a mug. Their arms almost touched.
"Did you sleep well?" Pierce asked.
"I slept well." She lied because she'd barely slept. "What about you?"
"I slept well too." Pierce said, probably also a lie.
Elena poured her coffee, took a sip of it and stared at the boarded-up window across the room. The plywood looked wrong against the morning light. A reminder of everything that happened, the sniper, the glass, Pierce's body covering hers on the floor.
And the Bathroom.
Elena shook her head slightly trying to stop herself from thinking about it.
"Derek wants to do a security sweep this morning," Pierce said, his voice casual."Shouldn't take too long."
"Okay." Elena said quietly.
"And the bulletproof glass installation is scheduled for noon."
"Okay." She repeated.
Silence settled between them. Elena drank her coffee while Pierce looked at his phone. Somewhere in the living, Darrel meowed offended at his empty food bowl.
"I'll feed them," Elena said, grateful for having something to do.
She was halfway through filling Suzie's bowl when Derek knocked on the open front door. "Boss. Got a minute?"
Pierce set down his phone. "Yeah."
Elena kept her eyes on the cats, listening to Pierce step into the hallway, the door swinging half-closed behind him. Their voices dropped low immediately.
She tried not to listen, but failed.
"...surveillance pattern changed overnight..." Derek's voice, barely audible.
"...how different..." Pierce spoke, sharper now.
"...not Rodrigo's style. It's too precise. Too patient..."
A pause.
"...send it to Marcus. I want everything analyzed by noon..."
She heard footsteps. Pierce came back in, his expression neutral in that particular way that meant something was wrong.
Elena stood up. "Everything okay?"
"Routine security stuff." Pierce picked up his phone again, already typing. "Nothing to worry about."
She didn't believe him. Something was off. She couldn't explain how she knew, just that she knew.
Then she picked up her coffee and went to sit on the couch.
Pierce spent the next hour at her kitchen table, laptop open in front of him, phone going off every twenty minutes or so. Each time he answered it, his voice was low and clipped. Each time he hung up, he'd sit very still for a moment before typing something.
Elena tried to read, But ended up reading the same paragraph four times without getting a word.
His jaw tightened slightly. He looked back at his laptop.
Elena watched him for another moment, then went back to her book. She didn't read a single word.
His phone buzzed again around midday. Pierce looked at the screen and something shifted in his expression, subtle, almost not noticable, but Elena caught it. Something behind his eyes went very still.
He stood. "I need to make a call. I'll be outside."
"Sure," Elena said to his retreating back.
The door clicked shut.
She set her book down and stared at the ceiling.
Something was wrong. She'd spent enough time around Pierce to know the difference between his normal tense and a different kind of tense entirely. The kind where he was containing something. Managing it carefully so it didn't show on his face.
The question was whether he'd tell her.
Pierce was gone for almost twenty minutes. When he came back, he sat back down at the kitchen table and opened his laptop again like nothing had happened. He was very still now. Not the restless focused energy from earlier. Just still.
Elena watched him from the couch. "Pierce."
"Yes." His voice was sharp.
"What's going on?"
"Am working." He didn't look up.
"You've been on and off that phone since this morning," Elena said. "And Derek keeps looking at me like I'm going to break. So what happened?"
Pierce looked up then. His eyes were carefully blank, the mask he wore when he was containing something. "I'm handling something."
"If it has anything to do with what's happening outside my building then it's my business too," Elena said, keeping her voice steady.
A beat of silence. Pierce closed the laptop slowly. "The surveillance pattern outside changed overnight. We're looking into it."
"Changed how?"
"Different from what we've been dealing with. More precise." He said it measured, like he was deciding how much to give her. "It could be nothing."
"But you don't think it's nothing."
He didn't answer. Which was its own answer.
Elena felt cold despite the morning light coming through the gaps in the plywood. "Is it Rodrigo?"
"I don't know yet."
"But you have a theory."
Pierce looked at her for a long moment and she saw something move behind his expression. Something that looked almost like conflict. "Let me confirm what I think before I say it out loud."
Elena held his gaze. "Okay. But when you know, you tell me. No deciding what I can and can't handle."
"Elena..."
"I mean it, Pierce."
Something moved across his face. "Fine," he said quietly. "I'll tell you."
She believed him. She wasn't sure she should.
Around two in the afternoon his phone rang again. He looked at the screen and stood immediately, walking to the hallway without a word. This time the call lasted longer. Elena found herself making lunch just to have something to do, listening to the silence from the other side of the door, counting the minutes without meaning to.
When Pierce came back, he stood in the kitchen doorway and didn't move.
Elena had her back to him, cutting bread she didn't actually want. She could feel his eyes on her. Could feel the weight of whatever he was carrying pressing into the back of her neck.
"You're staring," she said.
Pierce didn't respond.
She set the knife down and turned around.
His expression was neutral. But his eyes were doing something complicated, something heavy, and she realized with a slow sinking feeling that he'd known something for hours. Long before he'd stepped back inside. Long before the call. Maybe even before lunch.
He'd been sitting with it all morning.
"Pierce," she said quietly. "Tell me."
He looked at her for one more moment. Then: "Marcus traced the surveillance. Identified the contractor."
"Contractor," Elena repeated.
"Someone hired a professional. A hitman." He said it carefully, watching her face. "To watch you. And when the timing was right..."
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
Elena felt her heart drop somewhere below the floor. "Rodrigo."
"No." Pierce's voice was quiet. "Rodrigo uses his own men. He doesn't hire out."
The silence stretched between them, thin and terrible.
"Then who?" Elena asked, even though something cold in her stomach already knew. Had probably known since he'd walked back through that door and looked at her like that.
Pierce held her gaze, and she saw it, the thing he'd been carrying all morning. The weight behind his careful eyes. The reason he'd gone still instead of restless.
He'd known for hours.
He'd been looking at her all morning knowing.
"Pierce," she whispered. "Who hired them?"
He opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
And in the silence between his knowing and his telling, Elena felt the world tilt.
Because the answer was already written in his eyes.
Someone who wanted her dead.
Someone who benefitted from her death.
Someone she'd never thought to be afraid of.