Unmasked: The Complete Series: Second Edition Read online

  It’s hard not to feel a little sad and scared about this. Knowing that if I were to kiss Daimon right now, his kiss would feel foreign to me.

  Must. Stop. Thinking. About. Daimon.

  I pull away and quickly turn around to head inside. Closing the door softly behind me, I head back to my bedroom to finish myself off. Afterwards, I shower and change into my old uniform: black hoodie, black jeans, and black sunglasses. Then I wait.

  I wake at five a.m. and pack a canvas grocery bag with some jogging clothes. Then I dress in my black jeans and hoodie and hope the weather won’t be too hot and humid today. I apply some makeup to cover up my skin discoloration, then I put on one of those uncomfortable brown contact lenses.

  I catch the seven a.m. bus to the city and get off on the outskirts of Santa Cruz de la Palma. The buildings are more spread out in this area, but the crime is more condensed. I’m sure if I walk around long enough, I’ll find someone who can help me.

  Keeping my hood pulled tight over my head, I walk the streets with my head slung low as I watch the activity. A woman hangs up clothes on a clothesline that stretches from her low roof to the top of the block wall surrounding her dilapidated cottage. She eyes me suspiciously as I walk by, but I ignore her and turn right at the corner. A young guy, about eighteen or nineteen, is standing just inside the gate of a small peach-colored house. He stares at me as I pass and I stare right back to show him I’m not intimidated.

  I’m almost past his property when he shouts at me, “American!”

  I stop and turn around. Unsure if he shouted it as an insult or a question. We glare at each other for a moment in silence, my heart racing as I anticipate whether or not I’m going to have to beat the shit out of this kid.

  “Are you American?”

  My instinct is to relax when I realize he’s just asking a question, but this could be a trick. He may be asking if I’m American so he can rob me. He really doesn’t want to try that.

  “Yes. Do you speak English?”

  He opens the iron gate and steps out onto the sidewalk. “Yes, I speak English.”

  His hand moves slowly from his side toward his waist.

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  His hand stops. “Why?”

  “Because I’m an agent with the federal government and I can make your life a living hell.” He narrows his eyes at me, unsure whether he should believe me. “Or… I can offer you a lot of money for your help. Your choice.”

  He clenches his jaw as he contemplates my offer, then he slowly lowers his hand to his side. “What kind of help?”

  After forty minutes of Jorge trying to get in touch with various different contacts, he finally finds someone who can help me. We walk the nine blocks to his friend Gringo’s house. I don’t know much Spanish, but I know gringo means white man. So it doesn’t surprise me when a forty-something man with blond hair and muddy grey eyes answers the door of the upstairs apartment.

  “Come inside,” he says, without the slightest trace of an accent. This guy must be American.

  I shouldn’t go inside a strange apartment with two strange men. I don’t think they’ll be able to kill me, but I would rather not have to kill them. Then I’d have to try to hide out on an island with a population equal to a few L.A. city blocks. Or I’d have to try to escape the island undetected. That’s a bit more complicated than catching a flight out of LAX.

  But I really have no choice. I need to know if I can trust Nick or if he’s just trying to get close enough to take me down.

  I step into Gringo’s humble apartment and Jorge follows closely behind me. The living room is clean, with two wicker armchairs and a melon-colored sofa. A glass table in the center of the room displays a dramatic O-shaped wooden sculpture. A sliding glass door is open, letting in the cool morning breeze and the whole apartment smells like coffee. It feels homey and comfortable.

  “Have a seat,” Gringo says, motioning to one of the wicker chairs.

  I sit down, placing my canvas bag of clothes at my feet, and my body tenses as he reaches under one of the couch cushions. I chuckle to myself when he pulls out a laptop and sets it down on the glass coffee table. He sits on the edge of the sofa and opens the computer, tapping on the keys for a bit.

  “Okay, I can look the guy up, but I need the cash up front.”

  “All of it?”

  “All of it. Just set it down on the table.” I reach for the pocket of my hoodie and within a second, Jorge has his gun pointed at my head. “Slowly!” Gringo shouts at me.

  I swallow hard, mostly for affect. Though having a gun pointed at my head does make me a little nervous, I can disarm Jorge and knock both of these bastards out faster than it will take them to piss their pants.

  I hold my hands up to show that I’m not concealing anything, then I slowly reach for the wad of cash in my pocket. I place the roll of money equaling seven hundred euros on the table.

  “How much is it?”

  “Seven hundred.”

  Gringo flashes Jorge a look of disgust then turns back to me. “I said one thousand.”

  “All I have is seven hundred, but I’m good for the rest. I swear.”

  “I don’t give a fuck if you swear!”

  Jorge shoves the gun forward until it’s pressed against my temple. Fuck. These guys are in way over their heads.

  “Listen to me,” I begin calmly. “I am a federal agent with the CIA. If you kill me, not only will you be arrested, but you’ll be tortured by federal agents until you give up everyone you’ve ever worked with.”

  Gringo and Jorge laugh at this threat. I take a slow breath and smile as I realize these bastards think they’ve got me.

  “If you think a federal agent is going to withhold three hundred euros then you’re not as bright as I thought. I should just go.”

  I stand from the chair quickly and Gringo reaches for something underneath the cushion. Jorge adjust his aim, but I twist around and grab his wrist before he can fire. His finger presses down on the trigger and the shot squeals past my shoulder and lands in the flat screen TV on the wall. Gringo retrieves a gun from beneath the sofa cushion, but I twist Jorge’s gun around and press my finger over his to shoot Gringo in the chest.

  Gringo falls back onto the sofa as Jorge lets go of his gun. I don’t want to shoot him, but he’s already reaching for the door handle to escape. I shoot him in the head, then I grab the roll of money off the coffee table and my canvas bag of clothes and get the fuck out of there.

  I keep my hood pulled tight over my head as I race down the steps of the apartment building. A woman in the apartments below is peering through her screen door to see what’s going on. I don’t pay her any attention. I keep running for five and a half blocks until I find a bus stop with a bus that’s just arriving. I hop inside and head straight for the back.

  My heart is pounding like a sledgehammer against my chest. For a moment, I think I might be having a heart attack, until the bus gets about four stops away. Then I begin to breathe easier.

  There are only a few people on the bus, so I use the relative privacy to change out of my hoodie and into the running T-shirt I brought with me. That’s when I notice the bullet Jorge fired must have grazed my shoulder.

  Fuck!

  I was supposed to get some information on Nick and the black guy in the hoodie, then go to the city’s free clinic and get a pregnancy test. I’m not very experienced, but I know from watching enough television and movies that a late period often means a woman is pregnant. I’m five days late. Which means, if I am pregnant, it’s Daimon’s child.

  The truth is, I never got a gynecological exam when I went back to see Dr. Grossman a few weeks ago to have my stitches removed. Without an exam, she refused to prescribe me any birth control. I didn’t want to admit this to Daimon, so I never brought it up. Then I read on the internet that something like fifty-percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, but most women never know because they think the bleeding is due to their normal per
iod. To me, this meant I had, at best, a fifty-percent chance of getting pregnant. I figured, if I made sure he didn’t come inside of me, there would be no chance. Now I just feel like an idiot.

  I can’t go anywhere in this city now. Not while I’m wearing these clothes and sporting this two-inch bullet graze. I have to get the hell out of Santa Cruz de la Palma.

  I ride the bus all the way back to Brena Baja. Then I stop at the corner convenience store to get some laundry soap and first aid supplies. It’s about time I washed my laundry in the concrete basin in the backyard. I’m halfway down the street, right in front of Nick’s house, when I hear him calling my name.

  “Alyssa!”

  I sigh and execute a half-turn toward his front door, hoping to conceal the bleeding cut on my shoulder. “Nick! I’m just going home to take a shower. I’ll be right out.” I start off toward my cottage, then I hear the gate creak as he comes after me. “I really need to shower and get my laundry going. I’ll be out in just a bit.”

  I’m almost to my gate when he wraps his arm around my waist to stop me. “Alyssa, are you okay? What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

  I clutch my canvas bag to my chest and take a deep breath as I turn around. Looking into Nick’s sparkling green eyes, I force myself to become emotional. I mean, a normal person would be hysterical if someone pulled a gun out and nearly shot them.

  Jutting my bottom lip out, I sniffle. “I was attacked in the city by a black man in a black hoodie. I was” —I drop my canvas bag onto the street— “I was so scared, Nick!”

  I throw my arms around him and wait for him to stammer as he realizes his partner beat me up. But he just holds me tightly and rubs my back.

  “Oh, baby. Are you okay? We’re you… I mean, what did he do to you?”

  I grit my teeth as I try to come up with a good story on the spot. “I was in the city shopping and he must have seen my cash and he tried to rob me.”

  “You were in the city?”

  For a moment, I consider lying. He may have heard the news that there was a shooting in the city by now.

  “Yes, I told you I was going shopping.”

  “You said you were going for a run.” He lets go of me and looks me up and down, his gaze skimming over my T-shirt and lingering on my black jeans and steel toe boots. “Is that how you dress to go running?”

  I snatch my canvas bag off the street and hold it out. “I changed in a restroom in the city, but…but I was bleeding so much I didn’t finish changing. I knew I had to get home quickly.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the hospital?”

  “Hospital?”

  “Yes, the place where people go when they’re sick or injured?”

  We stare into each other’s eyes for a moment and I consider blurting out the truth that I was in the city looking for unsavory characters who would help me investigate him using the passport I stole from his cottage last night. But I take a few slow breaths instead as I formulate a better explanation.

  “I was trying to get something for you, to surprise you.” I reach up, ignoring the pain in my shoulder as I take his face in my hands. “I was on my way to the clinic to get on birth control, so you and I could…you know, whenever we want.” My lips hover over his, allowing his craving to grow. “I want to fuck you. All. Day. Long.”

  I trace my tongue along the crease of his lips and he sucks in a sharp breath before he pulls away. Taking the canvas bag away from me, he nods toward his house.

  “Come to my house. I’ll help you get that cleaned up.”

  I glance at the cut on my shoulder then smile at him. “My hero.”

  He smiles as he leads me back to his house. Once we’re inside, he drops my bag onto the kitchen table. Then he disappears into the bathroom to get some more first aid supplies that I forgot to purchase at the convenience store. I seize the opportunity to slip the passport I stole back into his desk. I slide the desk drawer closed, and when I turn around, Nick is standing behind me holding a bottle of peroxide and some cotton balls.

  My heart pounds as he glares at me in silence. I’m about to open my mouth to explain why I was looking in his drawers, but he beats me to it.

  “Would you like to go on an American date with me tomorrow?” he asks, his gorgeous lips curling into a smile.

  I can’t help but smile back. “I’d love to.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Shh. It’s a secret.”

  “A secret? I really, really despise secrets,” I reply as Nick and I hold hands in the back seat of a taxi.

  He squeezes my hand and plants a soft kiss on my cheek before whispering in my ear. “You’ll like this one.”

  We’ve been driving north for about ten minutes, and I’m getting more nervous by the second. It appears as if he’s taking me to Santa Cruz de la Palma—the place where I just murdered two men yesterday. No doubt the police will be patrolling the city. What if someone on the bus remembers me changing out of a black hoodie? I don’t remember anyone looking at me, but you never know. These days, you have to expect that not only is someone watching you, they’re also taking video to post on YouTube.

  “How about we just go back to my house and I’ll cook you something?”

  He laughs. “I promise this is a good secret.”

  I grit my teeth at these words. Is there such a thing as a good secret?

  It seems the answer to this question is obvious. Yes, of course there are good secrets. The kind that protect people or the kind that result in delayed pleasure. But the kind of secrets meant to protect people are probably the worst of all. You can’t protect someone you care about by lying to them.

  So it stands to reason the only good secrets are the ones meant to delay or prolong pleasure. If that’s the kind of secret Nick has in mind, I can get on board with that.

  As we drive through the streets of Santa Cruz de la Palma, I turn my face away from the cab window, hoping not to be recognized. Nick smiles, probably thinking I can’t stop myself from admiring him. Don’t get me wrong. Nick is gorgeous, but every time I look at him, I still get that twisting pain in the pit of my stomach. That natural emotion that arises from being so strung out on one human being, anything that reminds you of them just stirs up withdrawal symptoms.

  Daimon really did a number on me. He manipulated me by making me feel both beautiful and powerful. By fucking me like he hated me and loved me all at once. You can’t fight millions of years of evolution. My female hormones kicked in and tried to convince me to bond with him. Procreate with him. Fall in love with him.

  But that’s all it was. Stupid hormones. Everything Daimon and I shared teetered on a foundation of deception. I’m lucky it all came crumbling down sooner rather than later. Now I can move on and find out the truth about my past without Daimon’s lies poisoning me and leading me astray.

  The cab pulls up to a corner restaurant called simply American Bar. I almost laugh at the obvious ploy to attract American tourists, but I’m still a bit on edge from being back in this city and my thoughts of Daimon. Nick pays the cab driver, then we hop out and head for the entrance.

  Perhaps for my benefit, Nick speaks to the hostess in English. I’m not surprised to find she speaks it quite well. She barely gives my white face and hair a second glance, then she grabs a couple of menus and leads us to a booth near the window. Nick grabs her hand to stop her before she leaves. He flashes her a warm smile and says something to her in Spanish. I can’t believe I’m actually jealous.

  She blushes slightly and nods before he lets go of her hand so she can leave, but she doesn’t go back to her station near the entrance. Instead, she heads through the swinging door into the kitchen area.

  “What did you say to her?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.

  He grins broadly as he reaches across the table and grabs my hand using the same hand he just used to grab the hostess. “It’s a surprise. You’ll see.”

  He brings my hand to his li
ps, and I can feel those female hormones kicking in again, clouding my brain and curling my lips into a bashful smile. I quickly let go of his hand and pick up my menu. Each item on the menu is written in English, with the Spanish translation featured in small letters underneath. It’s usually the other way around at the restaurants frequented by tourists.

  I already feel better about this American date. I highly doubt the cheeseburgers at American Bar will be as good as the ones in L.A., but at least Nick’s intentions seem honorable. He just wants to give me a small piece of home.

  Nick insists I order for both of us because I know more about American food than he does. I get us each a cheeseburger and fries, two Cokes, and an appetizer of buffalo wings with good ol’ American ranch dressing. I don’t usually eat this kind of junk. In my apartment in L.A., I never really cooked or ate a lot of fast food. I couldn’t afford it. I usually ate protein-packed hot cereal nuked in the microwave or homemade turkey sandwiches with no mayo. Sometimes I’d get two-for-one sushi at the Japanese place next door to our building.

  Here on the island, the fruits, vegetables, and fresh fish are extremely cheap, so that’s what I’ve been surviving on. I haven’t had a cheeseburger or Coke in months. But I guess it’s okay to indulge every once in a while.

  “So, tell me, Alyssa. What was your life like in the States? Do you have any sisters or brothers?”

  I stare at Nick for a moment as I’m overcome with suspicion. That nagging sense that the sunglasses company is just a cover.

  “None. And you?”

  “None,” he replies quickly. “But back to you. What was your life like? The life of a photographer-artist must be quite exciting.”

  I can feel my top lip trembling under the weight of the lies I’m about to tell. “It’s not that exciting. I do most of my work at night, so I’ve learned to survive on very little sleep. I’d usually gather my equipment and leave my apartment an hour or two before midnight. Then I’d walk the streets waiting for the perfect moment, when the perfect picture would find me.”