He jumped out of his chair and raced toward the cafeteria. A few children followed; others stayed with their art. There were two hundred kids in the program with employees and volunteers from the community providing academic help, athletic training, instruction in the arts, and even college preparatory studies for the older teens. This place was her heart and soul. She gave these children what she never had herself from the adults in her life—someone who cared about them and their individual dreams.
“Miss Valor?”
Rowan turned to find Adrienne, her lawyer, behind her, clutching his briefcase.
“Not here.” She notified the head art instructor that she was leaving the floor and then motioned to Adrienne. “Come with me.”
He nodded and followed her into her private office. Adrienne Sarcosi was a balding man with a fringe of white hair trimmed neatly around the sides of his head. Perceptive blue eyes peered at her from over a nose that roughly resembled a plum tomato and a set of thin lips that seemed to blend into his pale, spotted face. Adrienne was a good friend and an even better lawyer, and what he lacked in traditional good looks, he made up in loyalty and smarts. Rowan had admired him for decades.
“Did you get it?” she asked once they were safely inside her office.
“A temporary injunction, yes. Gerald Stevenson can’t evict you until the land lease expires, per your contract.”
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Don’t get too excited, Rowan. You know how this works. The Stevensons have a lot of money. In my professional opinion, people like that get what they want eventually, and he wants you out sooner rather than later.”
She cursed. “We should have seen this coming. I should have never bought a building on a land lease.”
“How could you have known that Gerald and Camilla would buy the land out from under you from the church who’d owned it for almost a century, or that the blank check you offered them wouldn’t be enough to buy it back? You must know this is about gentrification and corporate greed. They don’t want a community center here. I’m sure they plan to bribe the rezoning board and turn this space into a strip mall. The deal was as crooked as they come, and there’s not a single thing we can do about it.”
“Can’t you find something on Stevenson? Keep him wrapped up in court cases until he lets us stay just to get the bee out of his bonnet?”
“Suing them would open your corporation up to a level of scrutiny you do not want.” He lowered his chin and gave her a steady glare. She was a dragon who had lived many lives hiding behind Firebrand, Inc. Officially, the company bought and sold art and antiquities. Unofficially, it allowed her to own property that was not attached to her personally, giving her the freedom to change her identity or become invisible on a whim. Adrienne was right; piss Stevenson off and he’d dig into her past. It wouldn’t take long for him to realize she didn’t have one.
“Did you offer them cash? I have almost unlimited funds, Adrienne. If we can’t bribe Stevenson, can we bribe the companies that plan to move in here?”
He groaned. “I tried. After some serious digging, I have reason to believe that this is about more than money. Turns out the Stevensons have no intention of managing the property themselves. They’re working on behalf of a corporation called NAVAK, Inc. I can’t find any information on NAVAK. Their records are as tightly sealed as yours are, Rowan. If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if there was another dragon behind the corporate curtain.” He pushed a piece of paper across the table with a logo and an address in the Cayman Islands.
She lifted the page and took a closer look. The logo was a diamond shape with NAVAK in gothic lettering inside it. She’d never seen anything like it before. “It’s not a dragon. We’re very territorial. I wouldn’t rule out another supernatural entity, but it’s not one I’m aware of, and I’ve been running in these circles for a long time. Maybe it’s a foreign entity buying up American real estate.”
“Possible.”
“Anyway, keep trying. And just in case, start shopping for an alternative space of similar size. These kids need stability. I can’t have them with no place to go. Not even for one day.”
“Of course. But you need to be aware that a space like this is almost unheard of in Manhattan anymore. You bought this building decades ago. I’ll be lucky to find something half the size for twenty times as much as you paid for this.”
“Money is no object.”
“I’ll get started right away.”
“Thank you, Adrienne.”
She sat down at her desk and examined the logo again. If it was a supernatural corporation, there was one person who might know. She shook her head. No way would she go there. Not unless she was absolutely desperate.
Chapter Six
The next morning, Nick awoke to a cold, wet nose assaulting his cheek. “Good morning, Rosco.”
His German shepherd gave him a lick up the side of the face and chuffed in his general direction.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” He rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of running shorts and an NYPD T-shirt, then grabbed the leash off the hook by the door of his rent-controlled, one-bedroom apartment. The park was beautiful this time of year, but he had another motivation for the exercise that morning. The woman, Rowan, was on his mind again, had haunted his dreams until he woke up in the middle of the night with his dick in his hand and her face emblazoned on his mind.
It wasn’t like him to obsess about a woman. Rowan had made it clear she wasn’t interested. What was he, some kind of stalker? He knew nothing about her. Probably would never see her again.
He pounded the pavement faster, Rosco finding his stride beside him. So he had a little crush. He needed to treat this like one. She was Beyoncé or Gisele. Out of his league and out of his reach. He needed to leave it at that.
“Hey you, Mistah Nick!”
