Page 4 of Working for the Enemy

I've known Marlowe for a week from afar, spoken four words to her face, and I'm already planning where to put our porch furniture. It’s unhinged. It’s obsessed.

I pull into my driveway, the cabin sitting quiet and dark against the pine trees. I cut the engine and sit in the silence, staring down at the valley below.

She thinks I'm the enemy. Let her. Tomorrow, I'm giving her a job. She’s going to work for me, she’s going to take my money, and she’s going to stay safe.

Because whoever is hunting my sweet, curvy girl is going to have to come through me first. And I have absolutely nothing left to lose.

3

MARLOWE

Stealing a box of protein bars from the market officially makes me a petty criminal.

I sit on a weathered green park bench at the edge of town, staring down at my knees, my stomach churning with a mix of guilt and sheer, exhausting desperation. I’ve never stolen a thing in my life. Back in Denver, even when the power was cut and the cupboard had nothing but a bag of stale rice, I worked three jobs to keep myself honest. But yesterday, standing in that aisle with four dollars to my name and my gut cramping with hunger, my brain just short-circuited.

I will pay them back. The very second I get a paycheck, I’m sliding twenty bucks under the market’s front door.

My phone buzzes in my coat pocket, the harsh vibration making me jump a mile high.

I pull it out, my chest tightening as the screen lights up with a contact name: Soraya. My breath hitches. Soraya is the only person from home I still talk to. We grew up in the same bleak, run-down trailer park, surviving the same crime-riddled neighborhood where cops only showed up after the damage was already done.

I swipe the screen and press the phone to my ear. "Tell me you're calling to say you won the lottery and you're buying us an island."

"Marlowe," Soraya’s sharp, frantic tone cuts straight through the receiver. It’s in such contrast to her normally soft, sweet voice. "Where are you? Are you safe?"

"I’m fine," I assure her, leaning back against the bench and forcing every drop of tension out of my voice. I tilt my head toward the blue sky, letting a fake, easy laugh spill out. "Currently sunbathing in mountain paradise. It’s very rustic. Very Sound of Music. I half expect a goat to wander by and offer me fresh milk."

"Don't bullshit me," she snaps.

My eyebrows nearly fly off my forehead when I hear her swear. Soraya is… pure in a way that’s hard to describe. Has she seen drug deals and drive-bys? Yes. Has she had the cops called on her parents for domestic disputes? Yes. Does she still say “The F-Word” in place of fuck? Also yes.

"The guys from the loan ring must have broken into your old place. They somehow found my contact info, even after my cross-country move to the Pacific Northwest, and wanted me to relay a message. They know you ran. They sound terrifying, Marlowe, and they’re looking everywhere for you."

Cold ice trickles down my blood, but I keep my tone bubbly, my defense shield snapping instantly into place. "Well, good luck to them! I’m practically a ghost now. A very cute, mysterious ghost. Look, I’m working on a lead for a job right now. I’ll call you the second I have actual good news to share, okay?"

"Marlowe, don't you dare hang up⁠—"

"Love you, bye!" I end the call before she can lecture me, squeezing my eyes shut as a single tremor passes through my hands. They’re looking for me.

"You're hard to find."

The deep, gravelly bark cuts through the quiet park like a gunshot. I whip my head around, my phone nearly flying out of my hand.

The giant, grumpy, growly man from yesterday is standing five feet behind my bench. He looks even bigger than he did on the sidewalk, his massive frame clad in a dark gray thermal shirt that hugs every ridge of his absurdly thick chest and arms. His jaw is set in that familiar scowl, dark blue eyes boring into mine like he's trying to see right through my skull.

My heart hits my throat. For a second, my primitive brain screams that he's one of them—an enforcer sent to haul me back to Denver. But then I see the faded scar along his jaw, the raw, suffocating intensity in his stare… and that strange, inexplicable heat flares back to life in my belly.

I shove my phone into my pocket, smoothing down my shirt and slapping on a blinding smile. "You know, normal people usually start conversations with 'hello' or 'nice weather we're having,' not creeping up on women like a mountain lion stalking a stray sheep."

He doesn't smile. He doesn't even blink. He steps around the bench, taking up so much space that the park suddenly feels tiny.

"I heard you were looking for work," he grunts, his voice low, command-laced, and totally unyielding.

I blink, taken aback. "Word travels fast in a town of twenty people. Did the local pigeons tell you?"

"I need an assistant at FCMC," Kane says, crossing his thick, tree-trunk arms over his chest. He towers over me, his shadow completely blotting out the sun. "You start today. Cash pay. Under the table."

My mouth opens, then closes. Cash. Immediate money. It’s a lifeline thrown right into my drowning face, but the way he’s demanding it, like he’s drafting me into a private army, makes my feisty, independent streak flare hot.