Page 13 of The Lost Guardian

“Then what?” Brooke demanded. “Where is she?”

“I mean…I didn’t on purpose,” he explained.

Brooke threw her hands in the air.

“Lagoon, I came home to the letter,” he whispered. “I found out my abuelo died. I wasn’t really thinking clearly.”

“Oh, don’t you nickname me.” She gave him no leeway. “Obviously what happened was tragic and I’m devastated for you, but if you’re well enough to sit on the couch drinking with me…”

It was the truth, but he still couldn’t help but wince at her words. Had he ruined his only chance with the woman of his dreams?

“She probably wasn’t even interested in me like that!” Santiago argued. “She probably had a paper to write; maybe her dissertation has something to do with the Andes.” As if that would make her any less appealing.

It’s a date! He heard Ali’s voice in his head.

Santiago shook it off. That was just a thing people said. It didn’t mean an actual date.

“I can’t even look at you right now,” Brooke said, grabbing her jacket from where she’d dropped it on the floor beside his coatrack. “I gotta go.”

“Wait!” Santiago sprang up, panic in his chest. “Are you really that upset about this?”

Brooke sighed. “I’m upset for you, Santi, not at you. Not only are you superhot, but you’re an amazing guy! You deserve a chance to be happy. To flirt with pretty girls and go on dates and travel.”

She smiled at him. “But no, that’s not why I’m leaving. I’m heading out so you can get your butt to Gina’s to salvage this date. Leviathan needs dinner anyway.”

She hugged him quick around the waist, and Santiago wrapped his arms around her, relieved that she didn’t actually seem mad at him.

“I’d tell you to give the hairball a hug from me, but she’d only scratch you for it,” he said. Leviathan liked Brooke and Brooke only.

“Santiago?” She looked into his eyes. “Go to fucking Gina’s and apologize to that woman.”

Santiago watched from his door until she was safely inside her car and pulled away. Then he locked it, still thinking about Ali.

He checked his watch. Almost eight thirty. She would be long gone by now.

There’s no way a woman like that actually wanted to go on a date with me, he told himself as he picked up the empty Styrofoam container and wineglasses. Brooke had to be wrong.

But what if she wasn’t? What if Ali really had been interested in his knowledge? Some women really did find professors sexy, right? Even if it was a little nerdy? What if she had been interested, and he had just missed his chance to go out with the prettiest, most interesting woman he had ever met?

A knock on his door interrupted his self-pity party.

“What did you forget?” he called out as he crossed the room. “Or did you just want to yell at me some more?”

He opened the door, fully expecting to see Brooke.

But was met with the barrel of a gun instead.

4

Santiago's breath caught in his throat as rough hands shoved him back. His socks slid on the wooden floors, throwing him slightly off-balance. Two armed men followed him in.

The first man kept his gun trained on Santiago, backing him into the living room. The second had a similar pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants. He glanced around the outer hallway before kicking the door shut and joining his partner, tracking dry packed dirt from the LA streets over Santiago’s clean floors.

“No yelling, or calling for help, now, oíste?” the first man warned him.

The words were punctuated with the staccato of a heavy Latin accent. He looked to be at least a decade older than Santiago, in his mid-thirties at least, with a meticulously trimmed black mustache over thin, cracked lips.

His hair was cropped short to his scalp, and he had a large glyph-looking tattoo on his neck, beneath his left ear. He stood perfectly still, his aim on Santiago steady and unwavering.