1.2 | The Prince of Thieves

Chapter 38

'What are you doing here? Why are you following me?' she asked, the words rushing out from her lips all shaky and jumbled. Maybe she should have waited for her heart to get over its shock before she spoke for her annoyance, her fear, her anger, were apparent in her tone. In that brief moment, she had gone back to being the Hana during the gang war, at the mercy of others, too scared to fight.

There he stood in the circle cast by the streetlamp, staring laughingly back at her as if there were some great humour in them meeting like that. Juan Gonzales. How many years had it been since she'd seen him? A mountain of questions bombarded her mind but left unasked at the tip of her tongue; where had he disappeared? How could he have done all that he did? And in the more tender part of her heart: How was he? For she knew this not-quite-an-enemy, not-quite-a-friend was a lonely spectre in the gang world. His green eyes glinted in the yellow light much like a cat's as he brought his fingers to her hair and tugged playfully at the loose strands. She brushed her hair away and stepped aside, appalled that he would touch her, even her hair, so easily.

'I see you've been by the shop,' he drawled. His eyes traversed her frame and she stilled herself against the chill that bristled at her spine. A memory she had almost forgotten flashed in her mind. Ah, heck. He had seen her in the shower once and that was something Leon could never find out. 

Hana didn't quite know how to respond to that knowing glint, let alone to his sudden appearance now. She knew Sabine wouldn't have shared her whereabouts. So how and why was he here? Her silence amused him, for his smile lengthened and two dimples appeared where the sides of his mouth turned up.

'I've been following you ever since you left the restaurant with Sabine,' he continued in the same light, genial spirit. 'You need to buck up on fine tuning your senses. We can't have the wife of Leonidas Federov getting mobbed so easily, can we?'

'I'll work on it, thank you very much,' she replied with a clipped tone. A part of her still couldn't believe that Juan Gonzales was standing before her. She had left New York years ago,with the intention to leave danger behind. But now that she had returned, it seemed like she had stepped into danger once more. So he'd followed them from the gelataria to dinner? She really needed to pay more attention to her surroundings. This wasn't the first time she was caught unaware. She racked her brains for a hasty retreat, but all she could turn up was a vast blankness that left her not knowing what to do.

'You should join me for dinner one night,' he suggested flippantly. 'We could reminisce the past.'

'You're kidding,' she retorted scaldingly. 'After all that happened?' How could he say that so casually? Reminisce the past? There was nothing about that particular past she would like to reminisce. She desperately wondered what it would take to end the conversation there and then.

'I could tempt you.' He had said it with a soft, murmuring voice, one that made her skin tingle.

He stuck a hand into his coat pocket and brought out his phone. In a few taps, he flipped his phone about so that the screen faced her. Hana squinted at the picture. Then he enlarged the picture, and she began to realise that the untidily stacked rectangles were photographs. Photographs of her and Leon.

'I salvaged your old phone and printed out lots of pretty things. To be clear, it isn't for blackmail. But if you want to keep them, come find me tomorrow night.' He returned his phone to his pocket with a smug grin. 'The same place where you had dinner just now. Seven p.m.'

Her brow crinkled and her mouth gaped open as she watched him take backward steps while waving a hand. What did he just say? She hadn't agreed to anything. And here she was, left in grey shadows and confusion.