Conceal

When the check is paid, we both stand and I turn to him.

“Should I go home?” I ask, a bit uncomfortable.

“No,” he responds. “I want to show you something.”

“Okay.” My voice is lower than normal, but I feel like the past few days have been such a clusterfuck. I’m not sure where we stand.

Are we friends? Are we more? Is he still helping me?

I’m not sure.

Together we head to the street, and I expect him to hail a cab and take me back to his office. We’re downtown by Canal Street, but we walk instead. Maybe we’re going back to his place.

“We’ll grab a cab a few blocks up. I want to walk for a bit.”

“Sure. No problem.”

It’s clear he’s working through something in his brain and I give him the space to do it.

When we make it to Church Street, we flag down a cab. He fires off an address that I have never heard of before, and before I know it, we are weaving in and out of small streets by the river.

Eventually, we stop, but it looks like we are parked outside a warehouse. And an abandoned one at that.

For a second, I think Jaxson gave the cab driver the wrong location, but he pays him with cash, and we get out.

From there, we walk up two more blocks, and I wonder why we didn’t get out closer to wherever our destination is.

Every few steps, I glance over at him. His hands are tucked into his jacket pockets, and it looks as if he’s fiddling with something in it.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer, just continues to walk. Right here on this street, the world seems like a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is dead. It makes no sense why we are here and where here is.

He stops in front of a beat-up old brick building. There appears to be windows, but they are frosted with dirt, and I can’t see in at all.

“What are we doing here?” I ask.

He steps up in front of the door. Then he reaches his hand out to the padlock on it.

That’s when I finally see what’s in his hand. Tucked away is a key on a chain.

He hands it to me, and I look down at it.

“What is this place?”

“There is a lot you don’t know about me, but I’m hoping that will change. I want to start now. I’ve never shown this place to anyone . . . but I want to show it to you.”

I’m holding the key in my hand, and he signals for me to use it.

“I want you to know you always have a safe place to go.” He begs me with his eyes to trust him, so I do. I reach up and place the key in the lock and open the bolt.

“The next lock can be opened with a key or a code.”

“What is the code?”

“The code is Soter, but I set up Soteria for you to use.”

“What does that mean?”

“In Greek mythology, Soter is the spirit of safety, preservation, and deliverance from harm. Seeing as this is my haven, that is my passcode. That’s why I’ve given you Soteria. Because this is your sanctuary too. If you need it. For me, it’s where I am free,” he says.

“And she is?” I ask.

“The goddess of safety and salvation. She’s also the symbol of victory. There’s actually a sanctuary made in her honor, which is one reason I chose the name for you.”

“Really? Where is it?”

“Patras, a town in western Greece. It’s actually an interesting story. No one was supposed to see her image, only the priests, but the part that I think you’d like is that they used to perform a ritual for her.”

“And that ritual was . . .”

He turns his head toward me, and there is a large grin on it. “They would take cakes from the district and throw them into the sea for her.”

“Really? That’s a huge waste of cake.” I laugh.

He chuckles too. “Yep. I know. The story seemed fitting, but in your case, they would throw Kit Kats.”

Still laughing, we step inside. The lights flicker on, and the room comes into focus. The large space is nothing like the decrepit outside of the building.

State-of-the-art TVs, cutting-edge computers, and contemporary furniture don the room.

In one section, there has to be a minimum of eight computer monitors.

“Are you Batman?” I say on a nervous chuckle because there isn’t anything else to say.

It reminds me of the Batcave.

“Something like that.” He leads me closer. “This is where I’ll find your husband. This is where I’ll get you your freedom. This is how I save you,” he says as he sits down and powers up the computers.

The setup belongs in the Pentagon, but something tells me Jaxson could probably hack into the Pentagon.