That Dangerous Energy

by Aya de León

Genres: Hispanic & Latino; Political Thrillers

Synopsis

Coming from a troubled youth, Morgan Faraday grabs every opportunity to up-level her life. So she definitely plans to keep oil-company heir Sebastian Reid interested...all the way to the altar. He’s brilliant and supportive and is turning his billion-dollar company green to make up for his ancestors’ exploitation. With him, Morgan can have love, money, and the power to make the world better. And securing her future is far more important than the attractive environmental activist she suddenly has unexpected feelings for... But once Morgan gets a glimpse of Sebastian’s secret allies and confidential emails, she’s stunned to find he’s only talking a good game. His company is responsible for several ecological disasters, and a chance encounter makes it clear to her the lengths he’ll go to stay on top. To gather enough evidence to expose him, she will have to rely on her quick wits and new friends to stay one step ahead of a corporate conspiracy. But as the danger comes closer, will she put herself first and run—or face down the risk, even at her cost of her life?

Release date: December 27, 2022

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Morgan Faraday had never heard the story of how her great-grandmother Lourdes left Spain, only heard whispers that things in the Old Country were somehow bad. But in the family tradition, Morgan fled The Excelsior, an Upper East Side apartment building, when things in her own life got bad.

This was nearly a century later, and no law forbade Morgan from taking some of her belongings—a backpack that held all her treasured possessions. Yet she carried contraband in the internal pocket of her sweatpants. It pressed against her hip bone, like a necklace of Spanish diamonds.

The December morning was bright. Morgan looked out onto Second Avenue for the compact silver hatchback, which was supposed to be across the street in the white loading zone. She couldn’t see around a double-parked truck and walked briskly toward a silver hatchback on the corner. A mother exited the hatchback and lifted twin toddlers out of their child safety seats. Wrong car.

Morgan stepped into the street to look around the truck. At the far end on the other side of the block, a tall man opened the door of a silver hatchback. She turned toward him, but a pair of security guards came out of The Excelsior and cut her off.

Morgan felt a surge of panic. How did they know? She had been so careful! Casual clothes. Small backpack. Leisurely pace through the lobby.

Morgan pivoted and fled toward the opposite corner, maneuvering past the double stroller that took up nearly the whole sidewalk.

This end of the street was more sparsely populated, and she took it at a full sprint, dodging pedestrians and a man walking three dogs: a Chihuahua, a Shih Tzu, and a Pomeranian. When she hit the other corner, she glanced over her shoulder. The two guards were still chasing her, cutting out into the street to avoid the man and the dogs.

Around the next corner was the subway. She blended into the crowd moving toward the station.

Taking the stairs two at a time, she dug in her jacket pocket for a MetroCard. Four train lines stopped here. If she could make it through the turnstiles, she could disappear. No way for them to know where she had gone. She swiped the card once, her hand shaking, and had to do it again. But then she was through.

She waited on the platform for the downtown N or R train in a sea of late commuters. A man in front of her was half dancing to music blasting in his headphones, loud enough that she could hear the tinny techno. Beyond him, she saw frantic movement: the two guards. One of them was looking at an iPhone and the other was scanning in her direction. They pointed at her.

Her heart was in her throat. What the hell? What were the chances that they would know exactly how to find her when they couldn’t have even seen her walk down into the subway? Had her cell phone been bugged with a GPS locator?

She threw the phone into the tracks, causing gasps among the bystanders, and backed away. She rushed toward the other end of the platform. Maybe she should run back out of the station. Maybe it was a coincidence. She could get lost on one of the other platforms. Or better yet, be just far enough ahead of them to jump onto a leaving train.

She ran down the stairs and ducked around a corner. She blended into the crowd heading to the 6 train. No way they could track her without the phone.

On the 6 platform, she looked into the tunnel to see if the train was coming on her side. Instead, she saw the two guards coming down the stairs. Panic twisted in her solar plexus. How the hell had they found her? Again?

She hustled past a trio of men in suits, past a large advertisement for diamond jewelry. And then she realized. The engagement ring. The setting was big enough for a GPS microchip. The diamond must be worth a million dollars, but it wasn’t worth her life. She twisted off the ring and flung it into the tracks.

The security guards gaped, and the one with the phone put it in his pocket.

Now she didn’t even try to be polite. She shoved past people to the edge of the platform. There were stairs to exit there. But a steady stream of people walked down, transferring from another train. If she tried to climb the stairs against the flow of traffic, the guards would certainly catch her. She was trapped. Except for the tunnel.

The next stop was maybe only six or eight blocks away. The guards were getting closer. She elbowed her way into the knot of people coming down the stairs and leaped off the end of the platform.

“Hey!” a woman yelled.

“Give me your hand and I’ll pull you out,” a man called after her. “Think about what you have to live for.”

Fucking idiots. She was determined to live but calling attention to her was going to get her killed.

She kept to the outer edge of the tunnel and soon found a narrow path for subway workers. As she sprinted along the edge, her running footfalls were the loudest sound.

Her heart pounded with the exertion. But then, the voice of one of the guards: “She’s down there.” She felt a spike of fear.

The train came down the tunnel on the other side, the blast of sound and wind nearly knocking her back. Still, she continued to run, her breath burning in and out of her lungs. The train passed. She heard the guards behind her.

A rat skittered ahead, momentarily throwing off her gait. She stumbled but then righted herself and kept running. She saw the distant light of the next station. The tunnel was dim and dank with puddles of water. She ran on, splashing through them, hearing only one set of footfalls at her back. One of the guards had fallen behind. She said a silent prayer of thanks for her daily runs on the treadmill.

But the guard pursuing her was also in good shape. He was gaining.

A train came on her side. The noise was deafening as it passed her, but she kept running. She felt a stitch under her ribs. Her knees were getting weak. The train slowed up ahead for a moment. Could she jump onto it?

Morgan put on a burst of speed to catch up. Her chest was on fire. Her legs were fatiguing. She heard the running steps of the guard—closer now. The train ahead started to move. With her last ounce of strength, she accelerated, taking a final leap and reaching through space for the handle on the back of the train.

She caught it! The guard at her back reached for her, his hand stretching through air. His fingers slipped off the nylon of her jacket while the train lurched forward.

The train sped up. Morgan watched the guard stop and double over, elbows on his knees. Then the train slowed down. He was walk-jogging toward her as the train ground to a halt. Should she jump off, start running again? Could she still run? Her muscles were jangled from the adrenaline of the sprint, the leap, and the sudden cessation of movement in the cold air.

She was ready to jump when the train began to move again, picking up speed as the guard fell farther and farther behind. She pressed herself against the blessed metal of the car, panting, her body so weak with relief she nearly crumpled and lost her grip.

They pulled into the next station, and she slipped off the end of the car onto the platform. Her leg had cramped and she was limping, her head damp with sweat, the roots turning back to curls, destroying the expensive blowout. Revealing her African roots, the same way her great-grandmother’s curls had exposed her Moorish blood.

Morgan hustled down the subway platform, looking back over her shoulder. This was how she bumped into the chest of a man in a suit.

“Excuse me,” she said. And then her breath stopped as she looked up at the stony face of the very man who had given her the engagement ring.

Ten months earlier . . .

The Midwestern landscape stretched out below her like the color blocks of a quilt. As the plane descended, Morgan saw patchwork patterns in the agricultural squares of brown and green. Her grandmother had taught her to sew, taught her to see quilting squares in everything around her. The darkening blue of the early evening sky added another color to the mix. The bright orange stripe on the plane’s wing would look good, too. A contrast to the more earthen tones of the rest of the color scheme, but that was Morgan’s strength—to add that one unexpected color that made the whole garment dazzle the eye.

The plane lurched down and took her stomach with it. She inhaled and focused on a man’s biceps across the aisle. It was the opposite of the blocks of farmland. All sinewy and curving with muscle. Nothing noticeable about the color. Just a white guy with smooth, beige skin. A covering of fine, tawny hair on the forearm. She couldn’t see his features under the cap he had pulled down over his face. The plane lurched again, but he didn’t stir. How could anyone sleep through this landing? She couldn’t imagine sleeping that soundly. She traced the lines up from his wrist to his shoulder as it disappeared into the sleeve of his T-shirt. A nice arm. Sexy. Focus on that. Breathe.

Her stomach settled.

By the time the plane landed, she felt calm. She avoided the eyes of the man whose arm she’d secretly used to soothe herself.

It was long past dinnertime when Morgan wheeled her Dilani Mara carry-on toward the gate in the St. Louis airport. The Dilani Mara stiletto pumps were killing her feet. Why hadn’t she packed a pair of flats?

Her stomach growled. Her last meal had been a salad before she left Brooklyn. She had eaten the free pretzels on the flight from JFK. More of the same would keep her going all the way to Denver. When she got there, she could order room service at Sebastian’s hotel.

“Are you hungry?” he would ask.

“Starving,” she would say. “I never get airport food.” Like it was beneath her, not unaffordable.

Everything about Morgan’s exterior screamed money. The designer shoes, jacket, and luggage. The stylish clothes. Fashion forward. Not like anything people had seen. Were they right off the runway? Who was she wearing? There were no designer labels because she had sewn the clothes herself. The outside of her wardrobe said couture, but the inside said homespun. Just like the outside of her body said glam, but the inside of her stomach said airline snacks.

So, the twist in her gut that she felt when the monitor said her flight was delayed was 15 percent disappointment, 85 percent hunger.

Damn.

She had $7.43 in her designer wallet. Enough to take a bus or subway if Sebastian didn’t send a car for her. He usually did. But she never asked. She acted as if she didn’t care one way or another. Like if he didn’t send one, she could just afford her own.

Morgan’s best friend Dashawna had carefully schooled her: Don’t act needy. Don’t even act grateful. Act like it’s just a fact of your life. Men always send cars for me. No big deal.

And Morgan had done as her friend suggested. Kept her eyes from popping at the prices of the restaurants where Sebastian took her. Kept herself from gushing when he gave her a designer scarf. Dashawna said scarves were an ambivalent gift. Something a man gave a woman to test her response. Morgan had smiled warmly, thanked him, and kissed him. But didn’t gush. She acted like it really was the thought that counted.

Morgan had met Dashawna at fashion school. On her first day, Dashawna had squinted at Morgan like she was a swath of shimmering fabric that changed color.

“Girl,” Dashawna said, “you’re Black, right?”

Despite the blowout, despite her light skin and aquiline features, somebody had come to claim her in this big city. Back home, she had always said “mixed” or “biracial.” Given the racism in Pennsylvania, she might have tried to pass for Italian or Portuguese. But it was a small town. Everyone knew her mother was Black. But in New York, in this teeming metropolis where all sorts of middle-range brown people wore wild hair and African prints, and Black Lives Matter T-shirts, she hadn’t quite dared to dream that she could be claimed. And then this obviously “real” Black girl, with thick braids and shamelessly tight jeans on her big ass came to claim her.

“Yes,” Morgan said, afraid she might cry and spoil her mascara. “I’m Black.”

“Thank God there’s another sister up in here,” Dashawna said. “Because I was afraid it was gonna be a lonely four years.”

And Dashawna had swept her up into a tight friendship. Occasionally Morgan was clueless, but Dashawna would just school her and keep it moving. Dashawna was from Houston. Not only was she bold and confident, she knew how to hustle to make things happen. They got Dilani Mara designer gear for pennies on the dollar from a school friend, Vivian, who worked there. They took home garments that were floor models, imperfect, or otherwise unable to be sold.

But in the St. Louis airport, there was nothing in Morgan’s designer purse to eat. She wandered over to the bar. Maybe they’d have free snacks.

The bar was a long slab of fake dark wood, with black vinyl stools and an illuminated liquor shelf behind it.

She sat down on a stool and looked around. A bowl of peanuts at the end of the bar caught her eye. There were too many people gathered around them.

“What can I get for you?” the bartender asked.

“A glass of water?” she asked. “I may have had a few too many on my flight from New York,” she lied. Liquor wasn’t free in economy class.

“Bubbly or flat?” he asked.

“Bubbly, please.”

He poured the water into a tall glass of ice from the soda machine and moved on to another customer. She put a lime wedge and a stirrer into her water. She would have eaten the lime if it hadn’t looked bad. How was she going to get her hands on those peanuts?

She and Dashawna used to do this at bars in NYC. Sit around and wait for men to buy them drinks. It usually worked. But this was an airport, and men were in a hurry. She sipped her water.

Maybe if she got into Denver late enough, she could plead tired and skip the sex with Sebastian until tomorrow. Or at least until after she’d had a meal.

Sebastian Reid was not a very good lay. But that was what vibrators were for. What had Forbes said his time was worth? Ten thousand dollars a minute? That was how he made love, like he was losing money every minute. But no woman dated a billionaire for his sexual prowess. He could buy you a truckful of vibrators. If you married him? You could own a vibrator factory. Although his family empire wasn’t built on sex toys. He had inherited an oil company and was in the process of making it more eco-friendly.

Marriage was not on their immediate horizon. He said he wanted to keep it casual. She hadn’t slept with anyone else since they had gotten together, hoping he would take it to the next level, committing to sexual exclusivity as the first step toward marriage.

Sometimes she did long for something more intense with a man. Like the guy who had just walked into the airport bar. It was biceps guy. She blushed.

The rest of the body went nicely with his arm. Tall and slender, with a muscled build. But it was his face that drew her in. She hadn’t seen it under the cap. Dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a full mouth. She revised her estimate of him. He wasn’t white. Not with the tilt and shape of those eyes. He was mixed with something. Like she was.

The only empty stool was next to her. As he sat down, she dropped her eyes down to her soda and lime juice.

“You on the Denver flight?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I knew I should have flown direct,” he said.

The bartender walked up. “I’ll have an Earthbound,” he said. “And can I get you another . . . ?” he asked. “What’s the lady drinking?”

“Vodka and soda,” she said. “But if I’m gonna drink anymore, I should probably put something in my stomach. Can we get some of those peanuts?”

The bartender reached out and brought over the bowl.

“That’s a great idea,” he said. “Let me buy you some real food.”

“Nah,” she said. “I’m not that hungry.”

“I’m famished,” he said. “You never know what’s decent at these airport bars. I’m gonna order a bunch of stuff. Feel free to help me finish it.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. She began to eat the peanuts.

“I’m Kevin,” he said. They shook hands.

“Morgan.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as heading to Denver,” he said. “The way you’re dressed, you definitely look like you belong in New York. Or maybe Los Angeles or San Francisco.”

She shrugged. “I sew my own clothes,” she said. It was nice to be able to take credit for her work. She was always playing it down these days, trying to give the impression she was rich instead of talented.

“That’s amazing,” he said. “If you sew your own clothes, I guess I can tell you my secret. I’m a farm boy.”

“In New York City?” she asked, laughing.

“I’m from Iowa,” he said. “My family has a farm there.”

“But you live in New York?” she asked.

“Brooklyn,” he said with a beautiful smile.

“What brought you to the city?” she asked.

“A relationship,” he said. “It didn’t work out. But it’s hard to imagine going back to Iowa after half a decade in New York. How about you?”

“Fashion school,” she said. “But that didn’t really work out, either.”

“How is that possible? Your dress is amazing.”

“It’s New York,” she said. “Amazing isn’t enough. It’s got to be amazing, plus you need all the right connections, the world’s best timing, and a bunch of capital to invest.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he said.

“I’m from Pennsylvania,” she said. “Small town. Nothing you’d know.”

“Are you Amish? Did you escape? Come out on your Rumspringa?”

She snorted a laugh and nearly spit some of her drink on him. “Not hardly.” She thought of her mother, pregnant at seventeen by a local speed dealer. Her early years with their grandmother in public housing. Her mother doing okay with a factory job until the corporation started doing all their manufacturing offshore. The nightmare stepfather. Their family homeless briefly, then back at Grandma’s house.

“I’m gonna tell you my secret,” she said. “I never really cared that much about fashion. What I really love to make is quilts.”

“Quilts?” he said. He looked closely at her outfit. “I can see it,” he said. “In the geometry of the panels you put together.”

“It’s fine to put the clothes on someone’s body, but I prefer the two-dimensional canvas, where you can really see the shapes.”

The bartender set down a platter of jalapeño poppers and she dug in, forgetting to be modest.

“What takes you to Denver?” he asked.

“Just needed some time out of the city,” she said. “A friend invited me, so I said yes.”

“Same here,” he said. “Some friends asked me to come and I couldn’t resist.”

A friend. Sebastian had made it clear that they were “just casual.” But Sebastian also had her sleeping at his apartment every night. Initially, he had asked yes-or-no questions: “Would you like to come over tonight?” But now he would ask, “What time should I expect you?” She didn’t have a key, but the presumption was that she would sleep there.

The first time he had texted her: Will you be here for dinner? I’m ordering in Turkish food.

Dashawna had high-fived her and they’d danced around the tiny studio apartment. “Bagging a billionaire! My girl is bagging a billionaire!”

“It’s only dinner. We’re just casual.”

“Girl, get a clue,” Dashawna said. “His actions speak louder than words. ‘What u doing right now?’ is what someone texts if it’s casual. ‘Will you be here for dinner?’ That’s what you text your wife.”

“No,” Morgan said. “ ‘Will you be home for dinner’ is what you text your wife.”

“That’s your mission, girl. Make that ‘here’ into a ‘home.’ ”

The Buffalo wings were a little too spicy, but she was so hungry.

“What kind of farm does your family have?”

“Corn,” he said. “We’re trying to transition to organic, but it’s hard. Like last year, when the US agricultural—” He stopped himself. “You know what? Let’s not talk about national agriculture. Let me just tell you what’s growing in my garden in Brooklyn. I have the most amazing kale crop this year. ”

“Kale?” she said. “What are you, a cliché?”

“Go ahead and laugh,” he said. “Kale is delicious. Especially the way I cook . . .