Chapter 49：A Lovely Lady Friend

Hazel didn't have traditional social media accounts because she didn't know enough people to bother. Aside from her art blog on Tumblr and accounts on a few other sites where artists could showcase/be paid for their art, she only had an Instagram account advertising what she sold on her Etsy page.

Will had been driven slightly crazy during their years apart once social media became popular and he wasn't able to find her anywhere. A year after the social media craze originally hit and no luck finding her, he became so worried he actually headed up to the Bay Area to check on her.

Before escaping the mental hospital he had been sure to peek at Hazel's records that were lying around in the head shrink's office so he knew her last name and the address of her legal guardian.

Hazel Dixon, age eight, whose uncle lived nearby in San Francisco and had never once bothered to either call or visit her while she was locked up. What a scumbag. He wasn't worthy of being Hazel's guardian.

Will remembered enough of her information to sneak away for a bit when accompanying some of the older smugglers doing a job in the Bay Area one summer when he was in high school. He only wanted to check on her and make sure she was alright.

He ended up staking out her street and after several hours was able to spot her leaving her house. She was so tiny! In all their years apart Hazel had hardly grown at all!

Her blonde hair was cut to her shoulders and she had side bangs. She was wearing a pair of purple plaid Bermuda shorts and a lilac tee shirt. Despite her casual middle schooler appearance, his breath caught in his throat.

She was so much more beautiful than he remembered but he didn't dare call out to her. He didn't want to get her hopes up about their future when he hadn't fully established himself yet.

Reassured that Hazel was okay, Will was able to finish his job and go back to L.A. without any trouble. But after that he made sure to have Alfonzo's favorite hacker teach him a few things so he could keep track of her better.

Not wanting to be too obsessive—the more he thought about her, the more he wanted to see her—he kept his stalking to a minimum. The only things he checked up on were school enrollment records and any accounts connected to her email address. That was how he ended up buying every piece she ever sold on Etsy.

Will had wanted to focus on his work and building up his fortune as quickly as possible. The more involved he was with Hazel's life, even from a distance, the more distracted he would be.

He hadn't seen her again until the day he finally felt secure enough to go back for her and spotted her with that scumbag Billy Lawson. At that point in time he had been in charge of Alfonzo's empire for a while and had managed to distance himself from the smuggling ring as much as possible.

It was the main reason he moved to Utah. He still wanted the revenue coming in to help fund his money laundering schemes in Salt Lake but he was less likely to get caught if he was two states away.

The whole mess with Billy Lawson wouldn't have ever happened if Will had checked up on Hazel in person even once after she graduated high school. But he was so insistent on not seeing her again until he was ready to take her away for good.

If he had been able to introduce himself properly they would be living like a real couple right now. Hazel wouldn't be keeping him at arm's length. It was impossible to put how frustrating it was to be competing with himself for her affection in words.

Well, it was water under the bridge now. He needed to use this trip to Mexico to work on wooing her properly as Will instead of Billy. Depending on how well things went, he might be able to tell her the truth afterwards.

A smile lit his face at the thought of her being completely and entirely his. It was only a matter of time. He had waited this long; he could wait a little longer.

Will snapped out of his thoughts when his subordinates began filing into the warehouse. The hour he had given them was nearly up. It was about time to hold an execution.

"It's only for a few days to straighten out someone else's mess," Will said airily. "I have better things to do than deal with you lot."

"I bet he's mad we interrupted his time with a lovely lady friend," Carlos, another trusted lackey, said under his breath as he elbowed Ray.

Lovely didn't begin to describe Hazel. How on earth had he guessed right? Will never breathed a word about her to anyone here. Even Alfonzo hadn't known about his deep, abiding love for a girl he left behind in Oakland.

He supposed that the men here didn't know anything about him other than his leadership style. They must be thinking he was a womanizer like Alfonzo had been. Any player would be upset being thrown off their game. But Will had only ever been interested in one woman. The rest were as good as air to him; completely invisible.

"If we're done gossiping about my love life, I think it's about time we get started," Will said in a hard voice.

A stricken expression appeared on Carlos's face. He was clearly in fear of his life. There really wasn't a need for that. Will didn't kill people for something as trivial as gossiping about him. Now if someone had talked trash about Hazel…heads would roll.