Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 59738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“Where did you go last night?” Ivy pipes up.
I look at her, and her cheeks flush with pink when she realizes how stupid her question is. You don’t ask a mafia bloke where he goes. Ever. She would know that from her time with Muerto, I’m sure, but she doesn’t retract the question.
“Out.” I grip the steering wheel tighter. “I had business.”
“We waited for you to come back,” she tells me. “I thought we were going to play cards. Wasn’t that the whole point?”
“I didn’t invite you,” I point out.
She turns toward the window, and I feel like an arsehole. But it’s better this way. She should know what she’s getting herself into.
A few minutes later she appears to have bounced back from it when she opens the box of donuts. “Which one do you want?”
“None. Those are for you.”
I feel her eyes on me, studying me like she could figure me out, but she doesn’t say anything else. The drive back to the club is the longest one I’ve ever made, and when I pull into the empty lot, I can finally breathe again.
“I’m just down the street,” Ivy says. “You don’t have to wait.”
“I’m not,” I grumble. “I’ve got business inside.”
“Oh, right. Well thank you for breakfast, and the lift. I guess I’ll see you around.”
We both get out of the car, and I’m tempted to watch her walk away, but instead I turn toward the club and head for the back entrance. Only, I don’t go inside. I wait until Ivy is out of sight and then start to follow her, crossing the street and using the cover of the parked cars on the other side and a wide distance to stay hidden.
She checks over her shoulder often as she walks, but never catches sight of me. I wonder if she senses that I’m the monster on her heels, or if it’s someone else she’s looking for. Her steps quicken, and she legs it several blocks like a thief in the night, darting over broken footpaths and between shoddy buildings. We’re in a commercial district now, and Ivy takes a visible breath when she crosses over the threshold as if it were her saving grace.
The wheels are turning in my mind, trying to sort out her motivations for being here. But a minute later, that mystery is solved on its own. Ivy checks both ways to make sure nobody is watching as she disappears down another alley. It’s not a throughway. It’s three brick walls merged together and a bunch of garbage cans. The kind of place that the homeless usually sleep. Or the kind of place that addicts like to shoot up. Except, she didn’t have anything on her this morning, which only leaves me with more questions.
For the next hour, I watch and wait, but she never comes out. My mind goes to a dark place, wondering if she’s passed out cold. Wondering if she’ll even be alive when I check on her. Jaysus. It’s too much, and I don’t have the patience to sit here all bloody day.
I leg it down the alley and peek around the corner of the garbage can, and there she is. Laying on a fecking piece of cardboard with a shabby ass blanket to keep herself warm. Her eyes are closed, and she’s asleep like this is the most normal thing in the world for her. It’s an image I won’t soon forget.
Whatever she may have seen or done in her past, she shouldn’t be living this way. Not like an animal. Not like this is all she deserves.
This isn’t fecking right, and I want to do something about it. But then I think of Crow and my brothers in the syndicate. Everything they’ve done for me. I promised him I would take care of this, and helping the girl isn’t going to help anyone. Not if she has a ticking clock on her life anyway.
Christ.
I wipe a hand over my face, and she twitches, her brows pinching together like she’s having a bad dream. From the looks of it, her whole life is a bad dream. I need to get out of here. I need to put some distance between us before I do something stupid.
I walk back out of the alley and resume my watch from across the street, trying to erase the image of her sleeping on the ground like a dog.
I can’t help her. She’s the one who decided to get wrapped up with the Locos. She’s the one who walked straight into the lion’s den, knowing what fate waited for her if Crow found out. She’s the one who’s been fucking with my head since she came into my life.
This is on her.
The blistering cold has seeped into my bones by the time I wake, and even though I’m tempted to go back to sleep, I need to move around.