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“Yeah?”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
I squinted at him. “Meaning…”
“It’s really hard to sell a house that has a tenant in it who won’t budge. Doesn’t even need to be a legal tenant. Squatters can’t be forcibly removed without notice either.”
He had a point. I was supposed to have coughed up my late rent or moved out two weeks ago. I was still there and would be until the landlord took me to court and I was forcibly removed. I pressed up onto my toes and kissed my bestie’s psychopath on the cheek. “You’re a genius.”
He blushed pink. “It might buy you some time.”
I was being evicted anyway, so what did I have to lose? All I had to do was find a time that Vaughn wasn’t home, find a way inside, and make myself comfy.
I smiled to myself just imagining his outrage.
Rebel
You’ll regret that.
Vaughn
That another murder threat, Roach?
Rebel
No threat. Just a promise. See you soon, big brother.
11
REBEL
I packed everything I could fit into my little car. Clothes. A TV. My five-year-old laptop that desperately needed replacing. Sheets and blankets. The two barely living houseplants I neglected on a regular basis. My gun that I was definitely not giving back to the guy downstairs. It all got shoved into the trunk or the back seat, until the car was laden down with everything I cared about.
I wouldn’t bother with my bulky furniture. Most of it had been picked up off the side of the road anyway and was in dire need of being sent to the dump.
In my half-empty apartment, my fingers hovered over the three square Polaroid photos I’d taken of my injuries. They’d been shot the morning after it had happened and showed the worst of what Caleb and his friends had done to me. I hadn’t done it for the police. I knew there was no going to them.
I’d taken them for myself.
So I’d have a constant reminder of what happened when you let your guard down.
Part of me wanted to rip them up and throw them out, but a bigger part knew it was a lesson I needed to remember. So they got shoved into the final box too.
On my last trip down the stairs, I gave the middle finger to my landlord’s closed door. He could get rid of the rest of my stuff. I wasn’t coming back for it.
I drove into Providence, excitement licking through me with every turn I made. Bliss had gone bug-eyed when I’d told her the plan. She’d tried to convince me to let her help, but she was not the right person for the job. I was essentially breaking and entering, and she would have been a bundle of nerves on the seat beside me, worrying that we were breaking the law.
This sort of thing made me feel alive though. I lived for the thrill of it, and the prospect of wiping the smug look off Vaughn’s face was enough to have me bouncing on my seat with excitement.
Maybe I’d still end up on Bliss’s couch when he kicked me out and barred the doors. But at least I’d have a new story to tell my grandkids one day. Or Bliss’s grandkids. I wasn’t sure kids would ever be in the cards for me. I refused to have a baby the way my mom had. If any baby was in my future, I first needed a stable relationship. My chances of that happening, after not one decent boyfriend in the past fifteen years, seemed slim.
I’d be fine though. I had great friends. A job I loved. Hopefully a big-ass house to lounge around in. I wanted to clap my hands in glee.
I parked my car a few houses down from Bart’s aging mansion and settled in to watch. There was a truck sitting to the left of the house with O’Malley’s Handyman Services printed on the side, but it was too late for a tradesman to still be there.
The only other vehicle was a sleek black motorcycle parked on the circular drive, right up close to the door.
Judging from the helmet Vaughn had carried when we’d met at the hotel restaurant, the bike was his. So, if I just waited for it to leave…