Page 65 of Redd

“Didn't you hear her? She's not a kid anymore.” The tips of his fingers tickled gently over my skin, running up and down, barely touching the surface. “I find myself having a lot of conversations with her I don't think many people would with someone her age. She's pretty grown up, she kinda has to be.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, angling my head to see him better in the mirror.

I watched his eyes and how they dulled, losing some of the spark I had seen before. Hanging his head, he kept touching my leg. It was sensual and soft, a touch I might expect to see between a boyfriend and girlfriend.

We were far from that, only a few days into whatever kind of relationship you might call this. But it wasn't a loving, caring relationship. . .Was it?

My stomach stirred, fluttering with those damn butterflies that kept popping up when he was close.

Lifting his head back up, he shrugged his shoulder. “She's been through a lot, we've both been through a lot. And that changes you, even if you're a kid. Bad shit gets under your skin and you can't help but change with it.”

That's more true than I could have imagined.

But what's your story, Redd?

“What kind of shit?” Biting my tongue, I scrunched my nose. I didn't mean for the question to come out so bold. There was this twinge of desire to know it all. The good and the bad, anything and everything about the man who had come in and whisked me away.

Pulling his gaze from mine, he went back to looking at the store. “Shit that you can't take back.” Sitting up straight, his eyes turned to razors, glaring at something out the windshield.

“What is it? Do you see something?”

“I don't know, maybe.”

“Maybe? What do you mean, maybe?” Pushing up on my elbow, Redd threw his hand back and shoved me down.

“Stay down.”

“What the fuck do you see, Redd?”

“There's a guy sitting in a black SUV a few rows over. It looks like the same car those guys were driving that night.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I followed them to the house.”

“Wait, what?” Dropping my jaw, my eyes blinked wide open. “You followed Val and Dom?”

“Yes, I followed them.”

“Redd, what the hell were you thinking? I thought you ended up there by chance, like you made a mistake or something.”

“The only mistake I made was finding you instead of cash of jewelry.” Flicking his eyes back to the mirror, he said, “But it's a mistake I wouldn't change.”

What the hell is he talking about?

I thought about our conversation, and when he mentioned how he had been there looking for something.

Jewelry. . . Money? He thought he was going to go in there and find precious stones—

He had no fucking idea.

Redd failed to realize that he would have left his little scavenger hunt empty handed even if he hadn't found me. Diablo didn't have shit like that in his house, he never kept anything he treasured that close—except me.

He wasn't stupid, Diablo knew how to stay ahead of his enemies. But I was different. He kept me there to keep an eye on me, to have me at his beckoning call and to meet his needs when they took hold.

Money, jewelry, valuables—that shit was locked up tight in a bank vault.

Running my fingers across my forehead, I took in a deep breath. “There wasn't anything like that in that house, Redd.”