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I took myself back out to her living room, noticing the new drapes that she had pulled closed, the alarmed door stopper right next to the door, and the little can of pepper spray now attached to her purse.
She was being careful.
But being careful wasn’t going to be good enough when you were up against a criminal organization who wanted you hurt or dead.
I sat there, trying to figure out how to break the news to her that I knew I needed to.
She couldn’t stay here.
At the very least, she had to leave this apartment. Though, ideally, she would leave Brooklyn. Hell, even the city as a whole.
She said she didn’t have any family or friends here. It wouldn’t be a huge hardship for her to leave.
Sure, it would cost money, but she seemed like she was doing okay for herself. Better to spend a few grand to take herself across the country and out of the reach of the Bratva. There were plenty of other big cities for her to live in.
I had a whole speech worked out in my head by the time I saw her door inch open an hour and a half later.
She looked like hell.
The migraine had left her eyelids puffy like she’d been crying for hours, and that bruise on her face had spread and darkened into shades of maroon and violet.
“Hey,” she said, voice small.
“Hey. How’s your head?”
“Tolerable,” she said, giving me a small smile as she moved over to sit in one of the chairs. “Thanks for staying,” she said. “And finding Kevin.”
“Kevin found you,” I told her. “I think he was probably hiding under your bed until you climbed into it.”
“That makes sense. That’s where he was most of the day when I first moved him in here. How’s this looking?” she asked, reaching up to gently probe the bruise on her cheek, wincing at the pain she caused.
“It’s gotten a lot darker.”
“I guess I have some research to do on what kind of makeup will cover it up before work tomorrow.”
“Elizabeth, you can’t go to work tomorrow.”
“I have to.”
“No, you need to leave.”
“Leave work?”
“No. Yes. Work. This apartment. Brooklyn. You need to leave.”
“I can’t just… leave. My whole life is here,” she insisted, posture going rigid.
She was going to dig her heels in about this.
“Why not? You don’t like your boss.”
“No,” she admitted. “But if I just leave, he gets to get away with what he’s doing. And so do they.”
“It’s not your responsibility to make these people pay for what they’re doing.”
“If not me, who?” she asked, gaze hard. “No one else knows what I know. No one has access to the senator like I do. He almost told me tonight. If we didn’t get interrupted, I know he was going to talk to be about it. And I had my phone recording. It was almost a done deal.”
“That’s where you’re wrong here. This is never going to be a done deal. No matter how solid your evidence is against your boss, that isn’t going to stop the Bratva.”