Page 49

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AUbrY

By the time I pull up to her door, it hits me.

I just wasted eight hours. The time passed with us talking about nothing important, or with her sleeping beside me as we wound through the mountains.

Rather than dwell on the Brassicas’ offer, I lost myself in the music of her slumbering breaths to drown out the last twenty-four hours.

But we’re here, and I’m out of time.

I reach for the gear shift and freeze. All I have to do is put it in park, let her out, say goodbye. I tap my fingers on the lever.

Or, I could put it in reverse. Peel out. Run with her and Astin. Forge a new life where we’re always hunted by people with connections to the Vatican and Del Monte.

“I got you home,” I mumble, cranking the car into park. It jerks a bit after I move my foot. Mr. Oli didn’t exactly loan me a Ferrari. They’re probably watching right now.

Sadie’s haunted. She may not be thinking about it, or even aware now, but it’ll hit her. Probably once she gets into the shower to wash the blood away. How she nearly died. How she risked her life by trying to save mine.

How I have to let her go.

“What time is it?” she asks.

“Seven-thirteen.”

She gazes back at the house as if she can see through the door. “My roommate’s probably making pancakes.”

“Have you ever had them with cardamom?”

“No? Is it any good?”

“Fantastic. I like to add a dollop of applesauce to help…sweeten the…” I knock my fist against the console separating us. It could be an ocean for how wide the gap is growing.

“Can I ask you something?”

Here it comes. What am I going to do? Shall I accept the offer and become a mafia don myself? Take over control of Crudité, become obscenely wealthy, attend Raiders games with other men who smoke cigars because no one tells them what to do?

Or do I run? Do I keep dodging, living each day not knowing when the scope will find me, when the knife will sink in?

It’s not much of a choice.

“Go ahead,” I say, bracing myself.

“What did you do to Derek?”

“Huh?”

“Derek, my old…” She brushes her palm against her throat and shivers. “The one I told you about. He came here.”

“He did what?” I thunder, jerking up so fast, the top of my head smacks the roof. “That bastard doesn’t learn.”

“My roommate tased him, then pepper-sprayed his eyes.”

Really? I only thought of the woman in Sadie’s house as a flower-thieving ghost. “Good.”

“He was really mad though. I just wondered what you did.”

“I…” My lips seal, not wanting to tell her.

But maybe it’s better if she knows the kind of man I am.

There isn’t a noble bone in my body. If a man hurts me or the ones I love, I destroy them down to the atom.

“I set up a tripwire so he’d hang himself.

He wouldn’t die, but he’d be trapped there, all night, balancing on the tips of his toes knowing that if he made one wrong move… he’d choke to death.”

Her soft gasp is the only response.

“It takes eight minutes to strangle a person. Eight, long hard minutes staring them in the face. For a person to take glee in that…” I didn’t relish the dark sides of my job, but I know Derek’s type. A man who lives to hurt those he considers beneath him.

A man like Mr. Ato.

“I guess I’m not the only monster in this world.”

I close my eyes and lean back against the headrest. The soft rush of traffic flowing back into the city is all I hear. I wait for the thud of the door opening and her feet carrying her away.

“He had it coming.”

My eye cracks open, and I turn to Sadie. Instead of fretting about the state of a man who tried to kill her, fire burns in her eyes. “I wish I’d…” She licks her lips and snickers. “I wish I could have been there to watch.”

I fully sit up and twist to her. “Sadie?” I traipse my fingers agains her cheek, surprised at how warm it is as I guide her to look at me. She places her hand behind mine and leans into my palm.

“Is that what you did for the Nightshades? Find bad men and give them a taste of karma’s justice?”

“No.” I did what was told of me, as we all did. It was a job.

“What’s stopping you now?”

Her question hits me harder than Green’s fist. “I…I don’t know.” The Brassicas for one. The cops for another.

“I went to the police six times. They kept telling me they couldn’t do anything until Derek did something really bad to me.

But by then I’d be dead.” Her hands start to tremble.

I catch one to help calm her down when I realize her lip isn’t quivering in fear, nor her eyes tightening with panic.

She’s enraged. “You’re the only one to ever do to him what he did to me.

Not the cops, not the courts. You. I wish I could have been there… to help.”

Fuck. I strain across the console, hold her cheek, and kiss her.

Rather than melt in my grip, she returns it with a fiery passion.

I tousle with her tongue, my palm roaming down her chest to tug off her shirt.

“Sadvhi…” I moan, ready to pull her into my lap and fuck her right there in front of suburbia.

She slips away. Fingers brush down my sideburns as her dreamy eyes roll open. “What are you going to do?”

Run. Come with me. Be my runaway princess. I will torture any man who so much as looks at you cross. We can flee before Mr. Oli or the Brassicas realize what’s happening. Just you, me, and Astin—together.

And if they catch her first? If they torture her to get to me?

All my rebel dreams fade to my waking nightmare. “I have to go back.”

She nods like she already knows what’s coming. There isn’t a choice, not really. They love to dangle the illusion of one to make the inevitable feel hopeless. “Okay.” Her door opens.

The sound sends me scrambling for her. My hand glances off her shoulder, but she’s already moving on. My fingers drift through her hair as she slips away. Rather than clench tight, I open them and let her go.

“Give me five minutes,” she says, then shuts the door.

Every step of her foot carrying her away from me is a nail to my heart, but I can’t turn my head. I watch, as much in agony as protection, until she slips into the house. She’s gone.

That’s what I want, right?

As long as she’s not near me, she’s safe. My life can’t hurt her. I can’t hurt her.

It’s a good thing.

It’s a good thing.

I reach my finger into the cat carrier only for enraged fangs to puncture my skin. Even as Astin takes his pound of flesh, I whisper, “It’s a good thing.” When my blood sacrifice isn’t enough, he stares up at me, yellow eyes pleading.

“I’m sorry, buddy. I know you liked her. Me too. I…” A terrifying thought takes hold. If she was any other woman, would I have risked my life to go back for her? Would I tear my heart out to save her by leaving forever? “Fuck. I love her.”

There it was. The story of my life. The second I found a place, a home, love, it was torn from me. My parents, my grandfather, even the Nightshades. Maybe I just wasn’t meant for this. Eggplants don’t come in pairs, after all. I’m an idiot for thinking…

Wait.

“What did she mean by five minutes?”

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SADIE

Where in the hell did I put it?

I yank open the closet door only for the entire thing to heave like a trash monster is going to spring out and yank me inside. Nope! I slam the door and turn my back on it.

Maybe I can use my blanket instead.

After shoving all my journals and a plate I keep forgetting to wash to the floor, I drop a mess of shirts into the middle. Socks. I need socks.

A knock at the door nearly pulls me from my mission, but I’m hellbent on gathering up all I can. “Um…”

My door rattles open to a bewildered Aubry standing nervously just outside. “What are you doing?” he asks, staring at me like I’m mad.

I look to the pile of unfolded clothes, then grab the ends of my makeshift bundle. “Packing.”

“For what?”

After sealing off my bundle with an old shoelace, I lean back and smile. “For Vegas.”

His eyes bug out in shock. “What? Really? You…? Are you saying—?”

“You didn’t think I’d let you go on your own? You need me.”

Okay, he’s a big, scary mobster who can shatter skulls with his bare fists. I know how to use a camera. He doesn’t need me at all. He can become the don Juan of vegetables without me having to lift a finger. But I really hope he wants me as much as I want him.

Aubry steps into my room. “You’re right.” He sweeps a palm over my hip, pulling himself to me and me to him. “I need you,” he damn near groans in my ear. “I want you.”

Curling his hand under my chin, he lifts my head back until I’m straining on my toes to reach him. “I love you,” Aubry whispers before kissing me. Deep. Hard. Unending.

He takes my lips and refuses to let go.

I press my body to his, my blood pounding at the throb of his cock rising against my stomach.

“I need to love you,” he groans, then hefts me off my feet and hurls me onto my stripped bed through my mess of clothes. I bounce off the mattress and right against him. Aubry dives over me, pinning me down. “I love to want you. Tell me you want me. That you’re mine. That I’m yours. Please.”

That little plea tears through his panting as the purple fire quenches for a second. I rough my hand over his cheek, my heart swelling as much as the bulge pressing against my belly. With tears budding in my eyes, I whisper in his ear, “You better fucking be.”

A knowing smile is his response. Nuzzling my neck, Aubry pulls at my tacky shirt then reaches for the drawstring on my pants.

I moan, running my palms over his body as it flexes to follow my touch.

Maybe this is a stupid idea. I’ve had quite a few in my life.

But when faced with returning to my shitty little job in my tiny town alone, taking on the mob while being devoured by the hottest man in the world doesn’t sound so bad.

Aubry reaches for my panties, nearly tearing them off, and I sit up.

“Damn it!” I grunt and try to wiggle out.

“What is it?” he asks, breathless and concerned but willing to flip to the side.

I get a foot to the floor. “I forgot to pack my underwear.”

A dark laugh rises around me. He takes my wrist and pulls me back under him. As I sink beneath his imposing body, he whispers against my lips. “You’ll never need panties again.”