Page 70 of Champagne & Handcuffs

“Nothing physically, but he’s the only one I saw that was involved in everything I went through tonight.”

“You don’t know what the guy looks like that bought you?”

“No,” she whispered.

“That’s a good thing, Kitty Cat.”

“I know. That’s why I did it, but I still see Tony.”

“Tony’s no longer breathing, baby. He ain’t gonna hurt you or Joss again.”

We were silent again, and I knew by the way she was breathing that Cat wasn’t falling asleep.

“I have an Ambien. You want to take it?”

She nodded.

“I’ll be back.”

After I ran down the stairs to grab a glass of water, I went back up and grabbed a pill from the bottle. I had a prescription because there were nights I couldn’t sleep because of what I saw in my line of work. Tonight would be one of those nights, too. I’d replay everything over and over and over again. I’d think about how things could have gone wrong. How Cat could be the one dead and not Tony and some pimp.

And I’d think about how, if it were any other trafficker, that Cat would still be missing.

“How is she?”Joss asked, walking into the kitchen with Paul.

I looked to the stairs that led to Joss’s bedrooms and where Cat was currently sleeping. “Gave her an Ambien and that put her to sleep.”

They sat in front of me at the kitchen table where I was nursing a glass full of tequila on the rocks. After the night we had, they were lucky I was sharing the bottle and not drinking straight from it.

“Thank you.”

I looked up at Joss. “What?”

“If it wasn’t for both of you, I don’t think we would have—”

“We didn’t,” I corrected. “Your brother did.”

She swallowed. “I know. But if you weren’t there—”

“If I weren’t here, Cat would never have been kidnapped,” I snapped.

Joss blinked. “Why are you blaming yourself?”

I huffed and looked up at the stark white ceiling, shaking my head. I’d blame myself until the day I died because itwasme who watched her drive off in that yellow cab. “I put her in the taxi.”

“I thought—”

I righted my head. “We were going to tell you together. Tell you when all of this was over and we’d figured out how to be together.”

“Together?”

I took a deep breath. “I’ve loved her all my life.”

Paul nodded as though I’d confirmed what he already knew. He was probably dying to ask me. He struck me as that kind of guy who liked to be all up in everyone’s business.

“Yeah? I love her too,” Joss said.

Paul poured him and Joss a shot of the tequila.