Page 18 of Raziel

“So what? That don’t stop you from throwing yourself at me every chance you get. You’re childish. Selfish,” he said flatly. “Your sister went through hell for you. You almost ruined her life. And now you’re standing in a drug den like none of that ever happened. What happens if the police pull you and your stupid friend over?”

He pointed a finger to my temple. “You haveoptions, Maya. Use your fucking head.”

Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to let them fall. My chest rose and fell like it was on fire.

He kept deriding me. “You don’t care who you hurt. You’re so desperate to feel something.”

“Stop fucking telling me how I feel. I came to help a friend,” I snapped. “That’s it. That’s all. This ain’t who I am anymore.”

“Then act like it isn’t.”

He stared at me like I was nothing. Like I didn’t matter.

That hurt more than anything else.

The room felt tight.

My skin buzzed with anger. Hurt. Shame.

He turned toward the desk, pulled out his phone, and made a call.

“I need a pickup. Now. Warehouse on 8th. Take her straight home. No stops.”

I tried to speak, but he held up a hand.

“Don’t talk. Go the fuck home, Maya. And stay out of fucking trouble. Do somethingusefulwith your life.”

A few seconds later, there was a knock. He snatched the door open. One of his guys stood outside the door, waiting.

I wiped my face.

Walked past Raziel without looking back.

I didn’t say thank you.

Didn’t say sorry.

Didn’t say shit.

Because I’d done too much of that in my life already.

And fuck him.

This was the last time his ass got a chance to humiliate me.

Chapter six- Raziel

Two hours after she left the warehouse, I was parked outside Maya’s place.

The house she lived in was small, on the beach. A piece-of-shit shack with plants crowding the porch. Earthy shit. Wind chimes, driftwood hanging on strings, seashells piled in a bowl by the front step. Quiet.

I should’ve stayed in my bed.

I had too much shit to deal with. Alessia was busy playing the perfect fiancée in a house I didn’t want to be in anymore. I was working deals with street-level nobodies, trying to build something for my father-in-law’s future. Because everything I was doing only benefitted me on the surface.

My father had built me a legacy of my own in Italy—but it came with a stepmother he marriedthirteen daysafter my mother died, and a brother only two years older than me.

I didn’t have time for Maya’s shit.