Page 63 of The Wicked

“I don’t.”

“Are we bickering?”

He stared at me blankly for a while before confusion settled on his face. “What?”

“That’s what friends do, right? They bicker. They fight. They argue, but at the end of the day, they circle back and talk about the issue like mature, levelheaded adults.”

His jaw clenched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I sighed. “I need us to work together to get Edoardo off our back and turn this whole thing into another one of our favors. That can’t happen if you are secretly plotting my murder.”

He scoffed, muttering something incoherent under his breath.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” he continued. “You have your fast-thinking, problem-solving underboss right where you need him. I don’t know why we’re having this conversation.”

“You—” I stopped when I spotted a familiar head of pink hair at one of the tables with a stranger, talking animatedly. “Isthere a reason why Milk from Street is only a few tables away from us?” I asked, and my question brought a frown to Casmiro’s face.

He started turning. “What—” He stopped when he spotted her too. He turned back to me and stopped short again, his eyes zeroing in on the entrance. “Not just her.”

I followed his line of vision and saw Dog walking into the building. A lit cigarette was between his fingers as he looked around, not once glancing at our table before heading to the counter.

I frowned when I saw Elia’s figure right outside the building. He was leaning on a sleek white 2014 Chevrolet Impala, wearing a black jacket and jeans, talking to Upper, who was pointing at a building by the side of a mini mall, explaining something to Elia, who just stared at him with boredom or disinterest; I couldn’t quite place it.

My eyes swept from them, and I looked around forher,but she wasn’t inside the building or outside.

“What the fuck is going on with our damn security?” Casmiro asked in wonder.

About to look at Casmiro, I caught a figure approaching from the end of the street outside the glass window.

Her short hair was pushed back by sunglasses, and she chewed gum mercilessly as she walked. She was wearing a sleeveless shirt that didn’t cover her navel and shorts that were too short and made it seem like she had long legs.

Her skin was exposed to the sun—clear and glowing like she had spent extra hours caring for it before leaving her house. She looked like a foreigner who left her travel crew to shop around for items she could use in decorating her room back in Los Angeles, where she probably lived in a studio apartment with a boyfriend who hadgigsat low-rated bars in town. The tote bag she carried played off the role so well.

I blinked, unable to take my eyes off her as she walked past Elia and Upper like they were random strangers. The people inquestion didn’t even glance her way as she entered the restaurant, turning heads.

She took the gum from her mouth and threw it in the waste bin closest to her, and I cringed at the carelessness of her actions.

As Dog had done, she looked around, but this time, her eyes landed directly on our table, a determined smile curling at her lips as she walked towards us.

She reached us. “Oh—”

I got to my feet and placed my hand around her wrist. Before she could even start the sentence, I was pulling her away.

She yelled over her shoulder, “Hi, Cassie, bye, Cassie!”

I pushed past the door to the back room of the restaurant. Having glanced at the layout of the building in the car, I set my pace for the second door on the left, pushed it open, and shoved her inside, her back hitting the wall.

I locked the door behind me and turned.

She was looking at me with surprise, and that was when I realized the room wasn’t exactly as large as the layout had shown, but it was big enough to put a five-foot space between us.

“Wow,” she said breathlessly, leaning away from the wall. “Talk about taking me back to high school.”

“You never went to high school.”

“That’s a very keen observation,Dad.Thanks for reminding me that I had a pretty shitty childhood.”

“Don’t call me that.”