Page 28 of Vipers and Vendettas

I hear a creak behind me, and I whirl around with a gasp, but there’s no one there.

I shiver, suddenly cold and realizing I never changed out of my work clothes. The clock says it’s five. Is there really any point in going back to bed? I could just get up and go to the club to clean it early. Then I can swing by Jack’s and find out why he called me in the middle of the night.

I put the kettle on and rummage around for the teabags, finding that there’s only one left. That means going to the special British store downtown. I guess I could do that today.

I make my tea and grab the hollow money book, intending to count out the rent and see how much I have for the week, but when I open it, there’s nothing in it.

It takes me longer than it should to comprehend. Where the hell is my money? There must have been over two grand in there. My movements are frantic as I tip the book in case it has somehow been caught in the pages. I let it fall as I go to the shelf, looking where the book was, pulling adjacent ones out. They, too, thud to the floor. I sink down slowly and put my head in my hands, everything suddenly too much.

I put my knees up to my chest and begin to sob. They wrack my chest, make my throat hurt.

I hear a rustle and look up.

The bills are on the floor by the coffee table. I lunge for them. They’re not lost!

Relief makes me sob harder, and I can’t stop. I pick myself up and sit hard on the couch, trying to will the tears away, but they won’t go. I’m at the end of my rope. I knew it was hard out here. But with the baby coming, too, and the way things went yesterday, how am I going to make this work? I can’t take any more jobs with Jack. It was too close. What if they’d got me? Jellybean? The thought makes my stomach pitch, and still crying, I run for the bathroom, getting there just in time to throw up still-warm tea.

Afterward, I sit on the bathroom floor and stare at the floor.

‘What am I going to do?’ I whisper.

‘Get up,’ I answer myself. ‘Put the money in the envelope and pay your rent. Then, get dressed and go do your job so Stephan doesn’t fire you.’

The tears dry up, and I stand, my breath hitching in little gasps in the aftermath of my upset. I wash my face again and go back to the coffee table. I feel like I’m on autopilot as I count out the money with shaky hands and put it in the envelope with my apartment number on it. My landlord is only next door, so I take it over then and there, slipping it under his door. I don’t want to forget and give him a reason to evict me. The pixie dude seemed okay at first, but last month I was a day late, and he threatened to toss me out on my ass and then made a vague and super ick reference to me paying him ‘another way’.

No, thank you!

I go back into my apartment, and as the door clicks closed, Daemon Fucking Mackenzie materializes in front of me.

I scream, immediately turning to re-open it and run, but he grabs me and turns me back to face him, keeping me against the door.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!

We stare at each other, and I try desperately to get myself together, to not cower like a prey animal, even though that’s exactly what I feel like I am right now.

Daemon is somehow larger than I remember. He looms over me. But, for once, he doesn’t seem to be angry, which throws me.

He should be furious after I made sure the rest of the clan knew what happened to him. He must have taken pains to make sure they didn’t find out, and I told them.

I glance past him at the remaining money littering the coffee table, and I stand up straighter, anger coursing through me instead.

‘It was you,’ I grind out. ‘The money. You took it to mess with me.’

He doesn’t deny it. In fact, he looks almost remorseful.

He saw my little breakdown. I look away, my traitorous lip quivering.

‘Damn you for being here for that,’ I whisper.

He backs up a step, giving me some room to breathe.

‘We need to talk,’ he says.

‘Do the others know I’m here?’

‘Not yet. I found you first.’

He sounds proud of that fact.