He smirks at me. “You really think you can take us all?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Leaving the cigarette between my lips, he flinches when I reach into my pocket and pull out my leather gloves.
“Relax, big man. My gun is on my left hip and there’s only one bullet in there.” I slide on the gloves and step back a pace. “You’re six-seven, right?” He remains stoic as I drape my handkerchief over the top of Alice’s headstone. “You don’t need to see this, princess.”
“Just quit with the games and come with us,” the bald guy warns. He looks confused that I don’t move when he pulls out brass knuckles. “I don’t wanna do this here.”
“Wow,” I snicker, biting down on the filter. “Lurch has respect for the dead. Maybe you should have thought about that before you showed up at a cemetery with shit on your shoes.”
He frowns and looks down at his feet. “Too easy!”
Coiling my right arm behind me, I swing a solid hook straight into his jaw. The crunch of bone echoes across the gardens and I watch the light dim in his eyes. He falls in slow motion, his forehead smashing into Alice’s headstone.
Blood splatters across my handkerchief, and I hear the heavy breath of his colleague as he runs at me. Using my foot to roll the bald guy’s body away from the grave, I grab my handkerchief and crack my shoulders.
“One down,” I sigh.
Stepping past the graves, I drag on my cigarette and walk toward the guy running at me. As soon as he’s close enough, he raises his fat fists, but I send my foot crashing into his knee. His leg snaps like a tree branch.
As he rolls and screams on the floor, I step over him and march toward the car. The driver panics and I see him reach for something.
Smashing my hand through the window, I snatch the keys from the ignition and press the metal against his eye.
“Gun,” I tell him, smoke billowing from my mouth. “That’s if you ever want to see again.”
The guy lifts both hands and drops the pistol out of the window.
“Good boy,” I say as the guy behind me stops screaming. “Didn’t work out too well for them, did it?” He shakes his head, wincing as the key grazes his eyeball. “Who sent you?” He doesn’t answer, so I press the key a little firmer. “Who sent you?”
“Some guy called Bryan,” he squeals in the same accent. “Bryan Stanfield. He paid us.”
That sniveling fucking rat.
“Why?” I snap.
“Some girl!” he yells. “Harper something. He said she was his girl and you were fucking her. He paid us to follow you. We saw you at her house. Then he paid us more for…you know.”
“You’re going to pass two messages on to Bryan for me.” I wipe my bloody knuckles along his door. I throw his keys into the back seat and pull off my gloves. “The bad news is that he made a huge mistake today. And the good news is…”
I smirk and pat his head. “He’ll never get to make another bad mistake. Now you tell him I’ll see him real soon. Oh, and you have a flat tire.”
The guy leans his head out of the window as I step back. “No I don’t?”
Pulling out my gun, I fire a single shot into the wheel.
“You do now,” I say, throwing my lit cigarette into his lap. “See ya.”
Kicking his gun under his car, I make my way back to my Aston Martin.
“Who the hell are you?” the driver yells as I pull open my door.
“Who, me?” I shout. “I’m Mr. Invisible! Tell Bryan I’m coming for him.”
Sitting down, I start the ignition and grab the wheel.
The guy in the Range Rover rolls forward before jumping out to grab his gun.
He picks it up and points at me, closing one eye as his finger hooks against the trigger.
Glancing up at Alice’s grave, I bite my lip.
“Sorry I didn’t keep my promise,” I whisper out to her memory. “Trouble follows me around. She’ll be safer if I’m dead.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I lock eyes on the driver and lean over my steering wheel.
Then I tap at the center of my forehead.
“Right. Here,” I mime as his finger squeezes the trigger.
It’s not just a cliché. I’ve faced death a dozen times, and everything I’ve ever done flashes before my eyes.
But this time is different.
This time, the only thing I can think about is Harper’s blue eyes and the promise I made to her mother.
“I don’t break promises,” I hiss, slamming my foot on the accelerator.
The whites of the driver’s eyes grow like moons as I swerve past him.
“Not today,” I whisper, slapping the steering wheel. “Not today.”
Then I grab my phone from the seat and press it to my ear.
“Hey, Boss. Everything okay?” Gary asks.
I glance in the mirror as the terrified driver slumps to his knees.
“No. Tell me where Bryan fucking Stanfield is. Now.”
TWENTY
Harper
“Find anything you like?” Maria asks, walking into her bedroom with a plate of hot dogs.
I’m rummaging through her closet, but nothing seems suitable.
We have an alumni gala to attend this evening. I really don’t want to go, but I also need to do something that doesn’t involve artwork, study, or sitting in my room.
I grab the black dress and spin to face her. “How about this?”
“I wore that to my grandmother’s funeral last year, Harps. It’s a bit…grim.”
Sighing, I replace the hanger and slump down into the beanbag next to her computer. “I feel grim.”
“So dramatic,” she says, biting down on a hot dog as she stares through her bedroom window.
“Are they still out there?” I ask.
“Yup,” she says. “What’s it like being so famous you have your own Secret Service detail? You’re like Princess Diana.” Maria sits down on her bed and grimaces. “Sorry. Bad example.”
Chris has barely spoken a word to me in the last three days. Ever since we almost had sex in my laundry room, he’s just beenacting so weird. One-word responses, not leaving the house, leaving food outside my bedroom door.
And he’s so on edge. He’s sleeping on my sofa with a gun, and I can hear him pacing the lounge all night.
He also has three guys following me around in a black SUV. College, the park, now Maria’s house. They’re everywhere. He won’t tell me why he’s doing this. All he says is that I have totrust him.
What’s weird is that I kind ofdotrust him, which makes no sense to the rational part of my brain.
His behavior and all the things I’ve seen him do since he walked into my life should make me want to stay away from him. But I don’t. If anything, it’s hurting me that he’s so closed off now.
“I told you I wasn’t hungry,” I say, pointing at the three remaining hot dogs on the plate.
Maria frowns. “I know. These are for me.”
Incredible. “So, did it feel big?”
“What?” I ask.
“The silver fox’s man-brain.”
I cringe when I think about waking up with my hand on his groin three days ago. But then the beanbag crackles under me as I squirm at the dream that preceded it.
“Inappropriate question,” I mumble. “And yes. So big. But I don’t want to think about my dad’s best friend’s dick for another second. It’s bad enough that I offered myself on a plate like
I’m the sex freak. Our idea was stupid.”
Maria stops chewing. “Don’t blame Operation Seduction! It wasn’t part of the plan to leave the evidence lying around. I still can’t believe you did that. Remind me never to rob banks with you. You’d be a terrible criminal.”
“Is that a bad thing?” I say.
“Dunno. Why couldn’t a hot leather daddy move in with me? Some girls get all the luck.”
I sigh as I stare at the pile of dresses on her floor. “I don’t feel lucky. I feel…frustrated.”
“Yeah,” she giggles. “You need a Magic Wand. That’ll sort you out in no time. They just do whatever you want, and you can lock him in a drawer once you’re satisfied. Be cool if they let us do that to guys.”
Nope. I need the real thing. And it needs to belong to my dad’s best friend.
“You think he’s coming to the alumni gala tonight, Harps? I so want to chat with my best friend’s sugar daddy again.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.