Maybe I got lucky and the person I end up with is legitimately one of the good ones. Even if he does work for the Brunos.
Immediately, a cold feeling washes over me. But I can’t think about that right now. Mob ties or not, my dad made a deal. And Clayton is that deal.
Huffing a breath, I roll over and bat away the covers so I can reach for his hard, warm body. But he’s not here. His side of the bed is cold, as if he’s been gone for a while.
“Clayton?”
Sitting up, I realize it’s still fully dark outside. Grappling for my phone, I check the time. Four a.m. I’ve been dead asleep for about three hours.
“Clayton?” I try again, louder this time.
There’s no response. My pulse picks up as the silence in the room envelops me. I turn on the lamp beside the bed and get up, dragging a blanket around myself and walking down the hall to the bathroom to see if he’s there. The door is open, the light is off. Okay.
The living room and kitchen are dark and empty, too. I flick on lights as I wander through the house, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. He’s gone. He just…left. Without a word or a note or a text or anything. Where the hell did he go in the middle of the night? Why did he leave me here alone?
Back in the bedroom, I quickly get dressed and half-ass make the bed. Then I grab my jacket and my bag and sink onto the couch, unsure if I should dial an Uber or wait. Ripples of anxiety go through me. I don’t know what to do. Should I try calling him? Why am I thinking twice about it? Of course I should call and see if he’s okay.
Maybe something happened.
Logically, I know this might be nothing. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good, rational reason for Clayton to have disappeared in the wee hours of the morning, as he’d say. But on the other hand, he is involved with the mob—and that leaves a lot of room for shady shit to happen. It comes with the territory.
Hugging myself hard, I lean back into the couch cushions. Checking my phone again, heart pounding, I try to figure out what to do. Problem solving is something that usually comes naturally to me, because it’s part of who I am at my father’s house. I’m the fixer. I solve the problems, keep the wolves from the door, and make sure things are running as smoothly as they possibly can with my father jabbing empty beer bottles in the spokes of my wheel. But this is a whole new problem and a whole new set of circumstances, and I have no idea how to tackle any of it. A man is missing…a man that I may or may not care about.
Should I call the cops?
I bolt upright at the thought. No. I can’t. Clayton wouldn’t want me to do that, right? He’s not technically a missing person, just a…a…
The front door creaks open, pulling a shriek from my throat. The light turns on, revealing Clayton standing in the small entryway.
He’s covered in blood! Jumping to my feet, I rush to him with a frantic urgency I’ve never felt before. “Oh my God. What the hell happened?”
Pulling at his jacket, I open the edges to see beneath, lifting his shirt and scouting for injuries. It’s a lot of blood. A lot, a lot. Bile burns in my throat. His hair is matted with it, the side of his face and neck streaked. I’m so busy looking for a wound that I don’t immediately feel him take my wrists. He lowers my hands and pierces me with a look.
My heart is beating so fast, I can barely draw breath to form words. “You need a doctor.”
Clayton shakes his head. His expression is devoid of emotion but there’s quiet apology in his eyes. He blinks. Silence spools between us and then I realize…it’s not his blood.
“You’re not injured, are you?” I whisper.
Pulling my hands away, I take a tiny step back.
Shaking my head, I add, “This is someone else’s blood, isn’t it?”
His throat moves as he swallows and for a second, I don’t think he’s going to answer me. He brushes past me and heads for the bathroom, leaving the door open as he steps into the shower and begins to undress.
“One thing you’ll have to learn and abide by is to not ask questions,” he tells me. “There’s not much I’ll ask of you, Charlie, but this is non-negotiable.”
Don’t ask questions. Sounds like living with my dad all over again.
“You’re covered in someone else’s blood. How can I not ask questions?”
“Because knowing too much is a death sentence for you. Understand? My work is off-limits. Where I go, what I do, who I’m with—you can’t know any of it.”
His work. Of course.
He’s what they call an enforcer, then—a fucking butcher. And Jesus, he killed someone tonight. Crept out of bed in the middle of the night and killed someone. Just like that.
Mob connections are a tangled web. I’m not blind to what’s happened in my own house with the deals and bets and loans my father’s made with some very questionable people. He’s been dabbling with the mob probably since before I was born. Hell, this whole arrangement with Clayton and me is tied up in mob shit. But it doesn’t mean I can handle it. Or that I want to.
