“I’m here for moral support. That’s not good enough for you?”
She always laughed and shook her head. But she never complained about my presence so I kept going. Tonight I was running super late. Eva had called a last minute meeting with the group helping me take out the list. She finally informed them about the information I got from Arthur and asked if they wanted to do a timeline push. None of them seemed concerned—so what if a few criminals went missing? That was a wild take for three guys who supposedly cared abouteveryonein the city, but what did I know? I was just their loaded gun.
Violet had already taken care of her latest attempted mugger and was asking her usual question.
“Are you going to freak out if I call the police?”
Only two had the same reaction as Arthur, the rest were confused about why she was asking.
“Fuck you, bitch.” He spit at her but she moved out of his range.
“That was unnecessary.”
She drove her heel into the side of his head to knock him out while she pulled out her phone. Damn, she was beautiful when she was violent.
“Fucking gross, I hate saliva,” she mumbled before she raised the phone to her ear.
I hung back in my shadows. Usually, I’d wait for her around the corner while the police took her statement anyway, so this wasn’t much different. Okay, it was a little different because I used my shadows to hear the other side of the conversation. What? I was curious.
“Nine-one-one, do you need fire, police, or ambulance?”
“Police.”
“One moment.” There was a brief pause then a new voice came on the line, “Nine-one-one police. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“Kelsey! Hey! I thought you were off today?”
It wasn’t uncommon for Violet to recognize the voice of the operator taking her calls, but I’d never heard her this excited. They must be friends outside of just phone calls.
“Oh hey, V! I was. Got asked to come in for a couple hours, you know how it is.”
“Do I ever.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m at the corner of 45thand 48th. Some dumbass tried to take my wallet and spit on me. Ugh. Sorry still not over it. I hated that. Could you send someone my way?”
“Sure thing! You good to wait? O’Neill saw your name but he’s about ten minutes out, I can send someone closer.”
Violet smiled. “It’s a nice night. I’ll hang out.”
Who the fuck was O’Neill, and why was she smiling like that?
“Perfect. Him and Castle are on the way.”
“Cool. I’ll let you get back to saving people.”
“You’re actually my last call. I don’t want to leave you hanging but I do want to head out. Can I call you back on my cell?”
“Sure. I’d love the company.”
“Excellent, one sec.” She hung up and called back thirty seconds later. “That’s better. Now we can talk without the recorded line.”
“What are we talking about that can’t be discussed on a recorded line?” Violet grinned.
“Chris.”
“Ugh, he’s relentless.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I don’t understand why he’d make up such a dumb excuse to skip out on our date if he was going to be like this after.”
“Girl, when he told me, I was sure it was an excuse too, but his car really was destroyed. And there were ice shards everywhere.”
Violet scrunched up her nose.
