“Everything okay?” Bridget interrupts, drawing my attention back to her.
“Fine,” I grunt. “Just the new girl. She’s...”
“A little weird? I thought so too. But I heard from Marcy, apparently she’s one of those girls on the news. You know, the escaped ones from the Vodka Room. Crazy, right?”
“Uh… yeah. Crazy.”
Bridget laughs as if I’ve said something funny. The sound should make me feel good.
But I’m still more distracted by the girl who’s occupied most of my last twenty-four hours. She had the fucking audacity to bump into me like she did. Other times she’s making it explicitly clear she wants nothing to do with me.
Just what the fuck is Jhene Prince’s problem anyway?
It’s the question that stays on my mind for the rest of the night.
I check in with Tom to see how she did while I was away.
Apparently, Jhene really was a good girl and behaved herself. She claimed she felt so bad for what happened to Tom’s pub that she wanted to help make it right by cleaning up the mess herself.
As I spend much of the night watching her from my favorite booth, I admit she’s good at pretending. She acts like nothing horrific happened last night and as if she isn’t some runaway wanted by the Bratva.
But the more I keep tabs on her, the more I’m convinced my first impression was right.
There’s more to Jhene Prince than meets the eye, and the girl is obviously trouble.
Even if it’s not her fault the Bratva are after her, she hasn’t helped her situation. She’s brought a fuckton of other problems by refusing to accept the NYPD’s help and by entrenching herself at an Irish pub known for mob ties.
Whether she’s meant to is irrelevant, but she’s potentially set off a war between the two crime syndicates.
Maybe the right thingwouldbe to wash my hands of the situation. Let the girl handle her own damn problems and be done with it.
By midnight, I’m still torn.
Tom’s herding stragglers toward the door and wiping down the bar a final time. Jhene starts stackingchairs on tables, her movements stiff and slow as if she’s running on fumes.
I push myself out of the booth and make my way over to her.
“Time to go,” I grunt.
She spares me no look. “It’s okay, Killer. I’ve got it. I’m sleeping withtwoknives under my pillow this time.”
“You’re not staying overnight at the pub.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
We both look over at the third voice jumping into the conversation.
It’s Tom, who’s come out from behind the bar counter. He wipes his hands on the same rag he’s used a hundred times tonight and shakes his head in apology.
“Sorry, but the risk is too great, kid. You’re a hard worker and you’ve got guts. But I’m not risking the Bratva coming back here and destroying my pub a second time. Do you have any idea what my insurance premiums are gonna look like if the damage gets worse?”
“I can handle myself?—”
“You can keep your job,” Tom continues, ignoring her protests. “For now, at least. But the pub is a place of business. Not a hotel. You can’t stay here overnight. That’s my final word on it.”
Jhene’s mouth hangs open as if she wants to argue but once again chooses to let her nonverbal cues do the work for her. It almost makes her look younger than her years, lost and desperate and completely out of options.
