Page 105 of Unruly

Catherine couldn’t have that.

She snapped her fingers twice. “Eyes on me, Brad. We’re conversing here.”

“Why would I ruin my connection?”

“Because I will ruin your life,” Catherine said with a smile. “So go on, tell me who she is.”

He chewed on his inner cheek, and bit more dark red trickled down from his nostril. Sad thing, cocaine. It literally rotted a person’s brain from the inside out. By this point, Brad was probably too far gone to reverse the damage he had done to his body.

“She was a girl that used to deliver for me a few girls ago,” Brad said. “She approached me in a club, asked if I would like a new arrangement …”

He trailed off with a cough, and again, looked away.

“Do you mean sex, too?”

He shrugged. “You have to work that high off somehow, right?”

“Which girl?”

“Evira Masters.”

Catherine recognized the name instantly. She had been a girl who came from Nothing, New York. Her issues and connections to a gang had spilled over into one of her cousin’s streets, and a deal was made. Catrina, always the opportunist, offered to take the girl under her wing.

That was a few years ago.

“You say a word to Evira that you saw me, or I approached you,” Catherine warned, “and every detail of our transactions will be leaked to People Magazine for their next issue … with receipts. Do you understand?”

Brad nodded.

Standing, Catherine whistled with two fingers. Instantly, Cece darted out from under a slide. There wasn’t even a wrinkle in her dress. Her daughter didn’t even look like she had played.

“Come on, baby,” Catherine called.

“What about my coke?” Brad asked. “Who the fuck is going to deliver to me?”

“Well, my price just went up where you’re concerned. But hey, you’ve got the number if you want a girl to make a drop, and you know how to work a phone.”

Miguel was already waiting with his hands out to take Cece from Catherine. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Yes, we do.”

Miguel shot her a confused look. Quick as a blink, he had Cece buckled into a car seat.

“We need to move,” Miguel said. “Now.”

Catherine didn’t think the problem she was talking about had anything to do with Miguel’s for some reason. “What happened?”

“Did you get a call in there?”

“Yeah, but I ignored it.”

“Figured.”

Miguel pulled his phone out of his pocket, turned it on, and then showed Catherine the screen. A text from Cross, it seemed. A picture of a picture. Her and Cece in Mexico just a couple of days earlier. At the ice-cream shop her daughter noticed on their first day.

“Someone’s following us,” Miguel said, “and they let your husband know it in a really shitty way.”

“What does that mean?”