Page 48 of Pretty Lies

“You’re just like the rest of them—you don’t care to hear anything I want or think.”

That had him swinging back around.

Fast.

He took two steps toward her, that gaze of his still keen and sharp on her like he was absorbing what she said and thinking about it before he replied. Coming to a stop midway down the hall, he let out a hard sigh.

Reserved?

Over it?

Della didn’t know.

She was all of it and more, though.

Her mood couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t made any better by the fact that the man a few steps away from her in worn leather and ripped denim frustrated her to no end—had done so all damn day—and yet all she could think about right then was how good he looked.

She couldn’t even just be pissed. No, she had to feel all the other shit he had bubbling inside of her, too.

“Listen,” Cory said, never moving from his spot down the hall as he spoke, “you can be pissed all you want about whatever you have going on, but you’re still not leaving my place tonight. For one, because when the sun’s down, guys like Luis rage the worst. If he gets in some kind of mood tonight about what happened, we don’t need to make it easier for him to find you. For two, you got feelings about shit I can’t help—clearly—but at the end of the day, I’m making the final call on where you’re going and what you’re doing. Because my job is watching your back and keeping you safe. End of discussion.”

Della’s jaw tensed, holding back a fuck you.

He honestly didn’t deserve it.

She knew that.

Still …

Turning, Cory waved a hand over his shoulder. Dismissive and cold, she thought. “I have some calls to make—you can take the bedroom at the end of the hall to use for the night. Tomorrow, we’ll handle the rest.”

Like her father.

Right.

She heard what he didn’t say.

Chances were, things weren’t going to get easier from here for her. With Luis making another move, even if it was just showing up while she was working, Della knew exactly what her father was going to do.

Safety came first. She was locked in with barricades everywhere. To a point, she understood the need. That didn’t mean she liked it.

“And,” Cory called, already gone from her view though his voice traveled from another room deeper in the dimly lit apartment, “when you feel like it, I would appreciate knowing if you have any other meetings with people or work that you plan to do behind Frankie’s back so that I can at least be kept in the loop, you know? If you’re going to play dangerous games, Della, I need to know about it.”

Dammit.

•••

“Sorry, I should have just done that job with you,” Jennika said on the call. “I tried to tell you that your dad was going to be pissed but you didn’t want to listen.”

“What difference would it have made?” she replied to her friend. “Someone else there for Cory to worry about, I guess.”

“Yeah, but still.”

“It’s over with.”

“No, it’s not,” Jennika said in a sigh. “Not even close. It’s Luis, babe. Now he’s got something on his mind—he’s always been like that.”

She wasn’t wrong.