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Outside, there’s no sign of Esme. “Fuck!” I grunt out, then turn to Malcolm. “Was she here? Right here?”
“Yeah, she was trying to hail a cab.” He points toward the street. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
I step out into the road and see a cab disappearing around the corner. It’s busy, and there are hundreds of cabs around here, but something tells me it’s her. As crazy as it sounds, it’s like I can feel her heartbeat from here—like we’re connected on some other level.
“Go over to her place, wait for me there. If Esme turns up, don’t fucking let her leave.”
I give Malcolm the address, and he doesn’t say a word before jumping back into his car. It's closer than mine, so he’s the first out of the parking lot. I’m only a split second behind as I tear out of there in my Suburban, ignoring the blare of horns as I join the traffic and speed down the road, cutting across the sidewalk as I take the corner.
The traffic isn’t light, but I can see the cab a few hundred yards down the road. I weave around some cars traveling way too slow and then cut off another, hearing the screaming horn as I put my foot down. As I pull up behind her cab, I flash my lights and lean on the horn, then push forward, getting up close. I can see someone in the back of the cab, and when they turn around to see who’s behind, it’s like a weight is lifted.
It’s her. It’s Esme.
She tries to wave me off, but I shake my head and mouth that I’m not going anywhere. Esme looks furious, but she’s not getting rid of me that easily. I call her, but after one ring it goes straight to voicemail—either she has it turned off, or more likely she rejected my call.
A second later, she holds up a sign to the back window. “Leave me ALONE. I know!” It’s written in her trademark red lipstick on the drawing pad she picked out yesterday. Even now, the thought of that red lipstick smeared down the shaft of my cock as she sucks me off flashes through my mind.
I’m a fucking monster.
I shake my head, then hold my hand up to my ear in the shape of a phone. A second later, I try calling her again, and this time she answers, but there’s fury in her voice.
“Leave. Me. Alone.” Her voice slices through the silence inside the car on the speaker.
“No fucking way, Bambina. I can’t. I’d rather die than live another day without you.”
She chokes out a laugh. “Yeah, or maybe you’d rather I die instead, huh?”
“What are you talking about? Has someone threatened you, Esme? Because if they have, they just breathed their last breath and they don’t even know it. I will chase them down in a heartbeat and break every fucking bone in their body.”
“Sure. I saw you, Vito. I saw you with that guy from my interview the other night...never mind, doesn’t matter, I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about the two of you comparing notes and—”
I slam my fists on the steering wheel in a rage. Fucking Salvatore. I should have put it together, but she said she went to a restaurant to interview, not a seedy office in the back of a warehouse. Still, I should have asked more questions.
The cab speeds up to get through traffic lights before they change to red, and I follow suit, running through the next light, but I don’t care. I’m not losing her.
“Don’t act like you don’t know, Vito. You, him, Nadine, that guy from your house yesterday. You all looked pretty damn cozy. Nadine said it was just going to be a hostess job, but of course, all of you were planning to draw me in from the start, weren’t you? So was I just another girl, or did you look for me specifically? Did I fit some sick bastard’s requirements or—”
“Esme, I didn’t have anything to do with any of this. We used to be in business together. Used to. I severed ties with him as soon as he said he was going to start running girls. I always said that was my line, and he agreed for a long time. As soon as he broke that pact, I called off our arrangement. We were finalizing things, that’s all.”
“Sure, of course, you did, I’m really that gullible.”
I grab the handwritten agreement off the seat beside me and slap it against the windshield. “This is an agreement. It’s a kind of contract between Salvatore and me. It says that I give up all claim to his parts of the business and he gives up any claim to mine. We’ve parted ways, Esme. That’s what that meeting was about. We settled everything. I don’t know those girls. Truth is, I was fucking pissed when they showed up and sat down. Fucking Sal disrespecting me is what that was, as his final fuck you.”
