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“What are you doing here?” I ask again, standing a little taller.
His jaw muscles ripple slightly as if he’s clenching his teeth together. His jacket stretches over his broad shoulders when he crosses his arms. “Marcus can’t watch out for you all the time. So we pick up the slack when he can’t.”
My head jerks back. I blink up at him, trying to absorb the meaning of his words. Marcus can’t watch out for you all the time.
So the man with the strangely beautiful eyes has been watching me. Following me. And not only that, but he’s recruited other people to help him. This guy said “we.” How many people does that mean? What do they want with me?
“Oh yeah?” I lift my chin. “And what’s your name?”
I try to inject a sense of threat into my voice as if I’m gathering information on him to report him to the police. Whatever the hell has these guys following me around, maybe I can scare them out of it.
But the burly man with the short-cropped hair doesn’t even blink. Doesn’t eve
n hesitate. “Ryland Bennett.”
His hard features are still radiating anger. I swear I can feel it in every line of his tense muscles, and it makes my heart beat harder, fear and an answering anger rising up inside me. He’s acting like I did something to him, like we’ve got a years-old grudge between us that I never knew about. But I don’t know this man. What could he possibly hate me for?
“Were you there that night?” I ask suddenly. “Outside Club 47?”
I know he was. I’d bet every last penny in my pitiful savings account that he was. But I want to hear him confirm it. I want to prove to myself that I’m not crazy—that I should’ve been more paranoid over the past several days, not less.
The man named Ryland stiffens. His hazel eyes go even colder, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible. He uncrosses his arms, one hand actually clenching into a fist, and I draw back as a sudden memory of the meth-head’s fate pops into my head.
Ryland notices my reaction. His lips curl back in something like annoyance or frustration, and he deliberately shakes his hand out, letting the fingers loosen. “I’m not gonna fucking hurt you.”
“Then what do you want?”
His eyes glitter. “From you? Nothing.”
“So why are you here?”
“I told you.”
“Because that guy Marcus told you to?”
One of his muscled shoulders lifts in a half-shrug, and he doesn’t look away from my eyes.
Worry and confusion spin through my head as I gaze back at him, my head tilted up to meet his stare. He’s beautiful. His features are broad and heavy, but perfectly proportioned so that they complement each other well. There’s a small scar above his left eyebrow, a little lighter than the rest of his olive skin. If he smiled, I have a feeling it would be devastating—but I also can’t quite imagine him smiling. The firm set of his mouth suggests that it doesn’t happen often.
“Were you following me the other night?” I press. “Is that how you were in the right place at exactly the right time?”
His eyes narrow. “Are you sorry we were?”
My stomach flips over. The meth-head’s knife very nearly sliced into my face, and if the three men hadn’t shown up when they did, there’s a decent chance my mugger’s next slash would’ve caught something vital.
“No. But I will mind if you keep following me.”
Ryland just shrugs, as if there’s nothing he can do about that.
“I don’t want you following me,” I repeat more forcefully. My heart is beating harder, rattling in my chest. I’m not sorry I didn’t end up dead in a robbery attempt a week ago, but that doesn’t mean I want any part of whatever this thing is.
The broad-shouldered man crosses his arms over his chest again. “It’s not up to me.”
“Right.” I lick my lips, taking one step closer to him, even though I have to force my feet to obey. “It’s Marcus’s call. Well, in that case, I’ve got a message you can pass along to Marcus, all right? Tell him to fuck off.”
With those words, I turn on my heel and walk quickly back toward my apartment building, unlocking the door before gathering up all my shit one-handed and slipping inside the apartment.
I never once look back across the street to see if Ryland is still there.
