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“This should take care of the problem, but I’ll keep that in mind in case it doesn’t.” I shot a glance at the closed elevator. “Are you going to be with Nova?”
“Pietro is with her right now. I’ll join her later. I have a few things to handle first. Plans to make for tonight.”
Brows lifted, I glanced back at him. “Does that mean you’re going to ask her to marry you tonight?”
“I asked last night,” he admitted sullenly.
“She turned you down?” I asked in disbelief.
“No. She just wants to wait longer than I’m prepared to. Damn stubborn little angel.”
I couldn’t help snickering. “She’s a Hannigan. Of course she’s stubborn.”
Cali
An annoying tap-tap-tap woke me. It sounded like construction work rather than someone knocking, but since it also seemed to be coming from my front door, I had no choice but to get up and see what was going on. Especially when Kim started kicking at the wall that separated our rooms and yelling for me to see who it was.
Grabbing my favorite old cardigan—another steal I’d found at a thrift store—I wrapped it around myself as I walked half blind through the apartment and opened the front door. It took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at as the guy in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt stood in front of me, frowning. He had a drill in one hand and what looked like a number in the other.
“Miss Brewer?”
It took a moment for me to remember that was my new last name. I wasn’t Calista Ramirez any longer, but Lis Brewer. I even had a different birthday and social security number, thanks to Gracie Hannigan.
“Miss Brewer, are you well?” the man asked again, sounding concerned.
I blinked a few times, dispelling the memory of when Gracie had handed me the envelope with all my new credentials in it before I’d gotten on the bus that would take me back to New York. I missed the pseudo-family I’d made back in Creswell Springs. Not just Gracie, her husband Hawk, and their son Jack. But all the other women who had lived at Sanctuary and many members of the Hannigan clan.
It was lonely in the city on my own. Which, I told myself, was why I’d allowed Garret to stay so long when he’d brought me home after work. Fuck, it was the excuse I was going with, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to think about it any deeper than that.
“I’m okay,” I told the man before me. “But, um, what are you doing?” I glanced down the hall in either direction. The guy with the drill wasn’t the only one present, however. There was a guy at the stairwell installing a security camera. When I glanced at the other door for the second set of stairs, I saw a camera was already in place. It was one of those high-tech cameras, too, that did a full 360 of the entire area.
“Did the building get a new super?” I mused, more to myself than the man standing in front of me.
He smirked down at me. “Let’s just say the current guy in charge saw the error of his ways for not properly protecting his tenants.”
I felt a sudden pounding behind my eyes that came on so quickly, I nearly groaned at the pain. “Fucking gangsters,” I growled. “You work for Garret Hannigan?”
“Sometimes,” he said with a shrug. “More often than not these days, I take my orders from Ryan Vitucci, though.”
“Of course you do,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest angrily. “How much is my rent going to go up now? Huh? You know, I like having a little extra spending money in case of emergencies, and this is going to eat away at that nest egg I’ve been trying to build. You go back to Garret goddamn Hannigan and tell him—”
“Whoa,” the man before me said with a strained laugh. “You should say whatever you need to directly to him. I’m just doing my job, lady. No need to bitch at me for earning my pay.”
“I’m sure you earn every one of your blood-covered pennies with ease,” I snapped. Stepping back, I slammed the door in his face and stomped through the apartment to my bedroom. Snatching my phone off the charger, I swiped my thumb over Garret’s recently added information and waited.
“Blue eyes!”
I barely had time to catch my breath at how happy he sounded to be hearing from me before I remembered the reason for my call. “What the fuck are you doing?” I snarled. “Do you realize how much my rent is going to go up with all these added ‘security measures’? I have no doubt that you either roughed up my super or threatened to in order to get them put in place.”
“Lis, baby, calm down.” He tried to soothe.
But I was suddenly finding it hard to catch my breath. “You ruined everything,” I got out between gasps. “My roommate…is going to be so…so mad. I’ll…have to…to find somewhere else…to live.”
“No, no, sweetheart. Just listen,” he urged. “Your rent isn’t going to go up. I’m taking care of all the upgrades personally.”
“Don’t…lie.” I dropped down onto the end of my bed when my vision grew dark around the edges, fighting the panic that was attempting to consume me. It had been so long since I’d had an attack, but this was too much. He was too much. I never should have let him bring me home the night before. I never should have let him stay. All he’d ever done was hurt me. Maybe it had only been behind a screen, with a keyboard, but psychological pain was still pain, damn it.
Then I remembered who exactly I was dealing with and what he was capable of when he wasn’t trying to scare little girls on the internet. “Is the super in the hospital? Is he even still breathing?”
