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“Why don’t you make this easy and tell me where she hid the video?”
What?I frantically wracked my brain, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Then it came to me—she’d left late last night right before I’d passed out.Blackmail. Lauralee had gone through with her cockamamie idea to get money out of Ben. I’d barely paid attention to her. Now I wish I would have.
He loosened his fingers just enough for me to suck in a lungful of air. His focus dropped to my heaving chest, and I didn’t waste his distraction. I kicked him in the shin then kneed him in the balls.
His hand spasmed on my bruised throat then relaxed. I jerked back, free from his grasp, and took one step to the side, the exit in sight. Then he retaliated. The sound of the back of his hand connecting to my cheek echoed in the small kitchen. Blinding pain shot across my cheekbone, and I stumbled until my back slammed into the stove, and I automatically braced myself against the rusty appliance. The grates rattled from impact, and my wrist connected with the pan.The pan!
Ben lunged forward, but I’d already grabbed the handle. I slammed the pan into the side of his head with a metallic clang. He staggered, slightly dazed. I didn’t wait. I pushed off the stove, throwing my weight behind the next swing. When it connected, his eyes rolled back. His body crashed to the floor. I dropped my makeshift weapon and bolted for the door.
With my hand on the knob, I paused as if an invisible string tethered me inside. I couldn’t leave. Not yet. He might not have found the thing Lauralee had planned to use against him, and she’d made me promise to take it with me.
I raced out of the kitchen and toward my shoebox-sized bedroom down the hall where she’d stashed the evidence.
In my room, my heart racing a million miles a minute, I fell to my knees. I yanked the loose floorboards free and threw them aside. My fingers curled around the leather. Once free of its hiding place, I secured the backpack and tightened the straps. Next, I threw my purse into the prepacked duffel hidden partially behind my laundry hamper then slung it over my shoulder before pivoting and running to the front of our apartment. No way was I going out the back where Ben was sprawled over the linoleum floor, blocking the path to the rear exit.
Hope bloomed in my chest when I saw the front door. I was going to make it. I twisted the doorknob then pulled. No one stood there. I could practically taste freedom as I raced along the covered outdoor corridor then flew down the rickety stairs, jumping over the last few. I landed with a jarring thud on the cement sidewalk.
I had to put distance between us. My feet slapped against the gravel that lined the alleyway behind our run-down apartment. Air sawed in and out of my lungs, my neck burning the entire time. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as the horror set in. Adrenaline propelled me, holding the shock at bay.
By the time I got to the gas station a mile away, I was close to collapsing. I slowed when I was within range of the cameras, keeping to the vegetation that surrounded one side of the old building with neon beer signs that flashed against the fading light. Not wanting to risk getting caught, I slipped past the tree line then dropped to the ground in the shelter of a wide oak. I couldn’t stay, but it was a good enough place to rest for a few minutes. Then I would figure out where to go next.
Mind racing, I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, pondering my next move. I couldn’t think about Lauralee and whether she was okay—not now.
I was going to have to go far away. I knew it. Ben was there for whatever business his New York mob family had, but I had no doubt he would stay to search for me and for whatever incriminating evidence Lauralee had on him. This was bad. If I didn’t put enough distance between us, I was dead.
I could kiss college goodbye. Dammit. The scholarship my high school math teacher had helped me get for a full ride wouldn’t wait for me. And I’d just paid for textbooks with what was left of my savings. I was almost broke. The degree was supposed to help me with a career, a future, an escape from poverty. A few more tears rolled down my cheeks, and I hugged my arms tighter around my body.
Who will help me?
Then it came to me. Alison, the old lady who lived in the trailer park I’d grown up in already had. If I could find the name and number that she’d given me for her sister, then I had a way to get a job out of state, far from where Ben would continue to look.
I yanked my purse out of the duffel I’d stashed it in then dug through the meager contents. Somehow, Alison had known I might need help. My fingers brushed against a soft slip of paper she’d given me. On it, Alison had written the name of her sister, Tracy, who owned a temp business in California. I couldn’t stay in Georgia—Ben would find me and finish what he’d started.
I had to leave, and that piece of paper was my ticket out.
CHAPTER TWO
SUMMER
Los Angeles, California
Six weeks later…
Catastrophe queen—that was my MO. Trip up a flight of stairs? Or how about in front of a crowd, flipping my skirt over my head and giving a lovely display of my panties? Check. Miss my mouth while drinking—in a silky white shirt? Check. Lose more jobs than I can count by being late? Check. Wake up in a stranger’s bed? That wasn’t me… normally. That was Lauralee’s thing…
I blinked away unshed tears. She was gone. And judging by my current situation, I’d adopted her lousy habit in my train wreck of a life.
I was the mistress of bad decisions, but this one was by far the most hazardous to my well-being. I never had one-night stands or gone to a strange man’s hotel room—until last night when I’d caught the news. A headshot of Lauralee on TV had stopped me in my tracks as the reporter had stated that Lauralee’s body had been fished out of a back-alley dumpster. Grief stricken, I’d spiraled and stumbled into an upscale hotel bar, one I had no business spending my hard-earned money in.
Several drinks in and bellied up to the bar, I’d made eye contact with a smokin’ hot man who’d faced me as he sat in a corner booth, talking to another suit who looked vaguely familiar.
I couldn’t stop myself from sending flirty glances to the stranger. Doing something Lauralee would have done made me feel closer to her. I ducked my head and swiped away another few tears.
I needed to numb my mind.
I sucked in a stuttered breath—I needed him. My drink-induced despair had redirected my moral compass.
The second—or maybe fifth time—I glanced in the hot guy’s direction, he’d moved and was leaning against the bar with a drink in hand, a wicked grin, and his friend long gone. A wave of desire rippled through me at his close proximity. When I swiveled in my bar stool to say hi, I lost my balance and fell against him. But he caught me, and at that point, I was all his.
