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Fire.
At my apartment building.
With all the people. The families. The old ladies. The stinkingkids.
I shove back from the bar and stand, gathering all my stuff. Panic shoots through me in waves. Gareth’s not here to pay my bill so I put as much cash down as I can, hoping it’s enough.
My head’s spinning in a rush. I have to get home right now. I have to fly back, find out what happened, see if I can help anyone—and maybe see if there’s anything worth salvaging from my miserable life.
Everything I owned was in that apartment.
Everything except for what I have on me.
Which isn’t all that much. I was told to pack for three days.
My god. I have three days of clothes left.
Everything else—
“Shit,” I whisper, leaning one hand against the bar, trying to gather myself.
“Hey, uh, you okay?” The guy with the backwards hat on my left frowns at me. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine,” I bark at him, feeling bad about it, but I don’t need some Good Samaritan getting involved right now.
I need Gareth. I need a flight home. I scroll through the airline’s website and find a plane leaving in an hour back to Dallas. If I get on that, I can make it with enough time to hurry over to the apartment, and then maybe I can find some way to salvage the wreck of my life, maybe I can help if anyone needs help, maybe—
But shit. Gareth told me not to leave. He told me not to find him.
That was pre-fire though. That was before my life started literally going up in flames. This is a serious emergency. I get his clients are private, but my apartment isliterally burning to the groundright now, I can’t just sit here and wait for him to come release me.
I either leave on my own and lose my job, which means financial ruin.
Or I go find him and lose my job.
Also, financial ruin.
But at least if I find him, I can explain. Once he hears why I hunted him down, and why I’m running off, everything will be forgiven.
Right? Totally makes sense?
I sling my bag over my shoulder, puff up my chest, and march toward the back hall, hoping I can track down my asshole boss with enough time to make a mad dash back to the airport.
Chapter3
Gareth
Iaccept the cigar from Orin Crowley, clip the end, and light it with my own torch. “Very nice,” I say, nodding with satisfaction as I take a deep puff. “Cuban?”
“Of course,” Orin says, grinning. He sips a whiskey, ice clinking in the glass. The room is dim and smoky, dominated by a large table and surrounded by storage shelves. We’re deep in a back room, hidden behind racks of dry goods. The door is lost in shadows somewhere behind me. Orin dominates the space, though his four sons take up plenty of room on their own. I’m at the far end, closest to the door. “You know, Cubans aren’t even all that much better these days.”
“Status symbol,” his son Nolan says, a tall boy with dark hair and light eyes.
“Like you know a fucking thing about status,” Carson says, another Crowley son, this one broader with freckles and a loud laugh.
Nolan’s about to rip into his brother but Orin waves them off. “Enough, boys.” He glares at his children, all four of them. Finley, the youngest, sits back typing away on his phone, while Liam, the quiet one of the group, only stares at me with that disconcerting frown of his. He’d be creepy enough, but he also has a particular reputation for instability and violence. Vicious little monster.
The Crowley family, all together for this one meeting. I’d feel special if I didn’t also think they’re about as likely to cut my throat as they are to hire me.
