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“Where do you think you’re going?” Antoni asks as I pocket my cell. “We’re not done here.”
I shoot him a scathing look over my shoulder. “Are we not?” None of his damn business where I’m going. I leave him in the office without another word, his weak chin flapping when he calls out after me.
My mind is a blur all the way to the car, and I take off, pulling away from the underground parking lot reserved only for Broderick’s people. The bald man, his familiar yet strange face…there are steps to take to find him. Scouting out the docks was the first.
Now it’s off to the usual haunts to see if I can tug a few strings and find out more information.
Where have I seen his face before?
It’s the strangest thing.
He’s a piece out of time.
Familiar and yet not, someone with a face from a half-forgotten dream, like someone you pass on the street and immediately forget until you fall asleep. It irks me to no end, and the gnawing pit in my stomach opens wider. I place an absent hand on the area, rubbing in circles. When was the last time I ate? I remember downing a cup of coffee this morning on my way out of the apartment but hadn’t been able to stomach the thought of food.
Not after a night of dreams about a certain high-strung woman with rich, chocolate-colored hair.
No matter what it takes, I’ve got to keep her off of Broderick’s radar. The tenuous relationship we’ve got threatens to bring both of us in front of the firing squad if we’re not careful, but the reward seemed greater than the risk when I proposed it in the first place.
Now everything hinges on me finding Broderick’s mysterious competitor.
* * *
Seated on the rooftop of a hotel downtown, I stare at the street.
Same kind of perch as my first kill.
Except then I’d been a terrified child. Or as close to one as I’d ever been.
Dealing drugs is not the same thing as murder, even though one can be a stepping stone to the other. I drag a hand through my hair, the memories uncomfortable and itchy.
Mom never criticized me.
Which surprised me right up to the last day I saw her.
She never asked about the things I did and she never ostracized me. She was the only person in my life who I felt comfortable enough to be myself around.
Where I grew up, there were only two choices for boys like me: to join the cartels or to die. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to do whatever it took to get out of that shithole and take care of my mom.
Here we are.
And it’s just me.
I learned too quickly that taking care of someone meant nothing in the grand scheme of life. Because shit happens. Everyone you love dies and it breaks your heart because love is a weakness.
Except I want to take care of Layla. Even when she’s more than capable of taking care of herself, those instincts I thought were long dead are starting to resurface. She’ll hate me if I say anything. If I even give her a hint of the budding feelings that have no place in whatever this fucked-up shit is between us.
At once the weight of years pushes down on my bones and I’m dog-tired. The kind of tired that, if I give in, will only drag me down too far to get back up.
Aside from the exhaustion, there’s the small matter of the too-large part of my brain taken up by a woman who doesn’t even want to see me. Which makes it even harder to admit how badly I looked forward to seeing her again.
How would it feel, I wonder as I allow myself to fantasize, to come home to someone in my apartment at the end of the day?
Instead of dropping into bed after my shower and passing out alone, I’d find her waiting with her gun on the nightstand and the same haunted shadows on her face, shadows we’d chase away together.
Will she judge me if I tell her about that first kill?
How the man begged me not to shoot and then tried to turn the gun on me?
