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There was no way that this would end well for me. I rushed to the back office and took my bag, then almost ran toward the elevators and through the staff area, running toward my car as soon as I passed through the security check.
My heart pounded, my muscles straining, tired and lacking nutrients, but I ran. As soon as I got into the car, I turned the ignition on before even closing the doors. My old Chevrolet Spark roared to life, taking me out of the hotel basement and onto the empty road, leading toward the Farlow District.
I just hoped I wasn’t too late.
4
EVELYN
The air smelledlike ashes as I got out of my car right in front of my building, paying more attention to my surroundings than ever before. Fatigue dragged me down, but I fought through it, every survival instinct in me pushing through the drowsiness taking over my mind. I could rest once I got out of the city, once I put some distance between me and this place.
I didn’t allow emotions to enter into the equation right now, no matter how much I hated leaving this place.
I'd made a home here, no matter what, it was a home. Even with my twelve hour shifts and constant exhaustion, I made a home and now I had to abandon it because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I looked up at the white building I'd moved into less than two years ago, keeping the tears at bay and remembering that first day I entered the one bedroom apartment with high windows, overlooking the river on the other side.
It was a dream come true, my own piece of heaven, and I thought I would stay there forever. Or at least until I found something else.
I often bitched about my work and the things around me, but being in this situation right now showed me how much I'd taken it all for granted, thinking it would always be there. We never really knew how much we appreciated things and people until they were gone, and all those things I bitched about, all those members of my team I didn’t particularly like, I would go through it all, all over again, if it meant that I didn’t need to live through this nightmare.
If I ran now, I would never be able to come back, but what else could I do?
I knew without a doubt that man belonged to the Outfit who held half of the city. The ruthless, vicious organization that took no prisoners, and left no witnesses. They didn’t care how old you were, which gender you belonged to—they would kill you to protect themselves, to protect their family. The leader of the Outfit was arrested a couple of months ago, but there were rumors that his son had taken over. They should’ve been called a Hydra–cut off one head, and two more grew.
My mom’s face came in front of my eyes. I would never be able to go back to Croyford Bay, never see her again, because they would use her against me, or worse—kill her because of me.
The tears I’d been fighting the entire way I drove over here, finally spilled over my cheeks, attracting the bitter air onto my skin, chilling me to my core. My car keys bit into the palm of my hand as I squeezed them tightly, letting the pain take over, allowing it to move me forward, toward the entrance of the building.
The illuminated foyer felt ominous as I stepped in, my paranoia getting the better of me as I kept turning around, feeling eyes on my back. But no one was there at the parking lot in front of the building. No one was inside the foyer, waiting for me, and I knew my mind was starting to play tricks on me, too tired to function properly.
“Get it together, Evelyn,” I murmured to myself as I stepped inside the elevator, letting it take me to the fifth floor where my apartment was. The familiar buzz inside the elevator calmed my nerves a bit, but the moment I stepped outside and into the hallway where my apartment was, the paranoia slammed back into me with full force when I realized that the lights were completely out.
“Fuck,” I cursed. This happened more often than not, but tonight wasn’t the night I needed it. No, tonight I wanted to illuminate the entire city, to erase the shadows haunting the streets of Velvet City, just so that I could get out unscathed.
My hand trembled as I pulled out my phone, turning on the flashlight, and with careful steps, I walked toward my apartment at the far end of the hallway. My ears pricked up, listening to every movement, every little sound that might have come behind me, but when dead silence followed instead of footsteps as I expected, I rushed over the last few feet toward my apartment and unlocked the door, pushing inside while my heart got fucking stuck inside my throat.
I wheezed as if I'd ran a marathon as I pressed my back against the door, closing my eyes and trying to gather my wits.
I made it.
I was still alive.
They still didn’t get to me.
The open floorplan was what attracted me to this apartment, but now, as I stared at the tall windows overlooking the river and the promenade spreading right next to the river, I hated it, because it felt as if everyone could see inside, and I didn’t want to be seen–not right now.
It didn’t make sense, feeling like this, when there was nobody down by the river, except for the two stray dogs that kept to the area, since everyone kept on feeding them whenever they passed there. But fear was never rational, and mine was about to make me do one of the craziest things I'd ever done.
I rushed into the adjacent kitchen and poured myself a tall glass of water, gulping it down in one go, slamming the glass down on the counter as soon as I'd drained it.
My fingers twitched at my sides, the darkness inside the apartment making everything sound louder—my breathing, the buzzing of the refrigerator, the lava lamp I left turned on before I left yesterday… Everything felt elevated, filled with electricity, and all I wanted to do was pretend that none of this was happening and go to sleep, forgetting all of this had ever happened.
But I couldn’t do it. I loved my life. I fucking loved being alive no matter how many times I joked that I would jump off a bridge when things became too much.
I wanted to live, free, separate from this whole mafia world, and I knew I had to escape the Outfit.
I've never met the man that visited The Penthouse. He had a separate entrance, a personal Concierge, and I never wanted to know. The less I knew the better it was, but now I was in the middle of it; and even if it wasn’t him, somebody else would come, killing me on the spot. Even while I lived in Croyford Bay, I had never even seen one of the Nightingale brothers, and even if I saw Cillian Nightingale now, I wouldn’t know that it was him.
My phone flashed with light as I unlocked it, opening the application for maps and going over the fastest roads. If I left now, by ten in the morning I could already be in Arizona and out of New Mexico. Velvet City was already on the border between the two states, and if I drove without stopping, that would give me an advantage.
