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“Nothing.”
And that’s why this won’t work. Not with him, or Jac.
“It shouldn’t be nothing, Hendrick. I’m invested,” I say.
“You shouldn’t be.”
“I don’t do this shit. We need to end this. I don’t do this, at all.”
He nods as I sit up. “Or are you afraid?”
“What do you want, Hendrick?” This isn’t an attempt on either side to move things along. And that’s why it’s dangerous because I don’t think he’s trying to get anything, either.
“Beyond fucking you? I don’t fucking know. I don’t know if there needs to be more. And I’m not sure you’re wrong in wanting to end it.” He pauses. “I’m also not sure you want that.”
“I do. I don’t. I don’t know either. But it kind of feels like with you and me there needs to be more. Or there is more. And…” I suck in a breath. “It’s complicated and won’t end well, and I don’t want it.”
He sighs. Gets up and goes to my closet and pulls out a coat. “Go fuck Jac.”
With that, he opens the door and walks out, without looking back.
I pick up the bottle and find a throw blanket and curl up on the couch and drink. My heart hurts. His words stab at me, even with him gone.
Jac…I don’t think he’s any less complicated. A different complicated, but complicated. I don’t want that, either.
But I gave back his money, and he’ll get bored and go away.
So I’m happy. Of course, I’m happy. No complications, a flirtation with love I don’t want or need. A flirt with all the obsessions a woman shouldn’t have.
I take another swig, an unsettling reality sinking in.
If I’m so happy with them both gone, why do I feel so empty inside?
TWENTY
JAC
Okay, so fucking MG’s mad at me. I didn’t mean to bruise her like that. But I can wait her out. She’ll turn up. She won’t be able to resist the old Jac magic.
It’s been a few days since I told her the story about Lili. I told her that because—
I don’t know.
I needed to tell someone?
I’ve been trying to work out the ulterior motive beyond the obvious one—of making her dump his ass. I—
But it doesn’t matter. Tonight, we set a trap and wiped some vermin off the face of the planet. It’s crater style, and the Quinate has dissenters crawling back into holes and ready to please us because of it.
Everyone’s drinking. Celebrating. There are girls everywhere, and I’m thinking of taking one home, or just fucking her in a corner. Maybe a blowjob. If I can find one I want.
The only one who’s not with a girl, who’s sitting in his damn plain black suit, is Hendrick.
He’s in the corner of the club. It’s a private one where we can invite people, do business, have orgies, or kill if we damn well want to. But it’s a place that weirdly both Hendrick and I don’t use, and I think it’s because our fathers did.
Hate Hendrick all I want, but we have that in common. We both avoid places they loved. Except the Quinate meeting room, high above this place.
Okay, I might feel a little guilty for suggesting Hendrick was going to take part with his father that night Lili died. Maybe he was. I’m just fucking beyond furious and always will be he tried to stop me killing his father. That he killed mine.
