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“Right,” Ezra says again, nodding like he believes me. “Naturally. Because why wouldn’t you? What’s on it? Sex tapes?”
I snort. “Probably. They aren’t in my freezer, so…”
Ezra fights a grin, his cheeks twitching. “Do you need someone to crack the password?”
“She does,” Riot answers for me, dropping the papers on my dining room table before handing the laptop to his cousin.
I squint at him, trying to determine if he’s had an aneurysm or a recent blow to his head. “Seriously? Are you fucking with me right now?”
“I can do it,” Ezra cuts in. “But it will cost you.”
“Name your price,” I say, amused for a moment. “It’ll be nearly impossible to crack, but whatever you want… It won’t be as much as the dead guy asked for.”
“What did he want?”
I frown at Ezra. “For me to drop to my knees and beg for forgiveness.”
Riot goes rigid. “Did—”
“No. I laughed at him. He hit me. I stabbed him. You know the rest.”
“Why forgiveness? I could think of other things to beg for—” Ezra fills his cheeks with air, then grimaces.
Riley chuckles. “Could you now?”
Ezra turns to me, ignoring his cousin. “Why forgiveness?”
“Because I took the laptop out of his office while he was in the shower. He said I stole it from him when I didn’t ask for permission. He’d had it for nearly a month and couldn’t do what he promised.”
“Crack the code?”
“Physically and digitally,” Riot mumbles, turning his head toward Ezra like that will stop me from hearing him.
I briefly think about throwing my empty glass at Riley. But when I glance at it, he snatches it from my hand and pours me more scotch. It’s a small victory on his part, because now I won’t chuck it at him.
“What’s your price?” I ask Ezra.
He stares at me, seeing straight through me to my soul. Or that’s what it feels like. I’m stoic as he assesses me, though I want to kick him out of my apartment and never see him again. I don’t like how he walked in and picked me apart, calling me out for things I’d rather keep hidden.
His presence is giving Riley too many ideas. The more we appear to get along, the more we’ll be shoved together.
Riot has tried to keep me safe for the last decade, so he should know better than to throw his family into this mix.
Ezra watches me like he knows all the thoughts circling in my mind… But finally, he shrugs a shoulder and smirks at me.
“A mile.”
The Maldonado compound stalks me through my windshield, casting shadows on the manicured bushes that hide the reinforced concrete walls around this island of suffrage.
I’m not being dramatic.
This place has a way of capturing you and never letting you go. The souls of the dead linger on these grounds, making the air stagnant and suffocating.
I hate the compound. It’s always eerily empty. Even before my dad followed my grandfather into lock-up. The latter wanted me to move back into the main house to live with the ghosts, telling me that some had stayed to haunt me for their untimely demise.
My dad helped me pick out an apartment and leave the compound. At first, I lived with Lorenzo, before he rented the loft above mine.
We’ve been in and out of those apartments for years now… So it’s probably time to switch up where we’re staying, move into another temporary place.
