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“Oh no, you didn’t,” she said, lifting a finger in accusation as her eyes widened in disbelief. “You’d better tell me it’s not the man from the Wheel.”
Kiera remained silent and situated her belongings. Oh, it was indeed time to get out of there.
“Kiera,” she gasped. “Did you… sleep with him?”
“I don’t want to hear criticism. Sex is normal. We all do it,” Kiera argued.
Jacey finally looked up from her book. “Amen, sister,” she said before returning her attention to reading.
Talia continued. “You just lectured me about being with Ross—who has finally started leaving me alone, by the way—and here you are sleeping with someone in the same position. A gang banger. A lowlife.”
Kiera wasn’t offended, as she knew that her lecture had been hypocritical based on her feelings for Vincent. But something about Talia’s words snagged something in Kiera’s mind, though she couldn’t determine what it was.
“Okay, be mad about the rug. I’ll buy a new one if it makes you happy. You can even be mad about me finding a person to be with. But don’t sit here and try to pick a fight with me when I didn’t do anything wrong. And don’t talk shit on a man who you barely know.” Kiera felt herself fuming at the insult her friend had given to Vincent without ever meeting him.
“He’s in the mafia,” Talia shouted. “That’s the exact reason you told me Ross was a bad guy, was it not?”
Kiera balled her fists, forcing herself to keep from standing. She opened her mouth to speak, but Jacey cut into the conversation. “Talia, I think Kiera hated him because he gave you a black eye a week before you left him.” She looked up from her book once again. “Oh, don’t give me that look. We both noticed it. You’re notthatgood at makeup. The mafia situationput another tally in the wrong box, but it wasn’t the only reason we hated him.”
Kiera made out the words on the binding of Jacey’s book—Organic Chemistry II—and winced. Kiera would never understand how Jacey managed to hold a conversation and still make sense of her textbook.
Jacey continued, flipping the page and smoothing her hand across it. “But by all means, continue fighting if you need to jump down Kiera’s throat for something. Maybe start with the paint stains.”
Talia glanced at the stains and crossed her arms, but Jacey’s words softened her ferocity. Kiera knew she needed to be thankful Ross had been distant. That he hadn’t bothered to contact her.
The idea stirred the same dread within her, and Kiera finally whipped her head upright as she realized why her dread had progressively grown.
“You haven’t heard from Ross?” Kiera asked, her tone not as joyous over the sentiment as it should have been.
Talia’s expression hardened. “Not since after the night at the restaurant,” she replied, detecting the seriousness in Kiera’s tone. “Why?”
Kiera sprung from her seat, sidestepping the paint stain on the carpet as she walked toward the door. “I’ll tell you later.”
Talia’s fleeting words followed her as she left the apartment. “I hope you find out that he’s dead,” she shouted, hatred coating her tongue.
Kiera realized quickly that finding him dead was the exact thing that she feared most.
12
He waited outside his car for Kiera, who left him waiting longer than she ever had. He considered worrying, but he’d heard no reports from the guard assigned to trail her, so he leaned leisurely against the cinderblock building and waited.
And waited.
Forty minutes had passed, and Vincent began considering the merits of hunting her down just to ensure she hadn’t been hurt, but finally, mercifully, she pulled into a parking space across the street, giving him no time to approach her car as she flung her door wide and charged him. He recognized the look of accusatory rage that settled across her face.
“What did you do?” she snarled, anger dripping from her words.
“If this is going to be an argument, we’re not going to do it publicly,” he ordered, grabbing the crook of her elbow and guiding her down the sidewalk. She jerked it away from him as she followed at his side, and he raised his brows, looking down at the rage that stirred there.
They walked no more than a block before he guided her into an alleyway blocked by two buildings. It smelled of cigarette smoke and piss, but it would do.
She hardly waited before speaking. “What did you do?” she repeated.
“I’m going to need more information than that.”
Had she been anyone else—even a past lover—he’d have never allowed her to speak to him in such a tone, but he was enthralled by her brazenness.
“My friend’s ex-boyfriend,” she elaborated. “The man in the bar the other night.”
