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How stupid could I be?
I mean, we’d literally just fired a disgruntled employee.
Think!
Inwardly berating myself for my stupidity, I hadn’t quite been paying attention to what the man in front of me was saying—God, I couldn’t even remember his freakin’ name!—until he tightened his hold on my outfit again.
My breath choked inside my throat as the harsh seam pressed against tender places.
“You’re not listening to me, are you?” he snapped in my face.
Jessup.
Jessup Smith.
“I don’t know why you are hurting me,” I said. “I never fired you. And no, I’m not quite listening to you because you’re choking off my air supply by fisting my leotard in that way, and it’s hurting and my throat is burning, and I’m having trouble thinking.”
He threw me away from him so hard my head bounced off the concrete wall at my back.
I fell to the ground, shocked at the force in which he’d done it.
So easily, too.
God, it was scary to think how much stronger men were than women.
My brain was throbbing when I finally forced myself to look up at him.
“I can fix this tomorrow,” I said. “Everyone is high on adrenaline tonight. In the morning, you can come into my office, and we can talk about everything. You can tell me who this guy is who’s willing to hurt you if you don’t have this job, and I’ll make sure that everyone knows you weren’t fired.”
God, did that sound as lame to him as it did to me?
“Tonight,” he said. “I have a meeting with him. He’s going to ask questions.”
I felt my stomach lurch.
I wasn’t sure if the nausea was from my head trauma or the way he was pacing in front of me like a caged animal.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t think this was going to turn out well for me.
CHAPTER 18
It is what it is, and it is not great.
-Text from Crimson to Val
WINSTON
I stood in the shadows of the parking lot and waited for Jareth to show.
He’d called during dinner time, which was enough to have me freezing in my tracks as I’d been about to climb in my car and leave.
His urgency and the way he told me to meet him here had me freezing as my insides turned to ash.
Just the thought of her being in the middle of something was enough to put my entire system into overdrive.
I might’ve been avoiding the utter hell out of her, and I might’ve been denying myself what I really wanted, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still care for her.
A lot.
That was why my fuckin’ chest felt like it’d had a small Mazda sitting on it for the last two weeks since she’d left my bed for good.
Other than that one slip up a few nights ago…
A car pulled into the lot, and Jareth came to a stop beside me, not bothering to park his car well.
Which told me what I needed to know.
What I was about to hear wasn’t good.
Not good at all.
“What is it?” I asked the moment he stepped out, not bothering to shut his door or turn his car off.
“LaDerrick has been trying to get a hold of you for the last few hours,” he looked at the building. “I got through to you now, but I was already headed here.”
“What is it?” I barked, unable to stop the fear from leeching into my voice.
He looked sickened as he said, “The mom had another name to cough up today.”
The mom.
Another complication.
Despite her being a sick piece of shit—not quite participating in the trafficking, but definitely allowing it to happen around her while also being a perfect alibi for anytime Ansel Singh needed it—she was still the mother of the woman I refused to love.
Killing her was a mark against my moral code that I hadn’t been able to get over since I’d taken her to her semi-permanent home.
“Who?” I asked.
“Old guy named Dario Espada. LaDerrick looked into him, and he has a spookily, squeaky clean past that doesn’t add up. Millions that aren’t accounted for, money that comes in and doesn’t go out, but he suspiciously doesn’t have anymore. And a lot of friends in a lot of high places.” He looked grossed out.
“This Dario guy,” I said. “Does he have any connections to this circus aside from Idabell?”
He nodded once. “An old crew hand named Jessup…”
I was already moving, cursing the entire way.
Jessup Smith.
A man who had literally just been fired for what he’d done to my Sunny.
Sunny.
A name I’d called her in the heat of the moment two nights ago, but was so right for her I hadn’t stopped using it in my head since.
“Come with me,” I called out over my shoulder.
Jareth fell into step beside me as we jogged back into the circus, through the throng of people who were now making their way to the parking lot.
