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He smiles. A smile that’s filled with searing rage. “I want Bette Miller.”
“Bette Miller?” Her name rings a bell, but I can’t remember why. “Who is she?”
Torean marches over, forgetting all about Ivy, and shoves his phone in my face. A photograph of a woman fills the screen. As soon as I see her, I remember. I kick myself for forgetting her name, even though everything happened so many years ago. Bette was Torean’s first love—the girl who broke his heart and got away.
“You’re still looking for her?” I ask in disbelief. “After all this time?”
“No one can hide from me forever.” Why does she still have a hold on him? On second thought, it’s probably best that I don’t know the details. “She has something that belongs to me.”
In the photograph, Bette can’t be older than sixteen. She’s sitting on a grassy verge, holding up a cheap bottle of beer. Her shoulder-length, ginger hair flowing in the breeze as she smiles innocently at the camera. A smile that Torean put an end to.
As teenagers, we lived close to the Miller’s. While we lived in a rundown council estate, Bette’s parents owned one of the big, posh houses that we aspired to own one day. From what I remember, he and Bette were a modern Romeo and Juliet, untilshe disappeared. Torean lost his shit when she left town without saying a word, and he started looking for her. I assumed he’d given up, but apparently not.
“Hang on a minute,” I say, taking his phone from him for a closer look. “Something about her looks familiar…”
I recall the last job I did for him. On the night I killed Jacob, I saw a woman on the street. A woman with a blonde, curly bob who shouted Jacob’s name. I didn’t recognise her then, but seeing the photograph again confirms it. She’s aged, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it was her. It also explains why she looked at me like she’d seen a ghost.
“What?” Torean’s shoulders stiffen. “You better not be fucking around. If you are, I’ll kill you and the whore.”
“I’ve seen her. Her hair was different. She’s dyed it blonde, but it was definitely her,” I confirm, signing the death warrant of an innocent woman to protect Ivy—not that she deserved my protection. “She was with Jacob.”
“Liar!”
Torean dives toward me, slamming me back into the wall and pushing his elbow against my throat.
“Why would I lie?” I wheeze. He releases his grip enough to allow me to talk. “She was looking for Jacob. When I drove past her, she saw me.”
“She saw you?” Torean screams in frustration and releases me. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Bette makes him crazy. She’s his drug, and he needs his next fix. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Until you showed me the photo, I thought nothing of it. I haven’t thought about Bette for years,” I reply. “I killed Jacob and left. That was the job.”
“I need to re-trace her steps,” he plots. “We’re close.”
“So we’re even?” I ask.
“Nice try,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “I want weapons and money.”
“Text me a list, and Freddie will sort it out,” I say, relieved that he’s lost interest in getting his dick wet.
Now that he’s caught a lead on Bette; hunting her will consume him.
He turns on his heel and calls over his shoulder, “You and the Dukes can stay here for a week, then you’re out.”
His footsteps disappear up the steps, and he slams the door shut behind him, leaving me and Ivy alone.
She crosses her arms. “You handed her over to that sick monster.”
“Would you rather it was you?” I counter.
She presses her lips tightly together, then replies, “Don’t expect me to say thank you.”
CHAPTER 8
IVY
“I’d never expect you to say thank you, princess,” Callen says. “That’s not who you are.”
Even if he held a gun to my head, I’d never admit that seeing Torean scurry away made my racing heart slow.
