AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You know what. I laid it all out for you yesterday. Richelle used to date Vinnie Santorini, the guy who owns that building. My sources say he remains her main supplier.”
“What’s your point?”
“I want you to scare him into dumping her. He’s in deep, and she needs to make a clean break.”
“And I give a fuck why? If she needs to make a clean break, that’s on her. I have my own shit to handle.”
“Yes, you do, and I promised to help you make that problem go away. Cassalia’s parents want to sue you for negligence and civil responsibility in her death, Malachi. If you keep hiding your head in the sand, they’re going to go to the media and you’re going to be hit with a huge—”
“Because I’m guilty,” he said flatly. “Of course I’m guilty.”
“You were her fiancé.”
“We broke up. She wouldn’t quit that shit, so I ended things.” He lowered his voice when the guy in front of him shot a glance over his shoulder, his joint hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
There was no need to advertise his business here, even if half these people were too stoned to remember it tomorrow.
“Still, she was a small-town girl before she met you,” Lila went on. “Your lifestyle helped introduce her to the drugs that ended her life. You were the one who broke her heart and sent her into a spiral.”
“What about my goddamn spiral? Does that matter? Christ.” He stabbed his fingers into his eyes, the questions and comments he’d received over the last few weeks after every freaking race pelting his skull.
It must be difficult, losing the woman you love in such a public way.
Had Cassalia always been suicidal? Was she dealing with depression, or was it your breakup that sent her over the edge?
And his favorite:
How can you continue to race after such a heartbreaking event?
How could he was a good question. And it was why he’d stopped doing the legit races that ended with questions and flashbulbs popping and turned to the underground ones where no one gave a crap why he did anything and just cared if he made them money. They were dirty, and dangerous, and just this side of legal.
He couldn’t have cared less, if it meant he got to do what he loved outside the glare of the goddamn public eye.
Now more conditions were being put upon that love. More threats levied his way couched under concern.
“There’s all kinds of ways to balance scales, Mal,” Lila said softly, and for a second, he thought he heard genuine compassion in her tone. Then she cleared her throat and her voice hardened. “Since you’re there now, that must mean you agree to my terms.”
He said nothing. Just gripped his phone and wished he’d never picked it up yesterday. He might not be any further ahead, but he wouldn’t be in this frigging untenable position of playing nurse-slash-bodyguard-slash-protector for a woman he didn’t even know.
Didn’twantto know, if she was a fucking user like Cassalia had been.
“If you convince Vinnie that it’s in his best interest not to sell to Richelle anymore, certain stipulations of our agreement will come into play. If you bump it up a notch and join Warning Sign as well, your garage will be funded, your issues with the Franklins will go away, and the story will be buried, deep enough that you’ll probably never hear the words Cassalia Franklin spoken aloud in your presence ever again.”
Mal cupped the back of his neck and squeezed. The pressure reminded him that this was a means to an end. The garage would be back in the black. His men wouldn’t have to worry about their jobs—not that he ever would’ve let it get that bad, even if he had to break his own moral code. Again.
Amazing how flexible that damn thing could be when you were desperate enough.
And he was.
He was fucking desperate to make all of this go away. To stop looking back at the waste before he drowned in it.
“This Richelle, why does she matter so much to you?” he asked, his voice close to a growl.
His ex-stepmother didn’t step out the door without a payday waiting on the other side, usually in the form of an artist she could mold for the benefit of her bank account. So there must be a damn good reason she was sullying herself with concerns about some druggie chick.
Just another one in a sea of them. Faceless, nameless, unrecognizable.
“Does it matter?”
