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“What the fuck did you mean?”
“Let me take the puppy outside. I think she needs to use the facilities,” Madame Dubois says, slinking over to take the dog. These people are going to fucking kill me.
“You should get some sleep, Judge. You really look like hell,” Solana says once we’re alone and she’s moved behind the counter to put some things away in the display case. “I do have something for that.”
I inhale deeply. “You are testing me.”
“What?”
“What. Was. Your. Fucking. Text. About?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “What I said. I thought it was pretty self-explanatory.”
I grip the counter and count to ten. “Do a better job of explaining.”
“Clifton Phillips is an old flame of hers, am I right?”
“Clifton fucking Phillips? A flame? I don’t think so.”
“I mean, he’s cute, I guess,” she wavers. “If you like that type. Although I guess you worked the brooding, domineering asshole type out of her system.”
“When did you meet him? Was he invited to one of your little events the three of you have?”
There’s that grin again. “No, I met him here. He tracked Mercedes down. Romantic, am I right?”
I feel my brain rattle against my skull.
“And then he proposed to her! Right here in my shop!” She sighs with a big smile on her face, but something is off.
“He did what?”
“It was something to see, that’s for sure.”
Madame Dubois returns, and Kali’s nails click on the floor as she returns not to me but to Solana.
“What did she say?”
Solana picks Kali up and cocks her head at me. “You don’t look happy for her, Judge.”
“What did she say?”
“I’d think you would welcome a proposal from a Sovereign Son. I mean, you’re the big shots, right? The upper echelon of your creepy little Society?”
“Solana. I am going to ask you one more time. What did she say?”
“She’s thinking about it. But I’m guessing we may be hearing wedding bells soon. I’d get on that if I were you, Judge.”
The bell over the door rings as if taunting me, and I turn to find Georgie walking in. He gives me his usual glower for a greeting, then beams to Kali. I don’t wait for him to even get to her, though, before I snatch her from Solana’s arms, to the protest of both dog and woman, and stalk out of the shop thinking of how exactly I’m going to kill Clifton Phillips.
19
Mercedes
“Soooo?” Solana’s stare burns a hole into the side of my face as we sit on the sofa watching a trashy reality TV show. I think the entire premise is that everyone just gets drunk every night and makes bad decisions, but I’m not entirely certain.
“So what?” I toss a piece of popcorn into my mouth and chew on it.
“Nothing to report today?”
