A hand touches my leg. It’s not mine. I shift and glare at him, willing the dick to try something on. I’ll break his fucking fingers if he tries. I’ve never once been raped, and that shit isn’t about to start now. Tommy tried it. He pinned me, held me down, and used his weight to carve fucking cuts into my skin. I was his property, he said, after his father killed mine. Street trash to play with. He even offered me fucking money to do what he said. Said he’d look after me and keep the others off me – stop the house from being burnt to the ground.
I watched that house burn down two weeks later, and all because I tried decimating his balls that night rather than let him have what he wanted out of me. It’s nearly funny thinking back on it now. I let Malachi do things to me, let him cut me, force me, bind me up and push pills down my throat. Why? Because I trusted something about him, thought he meant something, or the suicide he was trying for meant something to me? Fucking bizarre. Freaky.
I’m done thinking about him.
Whatever we were is over.
And he’s not here to save me.
Suburban roads start turning into more main routes into the centre of Dallas, and I track the men and women as they walk idly by outside this car. They don’t know. They just amble on with their day, indifferent to the life that happens behind the scenes. Criminals are everywhere, all of them taking what they want and doing what they want regardless of who gets hurt. I lost my life to them, have had to hide in the shadows rather than be happy. And the only thing I can hope now is that I’m enough to end it – that Icanend it – either by my death or his. With any luck Brandon and Brett are far away and Whit’s at least looking out for them.
The car eventually pulls into some underground parking of a huge skyscraper and weaves its way through to a far end corner. Cars are lined up, all of them with private plates that give away who they belong to. Greene One, Greene Two, Greene Three. He probably cut someone’s head off to get hold of them, too. Asshole. An old asshole. Must be late fifties now, grey hair and wrinkled as hell features showing his wizened reasoning for life, I guess.
I’m dragged out the car, a hard hand slapped over my mouth as we move towards elevator doors. It’s probably private and going straight to the money he’s showing the world he owns. Who gives a fuck about any of that? Money doesn’t buy manners, and this asshole has none of those, nor does he have half the breeding my Malachi had.
My Malachi.
Stop.
I wrench my arm from one of the guys at the thought of Malachi again, now pissed that I keep thinking back to things that are clearly fucking done. The result is me being slammed inside the steel box, two of them crowding me immediately, as Temple walks in. He stares, a glare flickering around his features now he’s felt my wrath on his skin. Don’t care about that either.
I shrink back and try not to shake, rubbing my hip because of the impact. Malachi’s not coming for me. Why would he? Like Gray said, I’m commonplace. Lower class. Street trash. Just a game probably. Tit for tat. And any hope I had of him coming to get me, of him saving my ass and being some kind of hero, is gone. Distance stopped that need. He’ll have forgotten me by now, or dismissed the sensation. I doubt he’d even lower himself by playing this kind of game. One thing he isn’t, no matter his nefarious intent in some ways, is a criminal.
The sight of doors opening and the feel of me being pushed into a room is as unwelcome as it should be, but screw it – here we are. I look up and around, trying to get my bearings. It’s modern, freshly painted. Walls of glass line the view, all of them showing the city spread out below it. No other Greene waiting for me that I can see. Just silence and an empty apartment.
I glance at the shiny surfaces, the expensive furnishings, the modern complex of nearly open plan rooms leading through to each other. It’s huge, and full of new wealth. Nothing old about it. No generations of privilege and power. No dusty rooms with relics of a time gone by. Guess he got someone to make it happen, make him look pretty and clever. No reality. A pretence.
Fucking lies.
“Bring her through,” Temple says, rubbing the scratches on his throat. He looks in a mirror, frowns at the state of his neck and face. “Put her in there while I deal with this crap.”
Something shoves my back, a hand then grabbing my wrist to drag me. He shouldn’t bother. There’s no need to force me into doing this anymore. I’ve only got one goal, and that’s to get as close to Franco as I can when he eventually arrives.
I shrug until I’m free of the clasped hand and keep moving, eyes scanning my surroundings again. I’m pushed right, head twisted as if I’m a child to be manhandled. I take it, glaring through the movement until we’re entering a large dining room.
By the time Temple comes back out, I’m getting myself in some catatonic state of objection. He comes around in front of me, stares. Dirty blonde hair. Intense green eyes. Clean clothes now. Shirt and a pair of slacks. Freshly shaven face. Asshole. I half smile at the line of crimson on his neck, still pissed I didn’t have my knife to cut deep enough.
“You tried to kill me.”
I don’t respond. Not like it needs a damn conversation, is it? I sneer instead and try to keep calm, wishing I was wearing something other than oversized men’s clothes. They make me feel grubby, dirty and tarnished. I’m not. “Sit down Alice.”
“Fuck off.”
A hand shoves my back from behind, making me slowly turn and look at the dick. He shunts his chin up, trying to usher me forward. I don’t want to sit with a Greene. I don’t want conversation, or any fucking pretence that this isn’t exactly what it is, so I stay exactly where I am instead.
I’ll do this from my grounded bare feet.
Chapter 3
Malachi
If I could put my finger on what it is that she gave me, I would. I can’t, though. It’s as murky and unclear as the song she produced for me, and yet so deliberate on my being that I have no choice but to ride to the fucking rescue. Unlike me, but, as she would say, here we are. Or here I am. Where she is is unclear. Fort Worth, Dallas, or at least that’s what the flight plan said. I know this because I found Damien the second I got back to Manhattan, or my team did, and now we’re both flying towards Dallas in the comfort of my wealth. I say comfort. He’s as uncomfortable as I can make him.
“You really were fucking stupid, Damien. Of all the people to try this with me, I would not have considered you a threat.”
He doesn’t say anything in response. He can’t. He’s got tape on his mouth because I can’t bear the thought of hearing his fucking voice any longer. The initial bullshit he tried for was bland enough when I found him in his apartment on the Upper East Side. And then he didn’t know where she could be other than Dallas. So I gagged him to stop any more treacherous words.
There were words spoken about Franco Greene before that, and Temple being his nephew, and then some diatribe about favours owed or maybe money owed. I don’t know. I lost interest when he couldn’t give me a definitive position for her whereabouts. He doesn’t even know where his plane is. It never landed at Fort Worth like it should have according to the log books. Useless really, but I’ve brought him along for the ride because I might need to have him killed if I don’t find her.
