“Nothing is going to happen to him,” I promised, even though I had no place. “It’s…contained for now. Just please get out of L.A. as fast as you can. Even better, take Rich and Sam with you.”
Ronan ended the call without another word and I grimaced, letting the phone fall onto the table with a clatter.
“Sorted?” Sharp asked, sitting back down across from me.
“Hardly.” I rubbed my fingers up the bridge of my nose, willing the pending migraine that was building behind my eyes to go away before it exploded into my periphery.
“Can you get in touch with Rosetti?”
I could find him if I needed to, but we hadn’t exchanged phone numbers with the promise to keep in touch. We’d exchanged something more important, though. I traced my fingers along the edges of the borrowed gun, feeling the ridges and weight of it in my hand.
Before I could answer my boss, the glass window on the side of my front door shattered. A brick landed in my entryway. Someone kicked the front door open and bullets buried themselves into the plaster wall behind me.
“You said you were the only one!” I accused, throwing myself out of my chair. I grabbed both guns and kicked the table over, dragging Sharp behind it.
“I was,” he said, reaching over the edge of the table and firing off four rapid fire rounds. A body hit the ground and everything went quiet.
I adjusted my grip on Sage’s gun and looked over the top of the table, finding what I assumed to be a dead man in the middle of my living room.
“What the fuck, Sharp?”
He followed me around the table, both our guns drawn until we could confirm the subpar hitman had been ended. Sharp kept walking, giving a quick glance out the window and pushing the busted front door open.
“My neighbors are going to call the cops,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair and looking at the disaster that fuck had made of my home.
“Get the fuck out of here, Foster.”
“What?”
“Consider me an ignorant and terrified friend who was house-sitting for you,” he said, tucking his gun back into the holster beneath his jacket.
“He’sshot, Sharp.” I gestured at the body on the floor.
“He’ll be gone before the cops get here. Just a little breaking and entering. The neighbors don’t know what they heard.” Sharp shook his head and paced past me into the kitchen, righting the dining room table. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can, Foster. Now get the fuck out of here.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sage
My car was parked where I’d left it, without even a ticket tucked under the windshield wiper. Ridiculous, considering I’d been parked there for a week, but I wasn’t going to argue about the good luck. It was the first sliver of it I’d seen since getting stabbed behind that dive and I didn’t want to take it for granted.
I drove home, Golden’s Ruger sitting in the cup holder, remaining in my line of sight. I parked and took the stairs up instead of the elevator. My apartment appeared to be untouched. Nothing seemed out of place, the stack of bills on my kitchen counter even looking how I remembered it before I’d left. It annoyed me almost that I’d been nearly taken out by a hack hitman who hadn’t even had the courtesy to try and take me out at home before ending my life in a dirty fucking bar alley.
With a frown, I made it to my bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed and bent forward, loosening the laces on my boots so I could get them off. Golden really had done them up tight, but I was relieved to find the movement didn’t hurt my side the way it had earlier in the week. My face on the other hand…
I finished stripping out of my clothes—his clothes—and padded barefoot into the bathroom, allowing myself more than a passing glance at my face. Deep green and yellow bruises ringed one of my eyes and a rough-looking purple hump decorated the bridge of my nose. The cut on my cheek, originally from my father and reopened by that blond piece of shit, had at least started to heal. I pressed my fingers against my cheek, pulling the skin down and testing it.
I looked like shit.
It was a wonder Golden had let me bury my dick inside of him.
I didn’t sleep.
I sat on the edge of my bed with a loaned gun in my hand, eyes locked and steady on the door to my bedroom. I waited for anyone to come, for someone to dare come to my house and finish what they started. No one came. No sound. Nothing out of place. The sun set and rose and started to set again, and my heart rate had almost settled back to normal.
Do something,my brain whispered,stop sitting.
With a sigh, I set to putting myself back together, showering, shaving, re-bandaging my side, and dressing in clothes that belonged to me. I would be a liar if I tried to say I didn’t miss the softness and smell of Golden’s fabric softener against my skin. Of course the guy used fabric softener. I smoothed my hand down the front of my undershirt before shrugging into a black button up.
