“Miss York?” I hear a knock on my door.
It’s Liv, my mother’s night nurse. I open the door. “Is my mother okay?” I ask. It’s after midnight. Why else would she be knocking on my door?
Her eyes widen as they scan my mostly exposed body and caked-on makeup. “Uh, … yes, ma’am.” Her eyes meet mine, and she clears her throat. “Mr. Wilton is expecting you.”
My jaw tightens. “Tell him to go fuck himself,” I snap.
She sucks in a breath at my foul language.
I run a hand through my hair. It has more hairspray than a toddler in a tiara contestant. Taking in a deep breath, I weigh my options. He still has control. He’s probably been blowing up my phone that I don’t have. “Is he in myfather’soffice?”
“No. He went home to his house for the evening. He said you know where it is.” She bites her bottom lip and drops her eyes to her feet.
I roll mine. “And?”
“And he said that he’s been trying to contact you all day.”
I fist my hands. What in the fuck has he been texting me? Titan could be reading them. If I’m lucky, he shut the thing off or it died.
“He said that you need to keep up your end of the deal.”
I slam the door in her face and hear her shriek on the other side. “Sorry son of a bitch,” I hiss. We didn’t make a deal. He blackmailed me. But he’s right. If I want what’s best for my mother, I need to give him what he wants. Fuck, I hate my life.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I decide to change my clothes, but I’m leaving my makeup on and my hair the way it is. I’m not going to take the time to fix myself for him. I need a drink, but I can’t if I have to drive … “Shit!” I throw my head back and close my eyes. I need to get my tire fixed. I had it towed to Jasmine’s house. Thankfully, I made enough tonight for that, but that doesn’t help me right now. “Fuck it,” I say, pulling on a T-shirt. I’ll go downstairs and call a taxi. I’ll never make it through George touching me if I’m sober.
TITAN
An hour later, I pull up to a driveway and turn off my candy apple red Maserati. Bones sits in the passenger seat. Silent. He hasn’t said a single word to me since we saw Emilee at Kingdom. A flat black Zenvo ST1 stops behind me. I exit and watch Grave get out of his car.
“What’s the plan?” he asks me.
“Collect what we’re owed,” I answer.
“And if he doesn’t have it?” Cross asks, exiting the passenger side of the Zenvo.
“Then you get to burn something,” Bones answers, slamming my passenger door shut. He’s in a mood, and it’s not a good one.
All four of us make our way up the concrete steps and knock on the big wooden doors.
They don’t keep us waiting long. A little Mexican woman answers the door. Her black hair is up in a tight bun, and she wears a traditional black and white uniform that allows her to scrub his piss off the floor when he’s too hammered to make it to the toilet.
“May I help you?” Her eyes widen as they run over the black ink that curls around my neck.
I lean forward, and she stiffens but doesn’t back away. “Run,” I whisper.
She sucks in a breath, and I grab her shirt by the collar and yank her through the door. She gasps as I shove her away from us. We enter the house and slam the door shut. Bones locks the door, keeping her out.
“Margarita, who was at the door …?” The man who comes to look over the railing trails off when he sees the four of us standing in his house. “Shit,” he whispers under his breath.
“George, nice place,” Grave says, smiling as he looks around at the expensive wall art hanging and the glass sculptures on the shelves. He walks over to the round glass table that sits in the middle of the foyer and picks up the glass vase that has a red rose painted on it. He removes the flowers, lies them on the table, and then drops the vase to his feet. It shatters to a million fucking pieces.
“Kings,” the man says, swallowing hard. His big eyes go to Bones. “I was gonna call you—”
“Good thing we decided to come see you then,” Grave interrupts him. That stupid grin still plastered on his face.
His hands grip the banister, knuckles turning white. “Have Margarita show you to my office.”
“She won’t be joining us,” I state.
