It feels like a typical fucking Tuesday… Except I keep side-stepping into corners to avoid someone who should already be dead.
My hands shake as the adrenaline fades from my confrontation with Daniel. I glare down at my phone, the cracked screen protector evidence of a very public mistake I almost made today.
When I shoved my chair back and rushed downstairs to keep Daniel away from Roo’s mark, I didn’t pay attention to any other damage I caused… But the tip of my thumb has a thin red line where the glass cut me. I peel the protector off my screen and chuck it out the window of the speeding car.
Roo is running at least thirty over the downtown speed limit, letting her demons throw their weight around as she boils in the driver’s seat of her very ostentatious car. The locked doors between us and the outside world are cooling us both off.
She doesn’t even ask me what happened until we’re a few minutes into the drive. I don’t do more than make an aggravated sound in the back of my throat in response.
Her fingers white-knuckle around the steering wheel, as if the supple leather can absorb any more of her rage, until finally, she glances in my direction.
“Was it him?”
I nod. My fury spikes for a second, the kind of feeling that sits in your ribs and waits for the proper target. I try to keep it directed at the right person… But I’m angry at a few people right now. Three more, to be exact. If they had just called Roo like I asked, then she would have killed Daniel as he disappeared around the corner of the building, a quick bullet to the head.
No one would flinch at the sound of a gunshot in Crimson Bay.
The HimLock guys not calling her makes me wonder how closely they’re watching me. Surely they’ve seen Roo around. Romily Sokolov is difficult to miss with her wild scarlet hair and glittering goth exterior.
I shake my head, clearing my thoughts. This isn’t quite right. They have to know. I mean, they’ve hacked into my phone and have a dozen cameras on me. Which leaves me wondering…
What else do they know?
What do theynotknow?
Roo’s jaw tightens, the muscle ticking rhythmically, causing her ear to wiggle a little. “Do I need to beat his ass?” she inquires, her tone flat. “Or should we hire someone smarter than us?”
The laugh that leaves me tastes metallic but sounds thready. I can only think of a handful of people we could call… And none of them will give Daniel an ass-beating. There is no scenario where he walks away alive if we bring in a third party.
He should count his lucky fucking stars he’s still breathing at all.
Next time, I’ll have my gun. Fuck some goddamn scissors. Stabbing is more Roo’s thing than mine.
“Security got to him first,” I acknowledge, then snort. “The HimLock app called them.”
Roo hard blinks as she stops at a red light. She slowly turns to face me. “The app called security?”
“I don’t know how it all worked out,” I admit, leaning back against the seat and staring at the pristine black interior above my head. “But it did. I messaged the app, and two seconds later, security was dragging him out.”
She reaches across the console and laces her fingers through mine. No words needed. We’ve been through some shit together, and this doesn’t even make the top ten.
Her grip says, “I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eyes say, “Give me five minutes, and I’ll finish what they started.”
Roo makes a right turn into my apartment parking garage, pulling into the guest spot next to my mostly unused, extremely ordinary car… The sun is already shifting, afternoon light cutting sharp through the concrete columns as we exit her sports car and quietly slink across the nearly empty lot.
I catch my reflection in the glass door and stare. On the outside, everything appears normal. But there’s a fine tremor building under my skin, my ire coiling around the last dregs of my restraint, choking it like a python ready to strike at the rat.
“I’ll walk you up,” Roo tells me, her car releasing a high-pitched series of beeps before we enter the stairwell.
“You don’t have to?—”
“I know,” she interrupts. “I’m doing it anyway.”
We climb the stairs in silence, the kind that usually feels safe between us, as if the worst of the day is over and a fresh breath is just beyond the door we’re about to walk through.
But this one is different.
