Good question. I’m being paid to babysit her, and the sex is…an optional fringe benefit. My brothers would probably say she owes me a debt now. They might even be right.
But there’s something about this spoiled, sharp-tongued ballerina that pokes at the soft spots I don’t like to admit exist inside of me. Those spots are supposed to be reserved for pets. For kids. For family.
There are different kinds of owing.
Some of them she does.
Some of them she doesn’t.
Mikey weaves through traffic, heading downtown. Clive headed back to the dinner, reporting in to my brothers.
“What you owe me,” I say at last, “is good behavior. And obedience.”
“Sexually?” she asks, voice too bright, too eager, and it spears heat straight into my gut.
“I meant in general,” I bite out. “Not doing stupid shit like running into danger.”
“I didn’t know.” She swallows. “Mom wanted to meet for lunch?—”
“It’s not lunchtime, Molly.”
“And I had to pick up a package. So I went and?—”
“What was it?” I cut in.
It’s then I notice her hands. She’s holding onto something. I guess I missed it before while I was killing the bastard who touched her.
Should’ve taken him apart piece by piece.
She holds the box out without a word.
My stomach flips when I open it.
Her pointe shoes, shredded and stained a deep, ugly red.
A flash hits me. There were red streaks on the dead man’s fingers, on his coat.
“For a long time, I didn’t really think I had a stalker,” she whispers. “But the bird and then these shoes…”
Her voice trails off.
I stare down at them. There’s a white scraptucked in the tissue paper, a note, probably. Threats. Promises. Doesn’t matter. The message is in the gift, same as the bird. The flower bouquet. The one red bloom in a sea of white. Innocence ended. Blood. Death.
Shit.
The air shifts. She’s talking again, her voice low and shaky, but I catch the tone more than the words. Her perfume, roses and peonies, curls in the air around me, mixing with the sharp, sour scent of sweat in the shoes. I slant her a look.
“Are these yours, Molly?”
She shoves her hands under the hem of my jacket, which is buttoned over her like a makeshift dress. I remember she’s naked under the tattered gown. I didn’t give her underwear to wear with it. I wanted her on edge all night.
But not like this.
I shut that thought down.
“Yes,” she says quietly.
I press my lips together and nod. Then I flip open the thin scrapbook from the dead man’s coat.
