I’d wanted to stop and appreciate my work, maybe make an example of him to others, but I didn’t have the energy for it. I was growing tired of this. What was done was done. There would always be new people to take Dobrow’s spot on the food chain, and then I would make sure to let them know what had happened to their predecessor.
We filed out to the waiting cars and SUVs, and Ana shoved me into the back of the sedan. I groaned in pain as I landed on my shoulder, but I thought he considered it punishment for going in with them because he merely snorted.
“Take me to get this damned wound dealt with and change my clothes, so I won’t attract attention, then bring me to Asa,” I said.
He nodded at the driver, who took off down the street. “Yeah, you need to do some explaining to a certain model.”
Well, fuck. That was going to be worse than dealing with being shot.
8
ASA
The white Hummer stopped at a light and the big guy in a blue Brooks Brothers suit, with a bun and super clean undercut, checked in the rearview mirror. He narrowed his eyes on me.
The jerk’s redheaded friend had picked me up like I was a toddler and tossed me in the back seat, then held the door until the Hummer was moving. I hadn’t thought to try to open the other one until the Hummer was barreling down the street far too fast for me to consider it.
The big guy had his phone jammed to his ear and I could hear someone talking on the other end, though I couldn’t make out the words. He grunted out an affirmative answer to a question.
I didn’t care who he was speaking with because he wasn’t paying any attention to me and that was good. I still didn’t know what the fuck was going on. No one had told me anything.
All I could think about was how close Ruslan and I had come to being shot, then he’d actually.... Well, I didn’t know that the other man was dead, but it seemed likely. So, now I could say I had the New York City experience of witnessing a murder.Yay! Go me!
The big guy was still nodding along to his phone call. I let out a long breath, tensed, and shoved open the door. I didn’t have shoes on or anything, but I ran as if my life depended on it because I wasn’t sure that it didn’t. What the hell would he do to me when he got me out of the city on the way to Southampton? Pull over and put a bullet in my head for having seen too much?
“Hey! Fuck, don’t!” he yelled after me.
“Sorry. I wanna live!” I definitely didn’t stop. It was late, so the sidewalks weren’t that busy, and I let out a triumphant whoop as I spotted a gorgeous yellow cab. Ruslan’s man wasn’t following me, so I had to assume he didn’t want to leave the Hummer in traffic, and I counted myself lucky. I waved down the cab, and I was ready to cry as it stopped. I opened the back door and stuck my hand in my pocket, then pulled out my phone. “Do you take Apple Pay?” I shoved my phone toward the plexiglass divider.
“Yep,” the man behind the wheel said. He turned toward me. “You doin’ all right there, guy?” He frowned and his heavy Brooklyn accent left me blinking for a moment. He had dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a fading summer tan, and while he wasn’t exactly handsome, tonight he was a saint.
I slammed my door closed. “Great! Can you please take me to the airport?”
He snorted. “You’re from outta town. Which airport?” He raised his eyebrows at me, and I struggled to remember which one I’d gone through on my last commercial flight.
“Change of plans. Can you take me to the closest bus station?” My heart hammered. I could get out of the city from there, and no one would ask questions about why I looked this way. I would be in a ton of trouble, lose my career, have to give back a bunch of money.... My boss would never speak to me again, either. That would be fun, like walking on broken glass. But I couldn’t imagine finishing the photo shoot—no way, no how.
It took the entire drive to the bus station for me to calm down, and I was inside standing near one of the glass walls and breathing stuffy air when I realized that I’d shoved my wallet in my pants pocket after I’d changed, just so I would know where it was. I nearly fell over with joy. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to buy a ticket.
But where did I want to go? I had no clue.
I went past a neat hanging sculpture comprised of wires and blue glass swirled together, then found a seat on a bench near the vending machines. The entire place gave me the creeps with the frame of mind I was in right now. Across the room a man in a dirty jean jacket and black shorts sat on a bench muttering, and on a different bench a blonde girl—probably younger than me—was sleeping with her head on her backpack and her billowy yellow dress tucked around her knees. How she’d worked up the nerve to close her eyes, I would never know.
I wasn’t hungry, but I was dying of thirst, so I went to the coffee vending machine, selected as much sugar and creamer as possible, and waited for my caffeinated sludge. Once I had my cup in hand, I went back to the bench and stared at my phone.
My hand shook. It was late, after three o’clock in the morning.Fuck it.I hit Marcus McKay’s number on my phone and sat there while it rang. He didn’t pick up, and I let out a long, shaky breath, but as soon as I ended the call, my phone began to blow up almost immediately.
The second the phone touched my ear, I said, “I can’t do it.”
“Oh, no. You’ve got jitters.” While he sounded a little annoyed, he mostly seemed amused as he snorted. Yeah, the jerk thought this was funny.
“You don’t understand, Mr. McKay. It isn’t just—”
“Listen. I already got a call from Giselle ranting about what a dream you are to work with and telling me that she’d be willing to use models from our agency for the rest of her life, if they’re anything like you. Relax. Just keep doing what you’re doing.” Someone on his end asked him what was going on and he shushed them.
“But—”
“It’s late,” he said.
