"Broken ribs, pretty shaken up. Alec's taking her to The Wellerton now. That place is a fortress, she'll be safe there."
I want to scream, to cuss, to throw shit and punch things, but I remain even-tempered and allow the rage to simmer until it's time to unleash it. There's no sense in getting upset when there's nothing productive that can be done.
"And the other girl?"
"I don't know, man. It's not looking good. Cora's a mess about it, and I hate that there isn't anything I can do about it. He beat her close to death."
"That could have been Cora."
"It won't be. We won't let that happen."
"We let her go over there today. It was fucking stupid."
I run my hand over my beard. "If he wants her to make him an heir, he isn't going to risk that. He's not stupid. He knows he got lucky with her. That's why he took it out on the daughter and not Cora. He's trying to intimidate her into submitting. It's part of his plan."
Miller doesn't say anything for a long moment and I wonder if he's hung up on me.
Finally, he says, "I can't talk about this right now."
"What are you doing?"
"Breaking into Ricardo's house to get Cora's purse back." He pauses and adds, "I'll talk to you later."
31
CORA
Alec and I wander through the unit that Miller advised us to go to in The Wellerton.
"This place is..." Alec takes it all in, his head practically whipping from one direction to the other. "Massive."
It's nearly identical to the one where I killed my boss, but it's mirrored and doesn't smell of fresh blood. Not that it would anymore—the blood would be old, and no doubt long gone since Silver was in charge of clean-up.
What a strange situation. I wonder if Miller or Silver knew back then that they would become what they are in my life now. Or Alec, for that matter. It's only been a couple days shy of a few weeks and things have blossomed into something...complicated.
I run my fingers along the back of the couch that's in all these display units and cross my arms over my chest as I walk further into the place. It's cold, but not just temperature-wise. The entire place lacks that lived-in vibe. There are no decorations aside from a few generic ones that the company I work for placed in here for sample purposes.
But when I walk into the kitchen, I notice a few things that don't quite belong.
A state-of-the-art espresso machine is the first thing that draws my attention. I open the fridge to find it fully stocked, a lot of my favorite foods adorning the shelves.
"That's weird," I whisper to no one but myself.
"What's weird?" Alec comes over behind me and peeks into the fridge. "Damn." He snatches a yogurt smoothie off the shelf. "I love these things." He twists the lid and side-eyes me. "What? I'm hungry."
I smile and shake my head as I continue to scan the contents. Mangoes. Blackberries. Raspberries. No strawberries, which is fine, because I don't care for them. Mushrooms, the cremini ones, not the basic white ones; also, my preference.
It's almost like this was stocked with everything I like in mind. There's no way that's a coincidence.
I latch onto the handle of the pantry and look inside there, too, and am not even surprised to find more things that I like. Things I wasn't even entirely sure if I liked, but appear to be something I would. Hint-of-Lime tortilla chips, pre-packaged granola bars, the kind with the red raisins, not the regular ones, almost as if the person knew that was the type I preferred. Boxed brownie mix, but the cake-like ones, because I don't love when they get hard and too crunchy.
"This is weird."
"You said that." Alec downs the rest of his yogurt and spins around in what I assume is in search of a trash can.
I point in the direction it should be and continue scanning the shelf. "All this food. It's stuff I like."
He returns to me a moment later with his hands empty. "What's so bad about that?"
