She crosses her arms over her towel. “Electra is my best friend. It’s her life goal to find my soulmate. Or at best, my next good time. What am I supposed to tell her?”
“You tell her you are working overtime for a promotion and that’s that.”
“So I can’t even have friends now?”
“If they get a kick out of pimping you out, then no.” My tone hardens. “You will be seen with no one. There are cameras everywhere.”
“This isn’t fair,” she whines, readjusting her towel.
“Fair isn’t part of the contract. Or the world I live in. The world you now also live in.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this!”
I look down at her. “You asked for it when you started obsessing over me. Next time, be careful who you stalk.”
I turn and walk out of the bathroom with her phone. Amara follows.
“Wait! I want my phone back. And I want to go home.”
I turn around. Amara runs right into me. For a moment, her scent is all I can breathe. Jasmine, rose, patchouli.
“This is your home now. After last night, people think you’re just a side piece that I’m using to be defiant.”
“I kind of am,” she mumbles, looking away as she says it.
I grab her chin and yank her attention back up to me.
“We need to look serious. You live here with me. It makes it look convincing and I can keep my eye on you.”
For one uncanny moment, she is silent. Then, “I’m going to ask a really stupid question.”
”The answer is no. You don’t have a say in the matter.”
Her scowl deepens. “And my phone?”
“You can have your phone…” I start, and her face lights up with the spark of hope. But I snuff that flame real fast. “… when I decide I can trust you.”
By the time I’m out the door, I can still feel her glare burning holes in my back.
28
RANSOME
“Boys…” My dad paces the floor of the warehouse in front of the line of trucks. He has a brick of cocaine in his hand and he’s bouncing it with a nod. “We are very much in business.”
“I gotta say, that is the purest shit I’ve ever seen,” one of the drivers says. “Or tried…” He laughs at his own joke.
My dad shoots him a warning look. “Don’t get sloppy.”
“I would never dust and drive.”
“Not on the job. Not otherwise,” I double down. “We don’t hire users.”
“I shouldn’t have to tell you this, gentlemen.” My dad’s voice gets louder, echoing through the building. “This is the biggest job we have ever taken on. We are the number one seller on the streets of New York. Not just city, but state. And I think it’s safe to say we are now covering the surrounding areas too. You can’t get snow this pure anywhere else. And our suppliers aren’t selling this to anyone else. Which means twice the responsibility. Twice the precaution.”
“Twice the cash,” someone jokes, and both of us whip our attention around.
I grab the guy by the jumpsuit. “Twice the brains extracted mummy style from your face while you watch me do it, if you don’t shut the fuck up and take this seriously.”
