“Should I come with you?” January mumbles.
“No,bella, you be a good girl and sleep. In an hour I’ll have Gretzky bring up some food.”
She nods, her eyes already closing. The urge to climb into bed beside her returns. I hang back as the others file out of the room. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
Her cheeks go pink. “Could you maybe… stay with me for a bit?”
Something in her eyes makes my cock harden. I think of the Orchard still swimming in her blood, my offer to make her come without taking her virginity. “I… what do you—”
Eli whistles. “Bobby. Now.”
I bite back a sigh. “Sorry JJ. Sleep well.”
She lowers her head. “Goodbye, Bobby.”
“Simp,” Doc says, as soon as I’m out the door. I glare at him but what am I supposed to say? That I’m not completely stupid for January Whitehall? That I don’t want to be whatever she needs?
Eli locks the door behind me, giving me a look as he puts the keys in his pocket. “Don’t even think about it.”
I expect him to lead us to the dining room, but he heads for the nearest balcony.
“I want a cigarette,” Eli says. “Do you have your pack, Domenico?”
“Don’t call me that,” Doc mutters but he pulls his battered Marlboro lights from his jeans.
It’s freezing cold outside, rain falling off the roof in a steady stream. Doc hands Eli and Adriano a cigarette then looks at me. “Want one?”
I never smoke unless I’m so wasted, I don’t remember doing it. I shake my head, the icy wind whipping at my face. It must be below freezing but Doc’s barefoot and in a T-shirt. Still, I know better than to suggest he put shoes on. Doc’s the sulking big brother I never asked for.
“What do you think?” Eli asks.
Doc lights his cigarette, a flicker in the dark. “He gave her O.”
“How?”
“Parker must have stolen some.”
Ell exhales a stream of white smoke. “Did he steal it? Or did he replicate it?”
Doc draws hard on his cigarette. “He’d need a sample to replicate it, so either way he must have stolen some. But he gave her some of ours.”
“What makes you think that?” Eli asks.
“Because she threw up a bunch of times.”
Adriano flicks his cigarette, creating a shower of sparks. “Could have been the alcohol.”
“One cocktail she barely drank?” Doc shakes his head. “Orchard isn’t shelf stable. Longest I kept a dose was six months and when I gave it to Mel—no, Meg—she said she felt sick after. She didn’t puke, but it was the first time anyone’s said that. If Parker’s been making his own gear, then the puking’s a new feature. If he’s kept what he stole, it oxidized. My money’s on that.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t kill her,” Eli says darkly.
Doc lights a second cigarette off the tip of his first. “If she’d drunk the whole cocktail, he probably would have.”
We stand there for a long time, our breath and cigarette smoke mixing with the wet air. I imagine the girl tucked into the bed not two rooms away, dead at a charity gala. I want to go to her and give her anything, everything, to make her feel better.
“Risky,” Adriano says. “Doping her in front of her family.”
“Fucking pig,” Doc mutters. I remember watching him pace the hospital after Alessia was attacked and my gut knots.
