Then, as if his name would somehow sway me, he said, “About the job?—”
“I said no.”
“It wasn’t a yes or no question.”
I was curious. “Don’t you have people in house to do your jobs?”
“This job requires the best. Which is you.”
He was right. I was the best. But so far, I’d managed not to get tangled up with the modern mob of Buffalo. “I don’t shit where I sleep,” I told him.
“You’ll make an exception.”
Like hell I would. Once you got tangled with Matteo Salvatore, you never got free.
“I said no. I meant it. If you send more men after me, they’ll come back in body bags.”
“I’ll send you an address. You have forty-eight hours.” The call disconnected.
“I’m not doing it,” I told Grimaldi’s men as they started to retreat.
“It’s your funeral,” the one I’d pistol-whipped retorted.
Did they think that would scare me? It didn’t. I admit Matteo Salvatore’s power over Buffalo and even parts of Canada was impressive. No one fucked with him.
But he was about to find out no one fucked with me either.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Haz
I approached my apartment door like there was a bomb inside that could detonate at any moment. Half expecting it to be slightly open the way I’d found it this morning, I was nauseatingly relieved to see it was still latched shut.
Well, maybe the nausea was from the persistent headache. But it sure ratcheted up a notch when I saw my door closed. Swallowing back the uncomfortable lump in my throat, I turned the handle and pushed. My apartment had gone unlocked all day. I had no choice since whoever helped themselves to my things busted it.
Peering through the opening, I looked around the little bit I could see. “Hello?” I called out into the quiet, still space.
No one answered, and I pushed farther into the apartment. It wasn’t as though, if someone were in here, they’d just answer. But what else was I supposed to do?
It seemed the place was empty, so I pushed the door shut behind me and then stepped over the mess littering the floor to go into my closet-sized bathroom and check behind the shower curtain. Satisfied the only thing in there was the mildew thatnever came clean, I relieved myself, staring at the toothpaste in the toilet bowl the entire time.
After washing my hands, I tugged off the orange beanie I’d worn to cover up my stiches and lifted onto my toes to see in the mirror over the sink. We won’t discuss how I’m too short to fully see myself in it.
Teetering on my toes, I caught sight of my messy hair and closed my eyes as the vivid memory of Kieran gently washing it in the bath last night came over me. He scolded me the entire time about leaving dried blood in the strands and not at least attempting to shampoo it myself.
The attention made me hard, even if he was grumpy. His gruff voice but gentle fingers had me practically salivating. The way he’d cupped warm water in his palm and poured it over the soapy strands while shielding the bandage with his other left me warm and fuzzy.
The ache in my toe joints forced me back in the moment, and I turned my attention toward the bandage, gently peeling up the corner to look at the stitches beneath it. They were black and slashed through a raised, angry red welt. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be looking for, but with the way my head throbbed, I thought I’d see something else.
After pressing it back into place, I peeled away the bandage on my hand because I’d just gotten it wet. The cut there was less raised than the one on my head and had some sort of white strips stuck across the red line slicing through my palm. It was sore from working all day, but it seemed okay too. Since I didn’t have any of the white gauzy stuff the doctors had wrapped around my hand, I left it the way it was.
I wasn’t sure where to even start in here, but for once, I was grateful my apartment was about the size of a shoebox. At least there would be less to clean. Procrastinating, I went into the kitchen, which was more of a kitchenette, and pulled a juice fromthe fridge. I dug the pain relievers I’d taken from the bottle in the break room at work and downed them, hoping it would take the edge off the throbbing in my skull.
The slide of the cold juice into my empty stomach was uncomfortable, but I forced it down anyway. I started with the kitchen counter, cleaning up the cereal tossed everywhere and throwing it into the trash along with the ripped-apart box. The bread I’d gotten for peanut butter sandwiches was everywhere too, the slices smashed. A couple were even stuck to the cabinets.
Once the kitchenette was free of wasted food and mess, I attempted to fix the cabinet door hanging from a hinge. It came off in my hand and crashed to the floor. I scrambled back, trying not to become its casualty, and ended up tripping over some of the stuffing they’d gutted from the couch.
