The Libellula Family owns the East End of Springfield. My apartment is firmly in territory they own. Full of mobsters and gangsters and criminals who sell drugs and run guns and pass counterfeit bills around… of killers and monsters who mark themselves with Damien Libellula’s trademark dragonfly and those leaves… and unless I’m way wrong, I’m trapped in a chalet on a mountain with one of them.
No one in Springfield would dare wear a dragonfly on their skin if they weren’t loyal to Damien Libellula and his Family. Add that to the leaves and… yeah. I’m cooked. Unless I pretend like I’m some naïve little girl who’s never heard any of the stories about the powerful men who run my city, which might be a lot easier if I stopped gaping at Patrick’s ink.
I try my best, but that becomes even more of a problem when I swap ogling his tattoos for oglinghim.
The towel is the only thing between me and what he looks like completely naked. That realization has my cheeks heating up again, my pulse roaring in my ears as the bathroom air turns thick and suffocating.
He could be a murderer after all, and still I can’thelp but be attracted to him. Shit. I knew those five bastards broke me, but I don’t think I realized how much they did until I have to resist the urge to hope that his grip on that towel isn’t as good as it seems to be.
Finally, as though he’s just noticed that I burst in on him, Patrick steps toward me. And I notice something else. He never flinched. He never jumped like any normal guy would to have a strange woman barge into a bathroom while he was finishing up with his shower.
Instead, as I force myself to meet his eyes through the remnants of the steam, his expression is almost… amused.
“Ah, Starling,” he says, low and calm. He lifts his hand, ruffling his wet hair, making his muscles flex with the motion even as he purposely shows off the dragonfly tat. “If you’d wanted to join me in the shower, all you had to do was ask. I would’ve waited for you.”
I blink at the nickname he used, assuming that’s what it is. Starling… what the hell is ‘Starling’? And where the hell did it come from?
And why does he think I would do that? Up until this very second, I thought I was doing an excellent job at hiding my attraction to him. Patrick definitely didn’t give me any clue that he was interested in me, though—to be fair—he’s a guy. It’s just the two of us here, andif he decided he wanted to get lucky for Christmas, I’m kind of his only option. So, yeah, he’d take a shower with me if I offered, only I hadn’t.
I’d come to…
To…
“You’re not a cop,” I blurt out before I can think better of it.
Patrick doesn’t argue with me. With a small smile, he runs his fingers over the dragonfly tattoo on his forearm. “You sure about that? You don’t know how much of the Springfield PD is bought and paid for by people like us.”
If I wasn’t sure before, I am now.Us. That tattoo means one thing. The fact that he says ‘us’ like that? Yeah. I know exactly what he is.
He’s a mobster.
I’ve lived in Springfield my whole life. There are parts of the city that are more suburban; my parents still own their house on that side of town. The rest of the metropolis is an urban center broken into five sections: the West Side, the Northern Edge, South Springfield, East End, and the downtown area that’s actually the center of it all. The crime syndicates have their fingers in all of it, and even if you try to pretend you don’t know, it’s inescapable.
The daring look on Patrick’s face tells me that he will be, too. But the look in his eyes? There’s something else there, something dark yet wicked, and it has mystomach flip-flopping as I finally rip my gaze away from him.
Too bad it lands on the pile of clothes he placed on the counter before he climbed in the shower—and the shiny dark grey gun that’s nestled on top of his sweater.
Damn it! I knew he had a gun!
I yip, suddenly too frightened to do anything but stare at the weapon. It’s the first time I’ve seen a gun in real life and not just in the movies or on TV, and I gape at it as if I expect it to go off on its own.
I shiver, and Patrick’s deep voice reaches me through the fear.
“Starling—”
Grateful for the distraction, for the reason to stop staring at that gun, I glare over at him. It’s probably reckless, especially with the weapon so close, but I can’t help myself as I snap, “My name is Noelle.”
“I know.”
Oh. Okay, then.
Patrick grabs another towel. He swipes it over his face, drying the water droplets spattered on his skin, then lays the damp towel over the pile so that he can cover up the gun.
Then he adds, “Your name is Noelle Halliday,” and my blood goes cold.
I swallow, forcing my next words out around sudden panic. Because I… I never told him my last name. I was fuckingcarefulnot to do that. I was Noelle,and even if he’s Patrick North—assuming he didn’t come up with a fake name—I couldn’t be Noelle Halliday with a stranger.
And yet, heknows.
