“Aria—”
“Don’t make me beat your ass, Stone Blackthorne.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I can handle myself,” she tells me. “Besides, it’s not your call. I’m doing it with or without your approval, and you’re going to be grateful. Otherwise, I’m going to find someone who deals in horse tranquilizers and nail you in the ass with one.”
I arch a brow. “A horse tranquilizer?”
“Get it?” she laughs. “Because you’re so damn big.”
I let out a huff, but as her stomach rumbles again, I realize I really don’t have a choice. I can’t make her starve because I’m too fucking stubborn to let her walk down to the corner store. Fact is, I can’t go. I have to keep myself locked away in this shitty apartment, and to be able to do that, I need to learn to lean on Aria from time to time. I’m so used to being the one who cares for her. She was always my responsibility, but now it’s time for her to do the same.
“Okay,” I finally say. “But I’ll be watching you from the window, and if you’re gone for more than fifteen minutes, I’m coming after you. Understood?”
“Oh, thank fuck,” she breathes, throwing herself to her feet and scampering over to our survival bag. She pulls out some cash and shoves it into her pocket before turning back and grinning at me. “You and me, we’re living the high life tonight.”
I roll my eyes, and she nearly dances toward the door, only as she pulls it open, she pauses and glances back at me. “Also, after we eat, I’m heading down to the basement. There’s bound to be a washer and dryer down there, and we need clean clothes. So it’s best you start getting used to the idea now.”
A smug grin stretches across her lips, and after blowing me a quick kiss, Aria disappears out the door, and I’m instantly flooded with deep regret. It’s the first time she’s been out of my sight all week, and the idea of something happening to her makes me sick.
She’s tried to run twice already, but this is different. Our dynamics have shifted. She’s no longer a hostage being dragged along for an insane ride. She’s in it with me, desperate to get to the finish line so we can try and build some kind of life together at the other end.
The seconds turn into minutes, and I lean into the window, watching her walk with her head down, cutting across the street and to the corner store. Men glance her way, some intrigued, but I can’t fault them. She’s fucking stunning, but just as I suspected, they mind their business. They don’t bother her, and I’m grateful for that. I’m not exactly in the mood to cut out tongues today, but I would do it to protect my girl.
Aria slips inside the store, and the ten minutes it takes before she emerges again almost drive me to my breaking point. It’s becoming more than clear to me that I never stopped loving her, not even when I put her at the top of my kill list. Sure, I wanted to teach her a lesson, but could I really have ended her life? I don’t know, but I’m glad that’s a lesson I’ll never have to learn.
She trails back toward our apartment complex but pauses by the group of men who had checked her out.
The fuck is wrong with her? She’s heading right for them now.
My hands go out wide, ready to throw myself out the fucking window as I watch their interaction. One of the guys pointsaround the corner, and Aria glances back, following his lead. She nods and smiles, and just like that, she turns on her heel and heads back the way she came.
“What in the ever-loving fuck is she doing?” I mutter to myself, pacing in front of the window as I watch her disappear around the corner.
Anxiety eats at me, and I count the seconds. One minute. Two. Three and four.
What the hell is this woman doing to me? Does she have any idea how insane she makes me, or is she doing this on purpose?
Fuck!
Almost seven minutes go by, and I start to turn on my heel, ready to go after her, when a wave of flaming auburn hair appears from around the corner on the sidewalk, pillows and blankets shoved under her arms and a proud-as-fuck smirk on her face. She glances up toward the window, knowing damn sure that I’ve been watching her, and as her cool, calm, collected stare collides with my wild one, she laughs. She actually fucking laughs.
Fuck me. She’s going to get the attitude fucked right out of her.
With every step she takes, bringing her perfect ass back to me, my body starts to relax. She more than pushed my limits by heading into that store. I was about ready to lose it, but I should have known better. The Riley I grew up with was always testing limits. She didn’t care as long as she was having a good time.
As she approaches the main entrance of the apartment complex, my gaze sweeps across the street, taking in the lingering people and making sure that nobody is taking too much notice of her, but from the look of it, everyone is too caught up in what they’re doing to pay attention to the fiery redhead walking through the street with pillows. All but one.
A man in a black hoodie stands across the street, watching every step Aria takes, and as she slips inside the apartmentcomplex, he reaches for something at his shoulder before pulling it to his mouth. A radio maybe? He’s too far away to be sure, but there’s no denying he’s carrying some serious heat. The way his hoodie sits tells me there’s a bulletproof vest under there, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s a fed.
His gaze sweeps up the length of the complex, and I discreetly fade back out of the window.
Fuck. Not good.
Inching back toward the window, I peer down just in time to see the man push away from the street, cut between parked cars, and head toward us. As he slips inside the building, following far too closely after Aria, he pulls a blade, preparing for a fight.
Okay, so not a fed. Hitman maybe? Contract killer? He walks like a fed though, and that puts me on edge, but a fed wouldn’t walk in here without backup, and he would have reached for his gun, not a blade.
