“She left. Want me to tail her?”
“No. I’ll hunt her down.”
Chapter 28
Ayla
Leaving the townhouse was suicide.
I know he has a car watching me, but I don’t give a fuck.
I have to go.
I need to make sure my friends are okay. I need to give Gabriel something—anything at this point, before he decides to kill my friends and make me watch.
The black card in my pocket feels heavier than my keys.
By the time I cut through the side streets and cross under the overpass, the warehouse lights are already on. They spill out through the grimy windows in strips, yellow and harsh, painting the asphalt in rectangles.
Same place. Same stink of oil and dust and old smoke.
I pull my leather jacket tighter around me, like that’s going to make any fucking difference if he finds me here, and head for the side door.
Kay spots me first.
The door jerks open before I can knock, and then I’ve got an armful of red hair and cheap perfume.
“Ayla!” she squeals, throwing herself at me. “Oh my God, thank God you’re okay.”
I almost topple back with the force of her hug. My chin hits her shoulder, and for a second, some muscle in my chest loosens.
“‘Course I’m fine,” I mumble into her hair, hugging her back. “What, you thought I’d finally managed to die without you?”
She pulls away just far enough to swat my arm. Her eyes shine in the warehouse light.
“You disappeared,” she says, lower now, like the walls might be listening. “Then Maksim came around. We thought—” She cuts herself off, glancing past me toward the street, then back. “Whatever, we’ll talk inside. Come on.”
Inside, it’s the same and not the same.
The folding tables, the crates, the scale in the corner. The battered couch with its rip along the seam. A fan that sounds like it’s about to explode.
But there are more boxes stacked along the back wall than there should be.
New shipment. New product.
New risk.
“Would you look at that,” a voice drawls from my left. “Princess finally remembers where she came from.”
Ricky.
He saunters out from behind a stack of crates, shoulders loose, that familiar lazy smirk on his face. He gives me a slow once-over, from the boots Maksim bought me to the cropped top under the leather jacket.
“Oh,look at you,” he says, eyebrows lifting. “All of a sudden coming to slum it with us?”
Heat prickles across the back of my neck.
I glance down at myself—black leather, fitted jeans. Maksim’s world stitched into every line.
