Her eyes are narrowed, but she doesn’t come up with a witty response.
“I could have killed you the night you followed me home. You had no idea I was watching you the entire time. How many other close calls have there been?”
“Then you should have,” she snaps. I can’t tell if it’s because she doubts my ability, or if she actually has a death wish.
I don’t bother dignifying her remark with a response, but I let her see my disappointment before I get out of the car and open her door. “Get out, Max.” My tone isn’t harsh, but it’s not kind either.
She reacts with jerky movements, showing me I pissed her off or hurt her feelings, maybe both, but that wasn’t my intention.
“I know why you want them dead, I just—”
“You know why I want them dead?” she interjects before I can finish and slows her steps. “What do you know?”
I swallow. Oh shit,now she’s going to know I looked into her and know what happened to her.
“What do you know?” she asks again more insistently.
I say the only thing that comes to mind. “I know they deserve to die.”
Maxine’s chin lowers, but her eyes tell the story. Anger and shame war with something I don’t understand, and I’m not sure I want to. “Stay out of my business.”
“No.” I won’t bullshit her. “You made yourself my business.”
Her full lips pinch, and I stand there and wait for her to spew a venomous remark, but she stays silent, and that worries me more. I might as well really piss her off and let the truth all sink in at once.
“You will stay here until everyone on the list is dealt with.”
“Fuck that!” She moves back from me, but there’s nowhere for her to go. The only way out of the parking garage is with a code or through the elevator.
“If you work with me, things will go much smoother,” I offer.
“Smoother for whom? You?”
“For both of us. I can’t trust you to take care of yourself.”
“You’re pretending you’re keeping me here for my own good?” she spits out.
“Not pretending.” I walk away from her, heading toward the elevator. She’s so pissed, she follows to yell at me.
“I can take care of myself.”
“You haven’t done a very good fucking job,” I snarl back.
“You don’t know anything.” She actually puts her arm out to keep the door from closing and leaving her alone in the lower level and then steps into the elevator.
“The little I do know is more than enough to prove my point.” I jab the button for the fifth floor with my finger. “You’re taking too many risks.”
“Why the fuck do you care?” She tosses her arms up in the air.
“I have no fucking clue!” I bark back.
She snaps her mouth closed and moves to the opposite side of the car, but it doesn’t get her away from me long because we stop and the doors open. I motion for her to exit in front of me and practically push her with my body to the door of the apartment, using her eagerness to get away from me in my favor.
“I don’t need your pity,” she says while walking straight for the bedroom she was so eager to get out of earlier.
“Good, because you don’t have it,” I retort. It’s the truth—I don’t pity her. I respect her for surviving. Despite my earlier claim, I admire how she’s taken care of herself and made some of those fuckers pay for what they did, but she deserves more than just surviving, even if she doesn’t know it.
She slams the door, and I don’t hear from her again for several hours.
