Page 34 of One for the Money

Brows scrunching together, I reached up to remove Erik’s hand but ended up holding onto him. “What just happened?”

“I should be the one asking that. You just froze and wouldn’t respond to me until I touched you,” Erik explained.

There was a noise of someone talking from somewhere far away. Erik dropped his hand and lifted my phone to his ear, reminding me I’d been on the phone with Ivy.

“She’s fine. No, I’m not sure what happened just yet, but she suffered a wicked head wound from the car bomb…” he paused, and I heard the shift in Ivy’s tone even if I couldn’t understand the words. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but my guess would be someone important to Von based on your reaction. So I’m going to say this as nicely as I can, but bitch, you need to back your shit up. I didn’t set the car bomb or withhold information from you. In fact, I was motherfucking kidnapped and forced to treat her ass, so I think instead of chewing my ass out, you should be saying thank you.”

I snorted. “That’s you being nice?”

Unamused, Erik glared at me while listening to Ivy’s response. “It’s fine. You clearly care about her a lot, which has me questioning your taste. Although, I suppose her kind of crazy grows on you the longer you’re around it. I can’t give you details on that, but I’m sure Von would be happy to explain.”

The smile on his face as he handed me the phone made me want to punch him, but I knew better than to make Ivy wait when she was pissed. Covering the microphone, I leaned forward until our noses almost touched and whispered, “Doing shit like this puts your chances of ever fucking me again lower and lower. Keep it up, and I’ll make sure the only attention you get is from your own hand.”

In a bold move, Erik closed the gap and kissed me. He even went so far as to slip his tongue in when I gasped, deepening the connection. As quickly as he made the move, he pulled away and winked. “Good thing you gave me enough memories I can fap to until I get you to change your mind.”

Speechless, I just sat there watching him head over to the couch, where he stretched out and closed his eyes, content to take a nap. Shaking myself out of my state of shock, I got up, walked out of my office, and up to the pool, needing some space. Once I was out in the sunshine and soft breeze, I felt better but still couldn’t believe the audacity of that man.

“Poison, you still there?” I asked, remembering the mess I had to clean up.

“Evonnia Zuccaro, what the fuck is this about you getting hurt by a car bomb?” Astin demanded.

“Queenie?” I questioned then looked at my phone. While waiting, Ivy must have called Astin, and now I was getting double-teamed.

“Yes, Von, it’s me,” Astin confirmed. “Now, would you care to explain to us why we are learning about you getting blown up from a mysterious man you kidnapped to tend to your wounds?”

“No, I want to know why Bear hasn’t killed him yet. The way that man called you little siren tells me you’ve fucked him,” Ivy interjected.

“Like holy shit, woman, we missed one girls’ night. What, are you trying to win the award for most interesting story of the week?” Astin asked.

It wasn’t that funny, but I couldn’t help but laugh at how my best friends thought this was an unusual situation. I suppose kidnapping and keeping the person might be out of the norm, but this wasn’t the first time I’d been blown up. Yet something told me I should keep that to myself for now.

“Okay, okay, I get it. I should have made sure you guys knew I’d been hurt,” I admitted. “Look, I’m not used to having people who legitimately worry about me like you two do.”

“Bitch, we bled for each other. What about that says this is a casual friendship?” Astin demanded.

My gaze dropped to where the scar running along my forearm was hidden under my sleeve. These two women were my kindred spirits, but I had never been good at any type of relationship.

I went to rub my forehead as the beginning of a headache was starting, but I hit my stitches and hissed. “Fuck.”

“Sweets?” Ivy called out.

“I’m fine. I just forgot about the stitches on my forehead,” I explained. “Look, this whole thing is one big fucked-up ball of chaos. It’s getting to the point I can’t tell if they’re all related or if I’m dealing with ten different problems.”

“God, I understand that feeling in my soul,” Astin sighed. “Why don’t you start with how you got hurt, then we can see if anything else connects to the situation.”

My shoulders relaxed as tension I didn’t know I was holding was released. If there was one person in the world I trusted to help me make sense of all this, it was Astin. I took a second to think about the best place to start the story and settled on Bootleggers. I slowly paced the length of the pool while filling them in on what Trent told us, my preliminary thoughts on things, leaving out what I’d discovered today. That would be another conversation, but I didn’t know any of this when they came after us. What I did add was remembering the conversation and the trigger-happy asshole mentioning The Lady.

“So things have been really boring for you, huh, sweets?” Ivy teased.

“You know how it is… lay down all the groundwork, and then when you catch something in your trap, everything falls into place at once,” I pointed out.

“True, it’s all hurry up and wait until you get that one thing you need to pull off the job,” Ivy agreed. “Sweets, if this lady he was referring to was indeed the same person who put up the bounty, then she’s getting desperate.”

Halting, I frowned. “I don’t follow.”

“If a woman with the connections and money she’s got has to resort to an open roll call, then that tells me people she’s approached said no,” Ivy explained. “People like her have ten assassins or other thugs willing to kill for them on speed dial. The two men were sent to deal with you as a punishment and clearly weren’t professionals. Everything about what they did was messy, drew too much attention, and would have to be investigated. They failed, and magically, the bounty was put up. Sweets, you’re going to need to be extraordinarily careful not to let your guard down.”

“Wow, Poison, you sure know how to make a girl feel all warm and fuzzy inside,” I muttered. “Look, this isn’t the first person who’s tried to take me out and won’t be the last. It’s just the effect my sparkling personality brings out in others.”