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I grab my coat and pull it on as Smith goes through the list of people on the iPad on the desk who walked through the door tonight.
Smith doesn’t need to worry about me killing Scarlett—I’m not going to do that. Even if I don’t like her because of who her father is. No, I’m not going to kill her.
I’m going to use her and make her mine.
Then I’ll use her to bring her father to his knees, right before I kill him.
I head to the door when Smith speaks. “Malone?”
I turn back.
“Where the fuck are you going?” he asks.
“To see a girl.”
One I’ll be leaving in jagged pieces who will wish I’d killed her instead of the new reality I’m about to create for her.
I walk out the door and don’t look back.
TWO
scarlett
Fury bubbles up in my chest and throat, scalding my insides from the pit of my stomach.
If I have to damn well be here, the man who didn’t have the balls to acknowledge me when I showed up at his sex den should be, too.
But instead, the fucker’s making me wait. This time at a completely different location than that club.
I almost didn’t come to Rafe’s, the bar on Avenue D that this JM decided to send me to, because I don’t like being pushed around, and this is fucking textbook manipulation.
But I’m here for family and family always, always comes first.
The place is dark, muted in tone and music, and it’s full of high-back plush booths and Formica tables where people are huddled around, doing… I take a quick look around, trying not to scrunch up my nose… whatever people like to do in places like this.
Unlike the serene beauty of Orchid Lane’s foyer that hides its rotten underbelly, this one’s pure modern-day dive. There’s no layer of anything remotely respectable. At least the other place had that façade going for it.
“Here you go.” The bartender places a glass of red wine in front of me and takes my twenty. When he returns with the change, he leans on the bar.
He looks intimidating—muscular, covered in tattoos with a pierced nose, lip, and brow, and one of those mullets he’s paired with a beard. But his gaze is friendly and more curious than predatory. “What the fuck brings you here?”
“Change of scenery?”
“There’s a story…” He half smiles, pours himself a whiskey, then one for me. He pushes it over. “Slow night. On me.”
“Thanks.” I take the shot and knock it back. “And let’s just say if there’s a story, I don’t know it, yet.”
“A woman of mystery.” He laughs and walks down the length of the bar to serve someone else.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
Right now, I’m not good company. I cross my legs under the bar and check the time on my phone. There’s no number on the card that the gorgeous blonde at Orchid Lane gave me. Just the Orchid Lane logo on the front and the address to this place on the back.
She told me he’d be here ten minutes ago.
I don’t wait for people, not people like this… So if there’d been a number for this JM, I’d have called him and told him so.
I let out a sharp sigh.
