Page 13 of Darkest Kiss

Pulling a small length of rope from my pocket, I knot and unknot it in smooth figure 8s. The act soothes me, helps to calm Beast, who whispers all day long.

Why am I so obsessed with this girl? I know why, but it doesn’t actually answer my deeper question.

Go find her. She might be hurt. She might be dying. She needs you. What good are you if you don't watch out for your woman? You're just a mad dog who will eventually be put down.

Beast isn't exactly a cheerleader, but he's not wrong, either.

Tipping back the last of a plastic bottle of water, I swallow and stick it in my messenger bag. The overriding need to track down my pretty girl and make sure she’s all right is a drum in the back of my mind.

Noemi.

I pull out my phone and flip through the photos I've taken surreptitiously of my girl. In my favorite one, she's at work, holding a stack of books in her arms. She's tiny, five feet all told, and wears a floral sundress with a thin t-shirt underneath. Her long dark hair is pulled away from her face by a complicated braid, showing off the graceful curve of her neck and making her cheekbones more pronounced. She has eyes the color of freshly brewed coffee and a proud Roman nose, balanced by full pink lips and a quick but shy smile.

She's easily the most gorgeous girl I've ever seen.

From what I've seen, she has nothing to do with the Vitelli operations. Her uncle, Marc Caruso, has thrown open the barn doors and let all the wolves in, though. Thanks to a bunch of spy shit, I listen in on endless calls and conversations upstairs.

But I'm really focused on her. I feel like I know everything that goes on in Noemi's workplace, like I'm an unpaid employee.

Until this week.

I tie and untie my rope. The feel of it against my skin grounds me.

Fuck it. The Vitellis aren't doing anything that interesting right now. A few women count money. Two men in suits watch them closely, bored out of their skulls. What's new?

My phone buzzes. I check it to find a message from the boss of our crew, Ransom. It's an address in the meat packing district.

I text back. Is it busy? Meaning how many bodies they need removed.

The location is a mess, but no business. Someone slipped Gloss into the powder at a rave.

"Shit," I mumble. Gloss is the latest designer drug and people are going crazy trying to get their hands on it. In small doses, it has the euphoric and tranquilizing effects of Ketamine.

In large doses, Gloss users are immobilized, yet perfectly awake. Some even die. With the excitement of the drug, it's easy to overdose and take too much. Like heroin and coke, it's often corrupted with fentanyl and stepped on by street dealers.

I've cleaned a number of scenes in the last couple of months with ODing and dead girls who were supposedly on Gloss. Seeing the wide, terrified eyes of the victims gets under my skin, though I would never say it.

Importance? I ask.

48 hours.

Sending him a thumbs-up, I go back to my knots. This gives me plenty of time to stop by Noemi's little apartment and make sure she's okay before I head to scrub the scene of any trace that the Kings were there.

* * *

I look up at Noemi’s apartment building. The weather is volatile right now, gray clouds gathering, slowly blocking out the late afternoon sun. The lighting isn't kind to the sagging structure; if anything, the weather leaches away the last bit of color from an already-colorless building.

There's no light on in Noemi’s window.

A little old lady passes me on the street and gives me the eye. I'm 6'4", wearing a dark leather jacket, black motorcycle boots, and blocky sunglasses. So I get it; she has every reason to distrust guys that look like me.

I hustle up the steps and unlock the shared stairwell to Noemi's building. Beast won't shut the fuck up about how my girl is being tortured as we speak. He's a lying bastard, but I'm still apprehensive as I check her mail slot. It's stuffed full of junk mail and bills. While I'm here, I snag the real-looking mail and stick it in my back pocket. If it's bills, I'll pay them. And if not, I want to know what my woman is up to. Who she talks to, what she says.

Taking the stairs two at a time, I wrinkle my nose at the smell of mildew that seems to be coming from inside the building's bones. I hate that my perfect girl lives here.

She should live in a fucking palace.

But I shouldn't claim her, so I have to stay in the shadows. Waiting. Observing. It's safer for her this way.