Page 35 of Blood We Steal

Another thing I should have been ashamed of. Another thing I wasn’t.

I finished my count but lingered until there were no more excuses for hiding.

Besides, as little as I wanted to face a roomful of hostile mobsters, I would not hide.

I’d made my deal, and Rubin had made how he felt about me more than clear. So yes, I would give myself to him. I would enjoy it. But that was all it was. And when the time came, I was going to get me and Aaron the hell away from Rubin.

To go where? the voice in the back of my head whispered. I didn’t have an answer, but I’d figure it out just like I did everything else.

I’d been happy to see Besnik in the cafeteria and had made a beeline toward him.

“Çkemi, Simone.” His smile was genuine, as was the kindness in his dark brown eyes. It was almost enough to make me forget the staccato bursts of screams that rang out overhead.

Besnik looked up toward the sound, his face shifting into a scowl. He shook it off and looked at me again. “Did I tell you about my son?”

He knew he hadn’t. None of them had spoken to me since I’d walked into the courtroom, but I played along. “No.”

“He’s going to school to become an engineer.” Besnik’s chest swelled with pride.

“Oh, that’s amazing. A long way from a D in algebra one,” I said.

“Because of you,” he responded.

“I was happy to help.”

Besnik’s son was the apple of his and his wife’s eye, and after the woman tragically passed away, Besnik had focused on him even more. I didn’t have the heart to ask if he knew whether his son had survived.

Instead, I smiled at him, but his expression changed abruptly. I looked over and realized the other men were watching. They didn’t look happy, and I refused to let Besnik suffer because of me.

I stood. “I’m going to go find the infirmary.”

Besnik narrowed his eyes. “Did Rubin say that’s okay?”

“I didn’t know I had to ask,” I responded.

I went to reach out to pat his shoulder but thought better of it and dropped my hand to my side. The clipboard clanked against my thigh as I started to walk.

“Hey, Moni!” Aaron called when I passed him. I’d been too nervous to look for him, but smiled at him now as I pulled him in for a hug, uncaring about the strong odor of bleach that surrounded him.

“Hey, Aaron. You okay?” I asked.

His forehead was wet with sweat, and he held a wet mop in his hand.

“’Course I am. Look at all my hard work.”

I glanced around the cafeteria and out into the hall. It looked like an entirely different place. The floors gleamed, the precise mop lines that were drying one by one layered from one end of the room to the other. And there wasn’t a body in sight.

“Nice, right? I bet that this place wasn’t even this clean before,” Aaron said with a chuckle. “But I always suspected Rubin was a little OCD. I’d never had the nerve to ask, but he proved it here.”

“How?” I asked.

“He was on the cleanup crew. Woke up every morning at four forty-five to mop the floors just like he was one of the regular guys.”

“Well, he is just human,” I said.

“Yeah, we’re all God’s children, right?” he said, reflecting back the words Nana had said to both of us countless times. “Anyway, I’m glad this is looking better. Can’t concentrate on my cards with dead bodies all over the place.”

“And how would you know that, Aaron?”