Page 118 of Angel

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

I blinked at the clock on my bedside table.

4 a.m.

Who the hell was calling me now?

I moved with care, staring with deep suspicion at the screen flashing with an unknown number before sliding away from Roxy and heading out of the primary.

I slid the call on in the hallway.

‘Angel, thank God,’ a familiar voice whimpered over a background of static.

‘Eva?’ I rasped, my timbre laced with sleep as I headed downstairs. ‘The fuck? Where the hell are you?’

‘I’m in the lobby of a garbage motel near the airport. My credit cards won’t work and I can’t use the cash I have to pay; they want a card on record. The clerk’s threatening to kick me out onto the street.’

I took an inhale to collect myself, my mind racing.

‘So get an Uber and go to your dad’s,’ I ordered, my jaw clenching as my protective instincts locked down the room. ‘Why are you calling me?’

‘Because I’m fleeing a psycho, Angel!’ she panicked, her breathing ragged. ‘The guy I left with on our wedding day, the one with the red Mustang, is called Maurice. He’s a major player in New York’s party scene, and I saw him commit a brutal murder.’

‘The hell?’

‘He throws these crazy parties,’ she recounted. ‘Two nights ago, he shot one of his street dealers who came up short with their weekly takings. Right in front of me, Angel. The guy just dropped to the floor.’

‘So he’s a drug lord, great. Go on.’

‘Maurice ordered me to bed, and I pretended to be asleep when he stumbled in hours later,’ she whimpered. ‘The second he started snoring, I crept out, hightailed it out of there with my bags and took a late flight to get here.’

‘If you’ve witnessed a homicide, you dial 911,’ I grated in anger. ‘Don’t make your poor choices my problem.’

‘Maurice is blowing up my phone with messages. He’s saying that if I go to the police, he’d hunt me down and kill me,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s told me he’s hunting me down.’

‘Then don’t answer him, Evangeline. Block him.’

‘It won’t stop him coming after me,’ she whispered. ‘I need you, my angel. Please come get me.’

My brain rejected the manipulation.

Not a chance in hell.

‘Why can’t you call your dad?’ I growled, repeating my earlier question.

‘I can’t,’ she cried. ‘Maurice says he has men watching Rosedale Manor. As soon as I show my face there, they’ll collect me. Papa’s place is a trap.’

Damn.

She sobbed, her panic escalating, but I was immune to her now.

‘So go to your townhouse,’ I said, slumping onto my headrest and pushing a hand through my hair.

‘I can’t.’

‘Why, Evangeline? Give me a straight answer.’

‘I sold it.’