Page 20
None of it is enough to stop the chill spreading through my chest.
"How do you know about Genesis?" My voice comes out steady. Quiet. My father would be proud of me.
"Like I said, I have a lot of friends."
The pieces click into place with a mechanical precision that makes my stomach lurch. The scars. The watch. The military-grade locks. The empty apartment. A man who moves through the world scanning exits, calculating risk, carrying the quiet danger my father wore into every room he ever entered.
I should be scared. Terror should be crawling up my spine and sending me sprinting for the back door.
Instead, I'm calculating. Reading him the way Dad taught me. His body language is open, hands visible, palms flat. No deception in the set of his shoulders. His jaw is tight, but his breathing is even. He's giving me the truth and it's costing him something to do it.
"Vivienne put a hit out on me?" I say her name and the bitter taste of it sits on my tongue. "You're sure?"
"Castellano money funded the escrow. She walked onto the Dark Floor, put your photo on the table, and ordered you removed. Clean. No trace. I saw the deal go down."
And there it is. The confirmation of what my gut has been screaming since her last phone call. The chill underneath the silk of Vivienne's voice. The sharpening questions about the estate. The mask slipping when I mentioned my attorney. She's been circling me for months, tightening the noose with manicured fingers and rehearsed concern, and I swallowed every poisoned word because the alternative was too ugly to face. This is my own fault.
My stepmother wants me dead. I try to dig for the tingle of surprise that usually follows news like this but I come back with nada.
“I guess this means she found the only way to make my father's last will and testament moot.” I almost want to laugh and call up the bitch to congratulate her.
"We need to leave. Now." My one-night stand pushes off the stool, scraping the legs against the floor. "Your apartment above this place has no security. No cameras, no alarm, no reinforced entry. The alley behind the building is open and dark. You're exposed and Vivienne will know the contract hasn't been fulfilled soon."
I cross my arms over my chest, pulling the apron tight. His eyes travel down the slope of my neck and caress over the swell of my breasts before snapping back to mine.
When his eyes are on mine I state the next obvious question. “You know this how?” I cock my head to the side waiting to hear his explanation.
He lifts a heavy shoulder like I should already know the answer to this. Which I do, but I want to hear the man say he’s been stalking me.
“I’ve watched you for the last twenty-four hours.”
I hit a mental pause and backtrack over all the details he’s given me so far. “That means I technically have only twenty-four hours to live. Right?”
“Something like that.”
"I need five minutes."
"You have three."
Fair enough. Whoever is out to off me for a cool ten million and some change won’t wait around to collect that kind of money. In fact, I bet my last twelve dollars and twenty-eight cents in my account right now, the dude or dudette is casing the joint but not moving in as long as my stranger is in here. I take the stairs two at a time, grab a bag, and throw in what matters. Wallet, phone, charger, a change of clothes. My hand hovers over the framed photo of my father on the nightstand. I shove it in the bag and zip it shut.
When I come back down, he's standing by the front door with his back to the wall and his eyes on the street. The posture is natural. A man who has spent years putting himself between the world and whatever needs protecting. Or destroying. I haven't decided which yet. Either way I know when I am in danger and this man doesn’t make me feel anything but safe.
We step into the evening air and he leads me to a dark sedan parked across the street. He opens the passenger door and waits. No hand on my back. No guiding touch. Just the open door and his steady gaze.
“Like I have a choice,” I huff and get in. He rounds the front, slides behind the wheel, and pulls away from the curb in one fluid motion. My bakery shrinks in the side mirror and the ache of leaving it behind presses hard against my ribs.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere safe."
We zip through the city, passing cars, businesses and a couple of school buses offloading tired-looking kids. What I wouldn’t give to turn back the clock and be one of those girls looking for her father in the crowd. Being a kid was easy. My dad made sure of it. Ever since he got sick and my stepmother took over it’s been one mind game after another.
I’m tired.
We drive in silence for fifteen minutes. I count the blocks out of habit, the way my father taught me. Always know where you are. Always know how to get back. But the turns come too fast and the streets grow unfamiliar, pulling me further from the south side and deeper into a part of Chicago where the buildings get taller, darker, and the foot traffic thins to nothing.
He checks the rearview mirror three times in the span of a single block and I file that detail alongside every other red flag I've been collecting since the night we met.
