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Or maybe I’m stressed about my role in this mess and worried about Hawk.
Jamie Fleming.
I always thought the rich, the super-rich like him and his family, had other people doing their dirty work for them. That if he dealt with the mafia bosses or this mysterious organization, he’d have sent, I don’t know, his lawyers. His paid hitmen. Anonymous mercenaries.
Instead he’s the one beaten up and tied to the basement of the warehouse, the one talking to the shady boss himself.
Probably the boss of such a powerful organization wouldn’t agree to talk to anyone else, anyone lower on the hierarchy.
Pieces keep falling into place.
Or I’m making all this up, desperate to understand what happened in the last twenty-four hours, what happened in my father’s warehouse, with the man I’ve been sleeping with and maybe, just maybe secretly crushing on.
When I fall asleep again, I dream he’s kissing me, nipping at my lips, his beard scratchy against my chin, his long hair silky against my face.
He’s kissing me like he’s drinking me in, his body covering me, hard and heavy, rolling between my legs like a great wave. Hot. Consuming. Filling me until I think I’ll burst of it.
Of him. Of this feeling of fullness, and completeness, and rightness. Of pleasure and warmth and a strange joy I’ve never felt before.
He lifts his face from mine, blue eyes boring into me—clear and yet dark and full of secrets—and then he’s whispering my name. Over and over again, my name on his lips as he moves inside me.
This isn’t like him, I think, although in the dream it’s just a passing thought, a niggle of reality. He doesn’t fuck me like this. He takes me, hard and fast. He ties me up and gives me what he knows I need. He takes over, holding me in place, positioning me, stripping away my control until I’m helpless in his hands.
He likes that. I like that. He dominates me and knows exactly what I need.
But in the dream he’s not controlling me. He’s holding me gently, fucking me, whispering my name. He’s saying he needs me. He wants to be with me.
“Be mine, Layla, be mine,” his deep voice breathes in my ear, and then I’m coming in a long, sweet orgasm that makes my toes curl and my heart swell.
And then I wake up and a sadness fills my chest, unlike any I’ve ever felt.
It’s as if this is also what I need, my dream laying it out for me, but I have nobody who can give it to me and as for having a family… that will never happen.
***
When I unplug my phone in the morning, I find three missed calls from Dorothy and ten text messages.
All of them ask me to call, text, and otherwise let her know if I’m alive or dead.
I turn my phone off and shove it into my purse.
Crossing over to the warehouse in the gray light of dawn and squeezing through the small bathroom window feels like a timeless routine, like something I’ve been doing for years not just two days.
I think I’m getting quite good at sneaking around without being noticed, as if my life wasn’t all college and parties until now. I’m a natural-born spy, baby!
The worry isn’t getting any better, though. My heart is in my throat as I climb down the stairs, open the door and creep along the high stacks of crates and containers to where Hawk is.
Anxiety twists my stomach, and by the time I reach the end of the row, I’ve convinced myself he’s not there anymore. That they moved him away in the night and I didn’t know, and that I won’t be able to find him again.
That they beat him to death, or shot him in the head after he cracked a wiseass remark too many to people who obviously kick puppies for laughs and kill people for the right price.
But he’s right where I last saw him, sitting on the floor with his back to the pillar, his head tipped back and his eyes closed. He looks terrible. One side of his face is black and blue, his eye swollen shut. He has dried blood caked in his beard and the pale strands of hair stuck to his temple and neck.
How can I make him talk to me, tell me the truth?
Or else I want him to convince me he doesn’t need me, doesn’t want me here. Doesn’t need my help. That him saying my name for the first time ever last night as I walked out didn’t mean anything. Then I’ll leave him in peace.
One last try.
