The threat underlying my tone has Warren stumbling back a step.
“Sorry, Boss. I didn’t see anything. He won’t hear it from me.”
The shock on his face tells me I’ve made a very grave tactical mistake.Never let anyone see your anger. It just makes them more suspicious about what’s going on.
Whatever.
It’s not every fucking day you find out that the woman you were falling for is going to get you and herself killed.Fucking Christ.
I stalk back to the car and yank open the door and slide in. The only thing that remotely soothes the raging beast in my soul is the roar of the big block as I rev the engine. All I want to do is drive straight the fuck out of town, but I can’t. Not yet. Not until I find out what the hell she was doing and come up with a plan.
Instead, I haul ass out of the garage and crank the wheel to the right, cutting off a cab that lays on its horn. I don’t even bother to throw up the middle finger. He can suck my dick.
We can’t go far. Not without making Dom more suspicious than he already is. The fact that he’s so desperate to find me tells me I’m already dealing with a big fucking problem. I can count on one hand the number of times he’s been that insistent on tracking me down, and every goddamned time, someone was either about to die or already dead.
I blow through a yellow light, drive a few more blocks, and ignore the woman sitting in the passenger seat. To her credit, she hasn’t said a word.
I change lanes, finally having a destination in mind. Just over the river in Jersey City, we’ve got a construction site for a new storage building that is waiting on permits.
When we take the bridge, I glance over at Drew. No,Memphis. Memphis fucking Lockwood. Ace reporter. Investigative journalist wunderkind.
Not trusting that Dom couldn’t have bugged my car or had Warren do it while I was upstairs in the club, I stay quiet for another twenty minutes until I slow in front of a construction entrance. When we turn in, Memphis shrinks against the door of the car.
“Jesus Christ. Really?”
When I look over, she’s grabbing the door handle, ready to jump out and run for her life.
Good to know she trusts me too.The fact that she’s shaking pisses me off even more.She thinks I’m just going to bring her to a construction site and bury her fucking body? Really? Is that who she thinks I am?
A second round of anger ignites deep in my soul.
“Not a goddamned word until we get out.”
I felt it and she didn’t. It was all a fucking job to her.
I don’t know what’s worse—knowing that Dom will want retribution, or knowing that I was so fucking wrong about her.
After I throw the Chevelle into park, I get the fuck out and stalk toward the metal skeleton of framework waiting for crews to come put on the roof and walls. Seagulls scream overhead, dipping and circling until they’re practically screeching in my ear.
A crunch in the gravel comes from behind me but I keep my back to her, half wondering if she’s packing and going to put a bullet in my back.
Then I remember I’m the offspring of a mobster, not her.
The footsteps stop, and I jam my hands into my pockets before turning around to face her, taking in the wig and the contacts and the blank mask on her face.
It’s almost possible to make myself forget how I feel about Memphis Lockwood when she’s masquerading as Drew Carson.Almost.
I swallow all the things I want to say in favor of one question to start off the last discussion I ever wanted to have with her. I yank her phone out of my pocket and hold it between two fingers.
“Do you have a fucking death wish?”
48
Memphis
My entire body shakes as tremors of fear rip through me. The son of New York’s most infamous mobster brought me to an abandoned construction site in Jersey. If that’s not the start of a story that ends in getting offed by the mob, I don’t know what is. I flex my palms, trying to pretend they’re not clammy, wishing they were gripping a weapon, and that the man in front of me is someone I could actually shoot if I had one.
God, I really fucked this up.I could blame my mother, but it’s not her fault that I’m here. She was just a variable I didn’t count on screwing me over this morning.