The exact shade of her blonde hair didn’t register earlier, and I certainly didn’t see those blue eyes and slim nose. My mind better be playing tricks on me.
This chick looks just like…
Ana.
The mother of my child.
I made her help me pull cons on the Vegas strip. We did it for fun at first, two mafia heirs rebelling. Then we started fighting. But we were strung out, broke, and trapped.
Ana has forgiven me, butIhaven’t forgiven myself. She married my brother, my identical twin, who treats her as she deserves to be treated, like a queen. They’re raising my son together, while I’m just trying to get through the day without hating myself.
She’s the reason I troll these streets. The reason I’m searching for peace. No matter how many dealers I kill, the voices in my head won’t stop haunting me.
“Who… Who are you?” the prostitute asks, knocking mefrom my thoughts.
Her smoky voice is nothing like Ana’s, melting away any further resemblance.
“No one,” I say. “But I was like you. Hooked. And one day, scumbags like this will do more than ask for a blow job. Do yourself a favor. Get help. Get treatment. It’s not easy. But you can do it.”
“Fuck you.” She swallows, looking down at the man. “I paid him. I want my score.”
If I give her the money back, she’ll just buy her drugs from someone else who might do the same thing.
I reach into J-Rush’s pocket and take out the bag of pills. “What the hell are these?”
“Percocet. I hurt my back.” She scratches her arms.
“Go to a chiropractor. A doctor.”Preferably not me.
“Give them to me. They’re mine!” She tries to snatch the bag and ends up ripping it open.
The pills scatter to the ground. With a shriek, she drops to her hands and knees, picking up pills from the dirty concrete.
I push down the ache in my heart and back away. There are too many ofherfor me to help. And addicts can’t be forced.
With the dealer dead, I turn away as if this kill didn’t happen.
A few seconds later, a fresh rain cools the hot midsummer night. I imagine J-Rush’s blood washing away into a nearby drain for the rats to drink. Maybe they’ll die from the poison in it, too.
A win/win. No one will miss a few rats.
I walk several blocks from the scene, troubled by how things went down. Not the killing, but how the scum dealer didn’t die after the first dose. A dose that lethal should have turned him inside out in seconds.
Stuffing the gloves into a plastic bag and the bag intomy coat pocket, I hail a cab.
One stops immediately, and when I slide into the back seat, the time flashes on the payment screen: 11 p.m. I need to talk to my supplier right now.
“Monroe Hospital,” I tell the driver. “Stat.”
Chapter 2
Scarlett
“Miss Ford,” the doorman says, wariness in his voice. “You’re home…early.”
His greeting shouldn’t stop me. I’m usually inside my head thinking about work. Tonight, I’m extra distracted because I got caught in a sudden summer downpour.
But the doorman is right, I’m rarely back at this hour. I normally finish my twelve-hour shift as an EMT at midnight, and I wouldn’t have walked in here until around 1:30 a.m. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of stress and anxiety tonight, so I left the station house at 10 p.m.