gunshot clings to my body like a nervous aura as I watch Matt thump the top of my ancient television set with his fist. Again. Seems like third time’s a charm, though, because the grainy picture comes into focus, and the musical opener to Pitch Perfect crackles through the speakers.
He plonks beside me on the sofa and glares at my profile. I cram a fistful of popcorn into my mouth to muffle my sigh. Here it comes.
“How many bathrooms do they have?”
“I don’t know, Matt. I only peed in one.”
“Yeah, but if you had to hazard a guess?”
My eyes roll over the cracks in my ceiling as Matt starts tallying the potential powder rooms, ensuites, and shower rooms that’d come with a ten-bedroom home. He’s talking about Angelo and Rory’s mansion, of course. Hasn’t stopped asking about it since I told him I spent the evening there, playing blackjack, eating candy, and watching Romy and Michelle with Rory. At least bathrooms are a safer topic of conversation than the reason I was there in the first place: because I’d just heard a man hit the ground like a sack of potatoes after being shot, and I was in no fit state to finish my shift.
Matt is like a Golden Retriever, all shaggy blond hair and happy smiles. I don’t want to dull his wagging tail with negative talking points, like murders and the fact Anna doesn’t even remember his name, let alone want to date him.
Did you see any of the cars in the garage?
Do they have one of those fancy hot water taps?
What about a panic room? They must have a panic room.
Matt’s questions grow fewer and farther in between, until I steal a glance at him and realize he’s fast asleep, the bowl of popcorn balancing precariously on his lap.
With a restless buzz in my blood, I watch the bright lights flicker from the television and illuminate the walls of the dark room until the credits roll.
It’s nearing one a.m. when I switch the television off, and, despite the rock music vibrating the wall behind me, it’s eerily quiet. Too quiet for a manic mind.
Knew it was you.
Bang.
Knew it was you.
Bang.
The afternoon’s events play on repeat in my brain, and each time the gunshot rattles my insides, I grow more and more tense. That man knew who I was, and although he’s now in a body bag somewhere, I have an awful feeling my secret didn’t die with him.
Martin O’Hare could be on the way to the Coast right now.
Glaring at the wall, I run the four-leaf clover pendant up and down its chain, but it does little to calm my nerves. I can’t tell if I’m suddenly the unluckiest girl in the world, because my past caught up with me in the third quietest town in the United States, or the luckiest, because Raphael shot Martin’s brother dead for an unrelated reason.
Regardless, I should run. Grab all the money sitting in the top drawer of my dresser and cross the border into Canada. I came back to the Coast to escape my sins, but I’m starting to think all I’ve done is demote myself to a lower circle of hell.
As I close my eyes, the ghost of Raphael’s soothing words against my ear and his hot hand against my stomach sweep a chill through me.
The worst part? I think I like it down here.
Orange light illuminates behind my eyelids, and I pop them open in confusion. A few seconds pass before the living room lights up again with two flashes in quick succession.
What the fuck?
Holding my breath, I slip off the sofa and peek out the window. A familiar G-Wagon is haphazardly parked on the other side of the street, its headlights pointing at my window. The moment I pull back the curtain, they flash again.
Oh, hell no. What is Raphael doing here?
My heart is beating faster as I step back from the window. There’s no way I’m getting in that man’s car, despite the deep, dark urge to feel his hands on my body again. He just killed a man over losing a blackjack game. Driving off with him into the night would be in the top three dumbest things I’ve ever done. And I’ve done a lot of dumb things.
My cell phone buzzes on the coffee table, making me jump. It’s a message from an unknown number.
Ten.
I stare down at the text in disbelief. Another comes through.
Nine.
And then another.
Eight.
I’m not a patient man, Penelope.
The vibrations rattle the glass, and I stare, helpless, as the text messages count down like a ticking time bomb.
One.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Silence.
And then the loudest horn I’ve ever heard pierces through the glass and fills my living room.
“Fuck,” I yelp, slamming my hands to my ears.
Matt bolts upright, scattering popcorn across my floor. “What the fuck is that?”
An asshole with delusions of grandeur. The noise is unrelenting, and I know Raphael is petty enough to keep blowing his horn until I go downstairs. Muttering something about being right back, I race through the hall, snatching up my keys and stuffing my feet into sneakers as I go. Downstairs, I burst out onto the icy street, fling open the driver’s side door, and scream at the darkness inside the car.
“Stop! Jesus Christ, stop!”
Raphael is the dictionary definition of unfazed. He lays on the horn with one hand, sleeve rolled to his elbow, and scrolls through emails on his cell with the other. His eyes lift from his screen and pin me with a look of indifference.
“Say please.”
“Over my dead—”
“That doesn’t sound like please.”
Spurred on by a cocktail of frustration and stubbornness, I step up into the car and wrestle with his inked forearm. “For the love of god, I have neighbors—”
My rant is sliced in half when he tosses his cell onto the passenger seat, slips his arm around the backs of my thighs, and drags me onto his lap in one swift motion. Wearing only shorts, my skin crackles in anticipation as they slide against the soft wool fabric of his slacks.
His arm fastens around my waist like a seatbelt and the scream of the horn dulls, as if I’m now hearing it underwater. I’m too distracted by the hard, hot weight of his chest against my back, and the warm, masculine scent engulfing me. It’s a dangerous combination that makes the streetlights through the windshield grow hazy.
His breath skitters over the nape of my neck. “Say please, Penelope.”
“Please,” I whisper.
“I can’t hear you.”
Irritation snaps me back to reality. I spin around and hook my fingers over the chain of his collar pin.
“Please,” I growl.
Our gazes clash. As his hand slides off the horn and grazes the side of my thigh, the amusement dancing in his eyes simmers to something hotter.
His smirk melts off his face, and suddenly, the silence I was begging for is too loud.
“See,” he says softly. “Wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Heart hammering in tune with the newly awakened pulse in my clit, I scramble to get off his lap and into the passenger seat.
“God, that sound was annoying,” I grumble, looking up at my neighbors emerging from their doors and craning their necks down the street.
“Funny—I think the same thing every time you open your mouth.”
“You drag me out here just to piss me off?”
The engine shifts into gear, and with a full turn of the steering wheel, we’re driving the opposite way down Main Street.
“No,” he says breezily. “According to my lawyers, as your boss I’ve got a duty of care to make sure you’re not displaying symptoms of shock or trauma.”
“Horseshit.”
“It’s true.”
“And those symptoms are?”
The corner of his lips tilt. “Irritability. Loss of appetite.”
“I’m irritated, that’s for sure.”
He reaches onto the seat behind him. Dumps a fast-food bag onto my lap. “And your appetite?”
I stare down at the bag for a few seconds, my fists clenched by my sides. When I finally peel it open and see my regular order from the diner, something warm and unwanted pools in the pit of my stomach.
He remembered.
I clear my throat, growing hot. “Are you really checking for symptoms, or is this just an excuse to hang out with me?”
“It’s me trying to avoid a lawsuit, sweetheart.”
My gaze finds him. He’s staring straight ahead, distracted. For a moment, I’m not so certain that he’s lying.
“Well, I’d be open to settling out of court for cash compensation.”
His laugh blooms in my chest, and as he glances down at the watch on my wrist, something soft passes over his features. “I bet you would.”
We drive in restless silence until we reach the top of the cliff. Raphael parks up in the shadows of the old church and cranks the heater up. My nerves only tighten when four sets of headlights sweep through the rear window.
“We’re being followed,” I choke out, twisting to peer between the headrests at the cars behind us.
A hot hand slides over my bare thighs, and all coherent thoughts dissolve. Christ, why didn’t I have the good sense to put on some clothes before I went flying out of the apartment? “Relax, it’s just my men.”
His grip is unwavering. Turning back around, I focus on what’s happening on the other side of the windshield. Tree branches shivering in the wind. Thin clouds sliding in front of the moon. Anything to distract myself from the pinky finger sitting too close to the inside seam of my shorts.
“They weren’t following you the last time you dragged me into the car.”
Silence swells between us, then Raphael’s fingers graze over the curve of my leg and come to rest in the center console. When he speaks, his voice is toneless. Almost harsh. “Eat your food, Penelope.”
My head is spinning too fast to do anything but listen. Under intense scrutiny, I unwrap the burger and take a bite. The car fills with the sound of my chewing and the nervous energy buzzing in my ears. As I go to take another bite, a large hand clamps around my wrist and stops me.
My eyes lift up to Raphael’s. Without breaking my gaze, he lowers his head and takes a large, slow bite of my burger. Christ. My toes curl in my sneakers and my blood burns a few degrees hotter.
A little hiss of air escapes my lips, along with a question I didn’t know I needed the answer to.
“What did you wager?”
He licks salt off his bottom lip, eyes darkening with something that tugs on my nerves. “Something I didn’t want to give up.”
My breathing shallows as he lifts my milkshake from the center console cup holder. He takes a sip, then his arm grazes mine as he tilts the drink to me. Swallowing hard, I edge closer, closing the gap between us, and put my lips where his just were.
His next breath grazes the tip of my nose, and Christ, chocolate milkshake has never tasted so sweet.
“Why did you bet it then?” I whisper. My voice is so quiet, so tense, that if my forehead wasn’t almost touching his, I doubt he’d hear it over the pounding of my heart.
Bitter amusement passes through his features. “Because I was hoping I wouldn’t be so…sentimental about it.”
His stare has claws and they dig into my skin. It’s too intense, too pensive, and the way it makes my lungs constrict is at odds with everything I believe about men.
As I lean back to draw in air that isn’t contaminated by him, there’s a flash of green and a strong hand grips the nape of my neck, keeping me in place.
“What—?”
“You’re nervous.”
I search his stoic expression in shock. “N-no, I’m not.”
“You’re a bad liar, Penelope.”
I let out a shaky breath, scooping up all the composure I can hold. I attempt to keep it light. “And you’re a bad blackjack player.”
His gaze sparks black. Seconds drip pass, but they feel like minutes. Eventually, his fingers slide off my neck and he puts distance between us. Slipping a poker chip from his pocket, he flips it between his thumb and forefinger as he stares out the windshield.
“Seems like I’m bad at everything these days.”
The air has shifted within the four walls of this car so fast it’s given me whiplash. We’ve gone from sexual tension and sharing food to something that makes the hairs on my arms stand straight.
When Raphael’s silky voice slices through the tension, my shoulders snap into a tight line.
“Kelly seemed to know who you were. Have you met before?”
I feel sick. “No.”
“Odd, because his brother Martin owns the Hurricane bar and casino you used to work at.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
The words I knew it was you flash against the dash, and it feels like someone’s tightened a belt around my lungs. It takes every ounce of discipline to stop my face from showing my panic.
“What a coincidence.”
“Want to know what else is a coincidence?”
“No,” I breathe.
He tells me anyway.
“That casino burned down on Wednesday, and you turned up on the Coast with a suitcase on Thursday.”
I knew it was coming, but I still recoil from the blow. Blood thumps in my temples and my vision dims around the edges; it’s becoming near impossible to keep my poker face.
“Look at me, Penelope.” Stupidly, I do. I immediately wish I hadn’t, because there’s not an ounce of gentleman softening his features. Nor does it touch his tone when he grinds out his next question. “What. Did. You. Do?”
My eyes have a way of revealing my next move, so this time, I don’t glance down at the door handle before I tug on it, lurch out, and break into a run.
Slippery pavement morphs into frosted leaves and the wind roars in my ears. I’m running into darkness and I don’t know where it leads. That seems to be what I do when faced with the consequences of my impulsive actions.
I run away without a plan.
The moon disappears behind branches above, and when the silence between the tree trunks echoes louder than my thumping heart, I slow to a stop. As I turn a full circle in a tight clearing, the weight of another dumb decision presses down on my shoulders.
Fuck. Why did I run into the Devil’s Preserve?
It’s cold. Now that I’ve stopped running, the December chill nips at my legs and arms and racks my bones with a shiver. I step toward the direction I think I came from and my foot catches on a root, rolling my ankle underneath me.
“Fuck,” I hiss out into the darkness. As I bend down to rub it, the silence is broken by something that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.
The crack of a twig underfoot.
Raphael’s presence crawls up my spine before he even utters a word. Before he grips my waist and shoves me against a tree.
He takes a step forward, blocking me in. “Did you burn down Martin O’Hare’s casino, Penelope?”
My heartbeat flickers like a flame; part of me is grateful for his warmth, and the other part of me knows it’ll be the last time I’ll feel it.
I don’t want to tell him the truth, and not just because I’m scared of the look in his eye. He already knows too much; I cracked like a fucking egg on the swim platform today, my childhood trauma running out of me like yolk. It feels like every piece of myself I give to him is another piece I can’t get back. A piece I can’t hide behind. What am I going to do: stand here, raw and vulnerable and fucking soppy in front of a man? A man I don’t even like? Who doesn’t like me?
My answer doesn’t come quick enough, because his hand shoots out and wraps around my throat, shoving me backward until my shoulders scrape the rough bark behind me. I bite down a hiss and clench my frozen fists at my side.
“Going to need an answer, Penelope,” he says, sounding bored.
The broad planes of his silhouette blur into the darkness behind him, making him appear larger—scarier. I shouldn’t be alone with a man like him, and the black void that exists behind his irises tells me he agrees.
With an impatient breath, his thumb presses harder against my pulse. “Did you set fire to his casino?” The very real possibility of dying flashes behind my eyelids and forces me to nod.
His stomach tenses against mine. “Why?”
Here I go, cracking like that egg again. Flexing my throat in his tight grip, I tell him.
“When a new casino opened in town, I had no idea it was run by the fucking Irish mob,” I croak. “I didn’t even know who Martin O’Hare was; all I was thinking about were all the fresh marks. Well, one night, he caught me…”
My words trail off. “Swindling,” Raphael finishes for me, gaze flashing black.
Card counting, actually. But I have a feeling telling Vegas’s most prolific casino owner that I card count, while alone in the woods with him, would be a very stupid idea. Instead, I nod. “He told me to leave town and never come back.”
His gaze narrows. “But why the fire? Why didn’t you just leave?”
We stare at each other. “Because when Martin O’Hare cornered me in the alleyway outside the casino, he did the same thing as you’re doing to me right now.”
When O’Hare had his hands around my throat, it had reminded me of being ten, standing in the alley of another casino, with another man with a strong grip. Although it didn’t have the same horrific ending, I was bitter. So bitter, I made the impulsive decision to light a vodka bottle outside his casino as I waited for the bus out of town on the other side of the road.
Three stuttered heartbeats pass. In that time, confusion sweeps like a shadow across Raphael’s expression, then his gaze drops to his hand around my throat.
It slips down to my collarbone, and balls into a fist by his side.
“You’re a dead girl walking, Penelope,”
I let out a shaky breath, a whisper of defiance rolling through me. Not because I believe I’m lucky enough to evade death twice in one lifetime—hell, I’m not sure if I’m lucky at all anymore—but because the image of my father curling up into a fetal position before he was killed has been burned into my retinas for the last seven years.
What an embarrassing way to go. Ever since, I made a vow that when death found me, I’d greet it with a straight spine and a staring match.
I tilt my chin up. “I don’t want to play a game tonight. If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”
My teeth chatter. Branches whip in the wind above our heads. Eventually, Raphael runs a thumb over his lip and drags his gaze to the blackened sky.
“Now, where would be the fun in that?”
What?
Before I can reply, he stoops and wraps an arm around my waist. My feet leave the ground as he hurls me over his shoulder. Blood rushes to my head and my thighs tingle in perverse expectation under the heat of his palm just below the curve of my ass. I couldn’t have run very far, because less than a minute passes before the moonlight cuts across the muddy ground and the car is in sight.
He drops me at the passenger door and flings it open. “Get in.”
My mouth opens and closes again. I catch the eye of one of his lackeys smoking against a sedan across the road. He blows smoke against the black sky and shrugs.
“Where are we—”
“Get in before I change my mind about killing you, Penelope.”
I don’t have to be asked twice.
Heat blasts from the dash and scalds my limbs as I slide into the passenger seat. Raphael’s door slams with more force than necessary, and we’re peeling off over frosted pavement before I can even get my seatbelt on.
I’m confused, crawling with awkwardness and stupefied to my core. I keep glancing at Raphael, but the expression carved into his face is so unreadable that I can’t tell if it’d be best to apologize or to crack a joke.
I settle for drowning in the silence.
I fidget with the radio.
Dig for discarded fries down the side of the seat.
As I start doodling on the condensation on the passenger side window, the car comes to an abrupt stop. My heart lurches forward with my body, and as I turn to face Raphael, he grabs me by the scruff of my neck and lifts my back up off the seat. When he drops me again, there’s something soft under my head.
A pillow.
Expressionless, he reaches into the back seat again and produces a blanket. He throws it over my head and the engine whirs to life again.
“Go to sleep.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Penelope. Forget about Martin O’Hare; he’s my problem now.”
