Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
He ignores me as he talks with the dispatcher. I walk away, shoving out through the door. “Hey,” he calls after me. “You better not run off!”
I ignore it, thinking about all the different ways I could escape. Run down the street and beg the first person I see to come to my rescue. Hop on a bus and hope I don’t have to pay the fair. Collapse at the feet of the cops and plead my case. Maybe they’d ever take pity on me—this rental car place is clearly some kind of scam.
“All right now, we’re all set,” the tow guy says, coming over with a clipboard. “Like I said, that’ll be two-fifty, plus the unloading fee, so we’re looking at closer to three twenty-five—”
I want to scream.
More money that I don’t have.
The tow guy’s talking to me and the Rental Twerp stands in the doorway glaring with his hands on his hips, and I’m on the edge of panic, trying not to lose my freaking mind, with both of them sniping at me and at each other, and there’s no escaping this.
I’m screwed.
Christopher’s going to catch me.
Except I know there’s one way out, and it’s sitting in my pocket.
I hold Evander’s card up to the sky, squinting at the number. For the fiftieth time today, I type it into my phone and my thumb hovers over the call button.
What happens if I ask him for help?
I’m at rock bottom—again, as it turns out—and I feel insanely pathetic. I can’t even drive out of the city without screwing it up.
I’m crawling back to Evander only a few hours after he said he’d help, for a price.
Am I prepared to stay here, in Chicago, and accept his offer? A job and a fresh start. I’ve never had a job before—my parents never let me work, and Christopher laughed when I suggested it. The idea of making a fair wage, of affording my own apartment, buying my own groceries, having my own life—it’s so tempting it hurts.
But how can I stay in Chicago when Christopher is here?
Can I really trust Evander when he says I’ll be safe?
It’s stupid not to keep going. I got this far and I can go further. I should walk back in that little rental shop, hand over the cards, and offer to bribe the guy so he forgets my little tirade. I can hope the cards keep on working and pay the tow guy whatever he wants. I can get out of this, hit the road, and drive until tomorrow—
Instead, I hit call.
It rings for a few seconds and disappointment tightens around my heart until I hear his voice.
“Hello, Camille.”
I take a sharp breath. “How’d you know it was me?”
“Not many people have this number. Did you think about my offer some more?”
I close my eyes and steady myself. “I did.”
“And?”
“I want a job.”
“Good. Where are you?”
“I’m at a rental car place.” I look over and spot a police cruiser heading toward me, crunching over the gravel in the street. Rental Twerp’s looking stupidly smug, and the tow guy’s starting to realize he’s not getting paid anytime soon. “Also, I’m about to get arrested.”
Chapter 8
Evander
I drink the good, strong coffee and cross my legs. The diner is quiet at mid-morning after the breakfast rush and I’m only half listening to Lycus as he goes over the day’s schedule.
My mind’s on the girl behind the counter with her hair pulled up in a messy bun, looking lost and overwhelmed and so fucking beautiful it’s like a railroad spike in my chest.
Camille glances over and smiles uncertainly at me. I don’t smile back, which makes her roll her eyes as she gets back to refilling salt shakers.
It’s been a week since I paid off that predatory rental place and that asshole tow truck driver and used my connections to make the cops go away. Since then, I got her hired here, a diner run by a client of the Kazan family, a nice older Greek man named Demetrios. He manages the place along with his wife and daughter, two of the strongest and most intense Greek women I’ve ever met in my life, and that’s saying something. I got her an apartment in a house owned by a Greek woman named Hermia, another client of the family. I filled Camille’s pantry and refrigerator, paid for a new wardrobe, and offered to furnish the place, to which she said, and owe you more money? Yeah, go fuck yourself.
Camille is quiet when she’s at work, a little overwhelmed, definitely overshadowed by Demetrios’s loudmouth daughter, but she seems happy. I have Demetrios and Hermia keeping an eye out for the man that nearly chased Camille from Chicago, and although she still hasn’t told me anything about him, I’m making sure nobody gets anywhere near her without me finding out about it.