Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Hey!” I called at the retreating figure, making him turn to look at me.
And as he did, I was just… even more sure.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I snapped, feeling safe since I was three feet from the front door of my work where a bunch of members of the Irish mafia would protect me if they needed to. “It was you.”
It was.
I knew it.
The man who snuck up on me when I’d been trying to get rid of those first four blocks of heroin. The good-looking guy with bad news written all over him.
“Depends on what you’re talking about,” he said, shrugging. “Your face?” he asked. “I don’t put my hands on women.”
I didn’t know the man from Adam.
But, somehow, I believed him.
There was something about the firmness in his voice mixed with the disgust in his eyes at the very idea of him hurting a woman that I instantly believed.
“But if we’re talking about the drugs in the flower pots? Yeah, darling, that was me.”
With that, he turned and walked off into the night. Like it was no big deal. Like what he’d done hadn’t turned my life upside down.
“Jesus,” I hissed, reaching for my phone, starting to write a text to Slash. “The new guy at my apartment building was the one who took the… packages.”
I was just about to type a second text, saying that I was reasonably sure he wasn’t the same guy who’d attacked me when I felt someone shove into me, knocking my phone to the ground, flying into the edge of the street with a loud thwack.
It would be a miracle if my screen wasn’t shattered.
“Watch it, assh—“ I started as I turned to look.
And saw a familiar face, making some of the anger fall away immediately.
For all of ten seconds.
A few heartbeats.
Because in the span of them, I stopped seeing someone I knew, someone I kind of cared about, someone I thought that I could trust. Instead, I saw someone I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before.
The cold eyes with nothing behind them.
I knew.
God, I knew.
Almost instantly.
Yet far, far too late.
Because it was then I realized there was a car parked at my side. With the back door ajar.
I didn’t have time to react before something slammed down against my head, and everything went black.
The pounding headache was what woke me up, grumbling and trying to rub my head, only to find my wrists bound in front of me.
That managed to snap me fully awake.
Then it came back.
Stupidly walking out of the bar when I knew I was safest inside, that there were still threats all around.
Confronting the guy from my apartment building.
Then… fuck.
Almost as if I conjured him, I heard the footsteps coming closer, making me roll onto my back to glare up at him.
Chet.
Fucking Chet.
How was it Chet?
Friendly, familiar, working-by-my-side-for-years Chet?
But, suddenly, shit started to fall into place.
Like the damn notes.
Signed C.
Not Czar.
C.
But why?
Was he in the Bulgarian organization? Did he know Czar? But even if he did, why the hell had he given me the drugs to hold onto?
“You could have just dropped them off like I’d asked,” Chet said, sighing as he looked down at me.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I hissed, glaring at him.
“If you’d just dropped the bricks off like I’d told you to in the note…”
“What note? I never got a note. I just got my fucking face bashed in.”
“What was I supposed to do? I had to find the drugs.”
“Why give them to me in the first place, you fucking psycho?”
“Well, I couldn’t have them,” he said, eyes wild before he turned away. “They were looking for them.”
“Who? The Bulgarians?” I asked, wanting him to talk. To buy me some time. To get free. Or for someone to notice I was missing and start looking for me.
To that, Chet let out a manic laugh.
“Are you stupid?” he asked.
I guess I was.
Because I was completely lost.
“What do you mean?” I asked, letting my voice go a bit higher-pitched, girly, all sweet and innocent.
“We needed the drugs,” Chet said, pacing the floor in the room we were in. Which seemed like some sort of abandoned building, of which there were many in Shady Valley. So while that didn’t narrow anything down, at least I could assume that we were still in the main area of town. Maybe even close enough for someone to hear me scream. But I had to time that right. If I screamed too soon, he might gag me.
“We?” I asked.
“We. The organization.”
The Bulgarians? Czar’s old syndicate?
“They’re going to take it all away from us,” he said, continuing to pace.
“Take what away?” I asked.
“The town. The area.”
Okay.
Reading between the lines, Chet did work for the Bulgarians. But maybe he and his Shady Valley crew were failing? Not making enough money to appease the higher-ups?