I thought about what Frances had told me about Spider trying to take over the business
after my brother died. “Do you like being the boss?”
He looked at me curiously. “I don’t know. Never really thought about it.” He pondered for a
moment, and then said, “Most of the time, it’s just a pain. Everyone wants you to make all the
decisions so that they have someone to blame if something goes wrong.”
“Why doesn’t Spider just do it then?”
“I wish he would. He did do it for a little while, after Bill died. But the bosses decided that
I was going to manage everything, and we had to go with what they wanted. If they don’t like or
trust the big boss, everything falls apart really quickly and the turf wars start up again.”
Cameron was rolling a lock of my hair around his finger. “It doesn’t matter much because
Spider doesn’t want to be the big boss anyway.”
“Seems to me like he would love that power,” I mumbled.
“You’re under a lot more scrutiny when you’re the boss,” he said. “Whatever decision you
make is made for the good of the business, no matter what. You can’t have any weaknesses that
could affect your ability to manage the business and to make the right decision. For some
bosses, it’s things like drug addictions or gambling. For Spider, it’s Carly. He knows Carly
is his weakness—if he had to choose, he would put her before the business, which would be bad
for all of us. The bosses only care about the money that goes into their pockets. Anything that
threatens their bottom line would get all of us killed and replaced.”
I looked away and asked, “Wouldn’t your relationship with Manny put you at risk of making bad
decisions?”
He chuckled at my tactless insinuation. “If she had meant anything to me, and if the bosses had
found out, then it could have been an issue. But none of that happened. It never will. The
leaders don’t care what you do on your spare time, so long as it doesn’t affect your judgment.
”
“Have you ever had any weaknesses then?”
“Nope. Never. And I don’t plan on it,” he said coolly.
I looked at him in shock. He laughed and pulled me into his arms.
“My addiction to you is definitely a catastrophic weakness,” he softly said.
“Oh, dear! What are you going to do?”
His face turned glum for a second. “I haven’t figured that part out yet.” With a smile, he
added, “Right now I’m planning to just keep you here as my prisoner. We’ll pretend that the
rest of the world doesn’t exist and that no one cares that I love you.”
My heart flapped. That sounded like the best plan I had ever heard. “So, Sherlock, do you have
any suspects in mind as potential traitors?”
“Could be anyone. We have a lot of people who work for us.”
One shady character came to my mind. “What about Roach?”
“There’s no way.”
“You seem pretty sure about that.”
Cameron shifted uncomfortably. “You think I would let him live after what he did to you?” he
asked with the bitter voice that I hated. “He was gone before he could betray us.”
I was taken aback. It wasn’t that I was sad to hear that there was one less maniac like Roach
roaming this earth, but I was shocked that someone else had lost their life because of me.
“Cameron, can you try to not kill anyone else on my behalf? No one will want to even come close
to me anymore if they think that one wrong glance in my direction will get them on the chopping
block.”
“Good. No one should come near you anyway,” he said and looked at me intently. “He was dead,
no matter what, Emmy. I can’t have an animal like that hanging around in my crew. He was too
much of a liability.”
He brushed my hair aside and started to kiss my neck. I was a little winded.
“What’s it like doing what you do?” I wondered.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice like velvet.
“I mean having to make decisions like you did for Roach and having to act like a different
person.”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve been doing it for so long that I don’t really notice a
difference.” His interest was piqued. “How do I act?”
“You’re just different. You don’t smile, you don’t laugh; you become distant—and sometimes
you’re, well, scary.” My face went red.
His brow furrowed. “I forget sometimes that what I do is scary to normal people like you.”
“I’ve never heard anyone call me normal.” Apparently I was doomed to be abnormal in everyone
’s world.
He halfheartedly chuckled, then eyed me. “Are you scared of me now?”
I looked into his brown eyes. My face was still burning, my fingers were still tingling, and my
heart had still not regained its normal pace since I had attacked him that night. “I’m
terrified,” I answered truthfully.
He smiled.