Cameron’s eyes became crazed. “I said leave! Now!”
Rocco and I both jumped as Cameron lost his cool.
Griff glimpsed at me with fury and quickly spun around, leaving just as Tiny and Spider came
running through the doors.
“What’s going on?” a dazed Rocco asked.
I looked through the crowd of panting angry men. Instinct told me that I needed to get out of
there—quickly.
So I turned to Rocco, “You need to go to bed. You can’t sleep out here.”
“Out where?” he wondered.
I helped Rocco off the lounge chair and painstakingly held him up as we dragged ourselves back
into house. I made sure to close the patio door behind us, sensing that the tension bubble
between Cameron, Spider, and Tiny was about to burst.
After I heaved Rocco into his bed, I hurried back to my room to be alone and let the men air out
their differences. I was still quite high—though I wasn’t sure whether to dance around my room
or lock my bedroom door. I plummeted onto the bed, tracing my fingers over my lips over and over
until I drifted to sleep, before I could drift back to reality.
That night, the disfigured monster came back into my nightmares. I woke up screaming, but no
sound came out of my mouth—in fact, no air came into it either. A large hand covered both my
mouth and nose. I fought back, kicking and punching my unseen assailant. The intruder struggled
to switch my tiny ballerina lamp on, knocking it over in the process. The light was on, and
Griff was standing over me with his hand over just my mouth now, anxiously scanning the room and
shushing me erratically.
“Emily! It’s me! Chill out!” he hushed.
When I could take a few breaths through my nose and my heart had finally slowed to an almost
normal tempo, Griff let me push his hand from my face.
“Griff, what are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night!” I demanded in a half-whisper
and half-sleep.
He got up and started pacing back and forth, looking at the floor while he collected his
thoughts. “How could you do this to me?” He looked up, wretched. “I should have known that
when the boss asked for me to go with them today, then he kept glaring at me the whole time,
that he meant something by it. I’m such an idiot. I’ve been racking my brain for weeks, trying
to figure out what these mongrels want with you and how I was going to get you out of this
place, when it turns out that you’re the boss’s concubine.”
I shot straight up in bed. “What did you call me?”
He moved over to me with a look of disgust on his face. “I’ve been putting my life in danger
for you while you’re messing with the boss like a concubine.”
Before I knew it was happening, my hand was raised, and I heard it smack Griff across the cheek.
“I’m not messing with anyone, Griffin! Not that that’s any of your business. I’ve already
told you, I don’t need to be saved, and I certainly didn’t ask you to do anything for me. Don
’t pretend that your choice to slack off has been entirely for my benefit.”
Griff rubbed his cheek and glared away.
I tried my best to calm myself down. “What on earth happened out there today?”
He sat on the bed, still rubbing his cheek like a child, like someone who wasn’t used to
getting paid to pummel or be pummeled by much bigger people than me. “It’s like I said. I got
told last night that your boyfriend insisted I go with them today. Apparently I was supposed to
keep an eye on the Kid while he learned the trade. Spider almost blew my head off when I said I
didn’t want to go. So I followed orders and went like a good soldier. Your boyfriend stared at
me the whole way down. It was getting creepy. Then we get to this house, and all the boys were
told to hang back on the street while Spider, Tiny, and the boss went in to talk business. They
were in there for almost an hour … the Kid was getting bored and asked to see my gun.” He
shrugged defensively. “I gave it to him. I didn’t see any harm in it—it wasn’t like he was
going to shoot anyone. But one of the boys thought it would be funny to set off firecrackers to
scare him. The Kid jumped and shot himself in the foot. Spider came out of the house, screaming
at me, something about no guns. How was I supposed to know the Kid would shoot himself?”
“Roc … the Kid is fine. So what’s with the theatrics?” I said, plunging back into my pillow
and breathing with care.
“You don’t get it, do you? These guys have been looking for an excuse to whack me ever since
you got here. Now I know it’s because the boss wants you for himself. With the Kid shooting
himself today and Spider’s warning last time, I’m done for sure. They’re going to off me.”