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“We’ve got to fucking go, Alex.”

I barely had time to slide my key into the lock before my brother dragged me into the apartment. His long fingers gripped my wrist as he slammed the door, locking every one of the four old, rusty, and completely ineffective locks.

I couldn’t imagine whatever he thought was coming through the door, but if it was a strength-challenged toddler, we might have a chance. I turned, gasping at the state of our apartment. Jaymes was a slob at the best of times, and I’d done everything I could to make sure the small, overpriced studio wasn’t too much of a mess.

Right now, it looked like a hurricane had come, gone, and made a return visit since I’d left the damn place an hour ago.

Jaymes threw a duffle bag at me, “Hurry up.”

I continued standing, looking to the kitchen area. The cabinet doors were all open with glasses, plates, and various dry goods lining the counters. The bed was overturned and sitting at an angle, my emergency cash missing.

“What the hell is going on?”

Jaymes made an impatient sound, zipping up the bag and grabbing the one that I had let fall from his toss at my feet. He stormed to my clothes rack, pulling off shirts and pants and throwing them into the empty bag.

“Whatever you can fit in here we can take, but I don’t know what you want. If I pack for you and something important ends up missing, then that’s on you.” He shook his head like I was the one being unreasonable, throwing in some of his clothes from the dirty hamper to his own bag.

I had come to the studio on a break from work after having missed a million calls from him. He’d only left one message:Come home.Since he wasn’t one to leave messages, I assumed the damn apartment was on fire or something equally appropriate.

What I had not expected was for him to be exorcizing our personal belongings onto the battered 70’s carpet. Stepping forward, I grabbed his hands, my eyes tracking his own wide and dilated eyes. His skin was pale but not clammy, and he didn’t look drugged, but he was sweaty and shaking nonetheless. His already thin face was nearly gaunt, and dirty but he looked fine otherwise.

He held my hands in his, removing them slowly as if he was afraid moving too quickly would spook me. “We really don’t have time for you to be weird right now, Alex. We have to get moving.”

“Why?”

Jaymes sighed, his hands rubbing over his eyes, “Valentina.”

I froze.

“Giovenni? Valentina Giovenni?”

“Well,” he jerked his head in a shrug, resuming his packing, “Technically she’ll probably only want me, but I assumed she would kill you on principal so-”

“Jaymes,”I rubbed my hands over my face, “What did you do?”

He looked at me then, and in that moment, he looked every bit of his fresh-faced nineteen years despite his red-rimmed eyes, close-cropped purple hair, and sweet baby face no matter how much of a beard he was growing.

The off-center diamond in his ear winked at the fading sun, evidence of his last impromptu,please, Alex, help me do this thing I want to do,decisions.

“I fucked up, Alex. I really did. I was trying to do something good for us, and I fucked up.”

I took a deep breath, grabbing the bag from his hand and shoving the very few possessions I cared about into it. He kicked into action, quickly pulling two bags together and laying them by the door. He then went to the big window, our only real source of light and looked out, eyes scanning the street.

I didn’t try to question him for the moment. I finished packing with a final zip and ran to the bathroom, stepping onto the toilet seat. Reaching up, I popped off one of the broken tiles from the bathroom ceiling and retrieved the remainder of the emergency cash I’d squirreled away.

I wasn’t stupid. Jaymes had been skimming from the top of my mattress stash since I’d started hiding money there as a kid. If he thought he knew all my spots now, then the little shit was sadly mistaken. I bit back the string of curses and tears that were trying to claw their way out of me.

The Giovenni siblings were not people I wanted looking for me, especially if Jaymes had done anything to invoke their ire because God only knew what he’d done. I pushed out of the bathroom to find him waiting for me at the door, locks all still in place.

I grabbed my bag and the duffle at his feet, “You ready?”

“Yeah.” he gripped his bag tighter; between the two of us there wasn’t much to take. As he watched through the peephole, his hand gripped something in front of him. I quickly took the barrel of the cold, black firearm and ripped it from his hand, ignoring his cursing and protesting as I double checked the safety mechanism.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing with this?” I asked furiously.

“Protecting us.”

Tags: Ashley Michele Paranormal
Source: readsnovelonline.net