He kisses me again. He kisses me deep, with passion that has my belly swooping, and then looks into my eyes for a long moment before he backs away and leaves.
I blow out a long breath. He’s really angry. I can’t blame him.
I am, too. If he had asked me out that night instead of Ray… we might have gotten together, might still be together. I wander back to the bed and my eyes stop at the dandelion wish-art over the fireplace.
By now, we could be married, maybe even be talking about having children. Or maybe we wouldn’t be anything, but I wouldn’t have wound up with Ray. Wouldn’t have become the slow-boiled frog.
I shake it off.
No point thinking long about it. It’s done. Ray Iadanza is a liar. And a scammer. A liar and scammer who robbed poor Mrs. Shear, but this time, he got caught.
At least he’s out of my life.
“Violet?” Killian’s head pops back in.
I look at him expectantly.
“Sleep naked. I’ll be waking you up when I get back.”
I smile and squirm with excitement.
He smiles, too, giving me a look of promise, but his eyes don’t look right.
I let it go, though. I get into bed and curl up with the remote, deciding to binge on a rom com series. It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to watch something with romance. Probably because my own love life was so lacking for a while.
57
Killian
I get to Exodus, ready to close for my manager, Paul, who has a black eye and keeps having dizzy spells. He got knocked in the back of the head in the parking lot when he went out to take out some trash. The dishwasher was off to the side, having a smoke and happened to see it and chase the guy, dressed in a balaclava with a crowbar in his hand. The guy in the balaclava was fast and gave him the slip. I’ve decided the dishwasher is getting promoted for that.
Paul tries to tell me he’s fine, but I get one of the bartenders to take him to the ER.
Alana was supposed to have the day off and I called her, but she’s got two puking kids and I’ve got people covering for her already at Genesis, so she’s no use tonight.
Tony, my head of security at Genesis and me are in the office at Exodus, going through security footage when I get a text from my manager at Law that a brick was thrown at one of our waitresses as she left. Hit her in the shoulder. She’s okay, but shaken up.
I call Craig over at Numbers to make sure everything’s good over there, but he’s not answering. Numbers closed an hour earlier so it’s not unheard of to not get ahold of my manager. He might be already home and in bed.
I get an alert from our security company. Someone tried to break into Numbers. I head over there and arrive to two broken windows. We comb the place to make sure nobody got in.
Someone has targeted me tonight. Who the fuck is it?
And why?
Things finally go quiet after that and there’s nothing to do but get the windows boarded, get extra security to watch the location until repairs can be made in the morning, and try to figure out who is responsible for this.
We’ve got nothing tonight, so I decide to head home but on the way, my brother calls me to tell me someone threw a brick through his front window with a note taped that said,
You fuck people over they’ll fuck you back.
My brother’s fine. And he’s got surveillance of the license plate of the car that pulled up, rolled down a window and tossed the brick so we have a make/model/license plate. Those turn up squat – other than that the plate doesn’t match the car and has been reported stolen.
I have logged into my own security system no less than two dozen times tonight to make sure Violet is okay and that my apartment isn’t part of whatever is going on tonight. I alerted the security guard in the building to be extra vigilant. Whoever is targeting me may think I still live at my old house where my brother lives. Or, they haven’t figured out how to get past security in my building yet.
***
By the time I climb into bed, I’ve also had a call that bricks got thrown through two windows at Genesis.
Climbing in with Violet in my bed settles me immediately. It takes the coldness out of my gut that’s been sitting there all night.
She snuggles in. “Hiya,” she whispers, sleepily.
“Hey,” I say, kissing the ridge of her ear.
“What time is it?”
“Almost five.”
“Oh shit. Long night.”
“Yeah, shit night. But coming home to you feels good.”
She turns over so she’s facing me and snuggles in, tucking her head under my chin.