by Sophia Gray
Audrey’s mouth dropped, and her blue eyes opened wide. “Are you kidding me? Of course I don’t have a gun.” She reached out and patted the dog. “Why would I have a gun? Do you think I’m some kind of criminal?”
“Jesus,” I said as I buried my face in my hands. “No, Audrey, I don’t think you’re a fucking criminal. But you live in one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago, and unless you have one, I don’t think you should stay here. Hell, even if you did have a gun, I wouldn’t let you stay here alone.”
“I’m not alone,” Audrey said stubbornly. “I have—”
“Pepper,” I said, my voice only getting sharper. “I know, I know, you have a fucking dog. Big whoop. Don’t you realize they could take her out in, like, five seconds?”
Audrey looked shocked. She pulled the dog close and hugged her. “Pepper, don’t listen,” she said fiercely. “Enzo doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
I rolled my eyes. Exasperation and anger surged through my body. “Audrey, Jesus! You have to stop being so fucking stupid! This is your safety that we’re talking about here, don’t you get that?”
Audrey glared at me. “You’re being an asshole. And I don’t have to listen to you if I don’t want to.” She stood up, reaching for her awful leggings and pulling them on. “I don’t have to do anything!” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And I don’t have to go with you, and there’s no way you can make me!”
I sighed as I raked a hand through my hair. “Audrey, look, I’m just trying to convince you that it’s for your own good.” The dog whined. “And for you, Pepper,” I added, feeling like a complete moron. “Audrey, Pepper can come with you. It’s not like you have to leave it here.”
“Her,” Audrey corrected immediately. Her lip trembled and quivered and, for a moment, I was terrified that she was going to burst into tears. “Pepper is a girl, Enzo.”
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and trying to exhale. “I get that. But come on, Audrey. This isn’t even a choice! It’s like choosing to die or choosing to live! Are you really that careless with your own life? What would your parents say? Or that old homeless guy at the food pantry? What’s going to happen to them if some asshole burglar breaks in and kills you?”
Audrey sighed. Her face softened, and she wiped a tear away from her cheek. “I guess I didn’t think about it like that before,” she said softly. “Okay.”
I stared at her. “Okay, so you’ll come?”
Audrey sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, I’ll come,” she repeated. “But I want to pack some things and call my landlord first, okay?” She was tired—I could tell because her hideous Wisconsin accent was starting to emerge.
I shook my head. “No. We need to leave now, and I need to get into the office as soon as I possibly can. This isn’t a good time to hang around, Audrey.”
She glared at me. “But it was a good time for you to fuck me?”
“Audrey, come on,” I insisted. “Don’t be like this. Everything’s going to be fine, just come with me.”
“Don’t treat me like a child!” Audrey snapped. “I’m not a little girl! I’m a woman, and you have to respect my boundaries!”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, okay,” I told her. “Look, I’m sorry. But we really need to go. If it was Hodges, he’s probably going to get bolder and come back. There’s a lot of really sensitive information on that computer, and the sooner we try to track it, the better.”
“It’s not my fault that he broke into my apartment,” Audrey snapped. “Maybe if you’d actually taken his calls and dealt with him, this wouldn’t have happened!”
Rage and anger rose in my body, and I fought hard to keep them down. I wanted to snap at her, tell her the only reason that she was safe was because of me, but I didn’t want to push the situation and make it worse. She was already treating me like shit because of the break-in, and I knew that I had to diffuse the situation and get her to calm down as soon as I could.
“Audrey, come on, calm down,” I said in a soothing voice. “Come on, just grab a bag and whatever you need for the dog, and we’ll go, okay?”
Audrey’s blue eyes flashed with anger. “No!” Her voice was forceful, almost a yell. “No, Enzo. No, I can’t go with you. This is all your fault!”
“Audrey, look, I couldn’t do anything about Hodges until I figured out what he was trying to do!” Even though I was trying to stay chill, I couldn’t help it—Audrey’s angry tone and accusations were making my anger boil over the edge. “And if we want to talk about whose fault it is, maybe I should have fired you for mixing up his name! Hotchkiss, remember?”
Audrey recoiled as though I’d slapped her. “Fuck you,” she spat out, grabbing Pepper’s leash and stalking into the next room.
Shit.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Audrey
I locked myself and Pepper in the bathroom, away from Enzo and his stupid anger. Pepper was upset—she could tell something bad was going on—and kept pacing in little circles, whining and drooling all over the bathroom floor. I didn’t have a huge bathroom, nothing like Enzo’s, only a tiny, grubby shower stall, a toilet, and a sink with a mirror over the top.
I couldn’t even stand to look at myself. I flopped down on the edge of the toilet, feeling the cheap plastic seat begin to give way even with my light weight. Pepper came and rested her head in my lap, looking up into my eyes with her soft brown gaze.
“This sucks, Pep,” I told her as I rubbed her ears. She closed her eyes contentedly but didn’t move away. “I don’t know what to do.”
Outside the bathroom, Enzo was pacing around. My stomach knotted and twisted and, for a moment, I thought I was going to be sick. Then I remembered everything that I had to get. There wasn’t a lot of things in the apartment that I cared about. My mom’s old blazer, for one, and I had some cheap costume jewelry that had come from her collection. I didn’t really have anything valuable. Truth be told, the only thing I had that was worth more than a hundred dollars was probably the laptop that the robber had taken.
Maybe that meant it wasn’t Hodges after all!
Grabbing Pepper’s leash, I opened the bathroom door and stalked into the living room. Enzo was sitting there, aimlessly picking stuffing out of one of the slashed-open couch cushions. He didn’t look up at me.
“Enzo,” I said sharply. “I don’t think it was Hodges.”
His head snapped up, and he looked into my eyes. His expression was completely unreadable—it was like the first day I’d seen him when he’d been balls deep inside of Karen.
“Why not?” His tone was wary. “What happened?”
I swallowed hard, blushing furiously. “Because I don’t really own anything that’s worth any money. Even the television was a present from someone I work with at Helping Hands—it was used when I got it, and that was years ago. The laptop was the only thing I had worth more than a hundred bucks.”
Enzo gaped at me. “And you think maybe someone took it for drug money?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t want you jumping to conclusions about that Hodges guy. Maybe he’s not really doing anything that bad after all.”
Enzo shook his head. “Audrey, don’t do this,” he said in a warning tone as he stood up and put his hands on his slender hips. “Hodges is a bad guy. Even if he didn’t do this, that doesn’t make him a good guy. He’s out to get me, and if he knows anything about you, you’re probably on the list.”
“Why?” I stared right at Enzo. “Why would you say that? What would he possibly want with me?”
Enzo’s mouth opened and closed but no words came out, and for once I had the feeling that I’d rendered him completely speechless. “It doesn’t matter, Audrey,” Enzo replied stiffly. “All that matters is getting you out of here, which we’ve got to do immediately. Don’t you know that? Don’t you know you’re in danger if you stay here?”
I shook my head, feeling less and less certain about Enzo with each passing s
econd. He was rich, he was an egomaniac, so it made total sense that he’d worry about someone out to get him when really nothing was going on.
“I think you’re being paranoid,” I said. “Look, I’ve lived in a house that got broken into before. It looked pretty similar to this, and there was nothing that sinister about it. People do fucked-up things. It was cold last night—maybe someone just wanted a place to sleep.”
“So they ripped up your couch?” Enzo shook his head. “Look, Audrey, I know you have a soft spot for homeless people, but they can be vicious. And I still think this is related to Hodges, it makes too much sense not to be.”
I frowned. “Why? What makes you say that?” I stared at him. Enzo looked uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure why I was pushing him so hard, but I felt like suddenly, Enzo was hiding something from me. I could tell there was something he didn’t want me to hear, or at least something that he didn’t want to say.
“Because you were with me last night and then randomly, your place gets robbed,” Enzo replied coolly. I could tell he was lying. “You’re here every single night. And the first night you’re gone, someone comes for the laptop.”
“But if it was Hodges, why wouldn’t he just try to rob the office?” I put my hands on my hips. “It doesn’t even make sense because he shouldn’t have known that my laptop was here! I never should have left it behind.”
Enzo shook his head. “Unless he was watching you,” he said in a sinister tone. “Which he may be doing. He may even be doing that right now. And the offices of LennoxCo are far too protected. Plus, Hodges is on the guard’s watch list.”
“Not because you care about me?”
“What?” Enzo looked at me stupidly. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“What would Hodges want with me, unless it was because he knows that you care about me,” I said. Suddenly, my feet and hands felt numb and shaky. My mouth was dry, and it was hard to get the words out. “Unless you can’t admit that you have feelings for me.”
Enzo shook his head. “That’s not it at all,” he replied, his tone cold. “Hodges is sly. He’d try anything to get to me.”
The bad feeling in my body continued. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Right, me either. I hate arguing. Get your stuff together and let’s go.”
“No,” I murmured. “You don’t understand. I mean you. I can’t be with you anymore.” Tears welled up in my eyes, and I swallowed hard against a giant lump in my throat. “I can’t do this, Enzo. I don’t even feel like myself when I’m with you!”
“That’s the point of dating someone—to get a new perspective on things!” Enzo shot back. “Audrey, you’re being so stupid about this! Just relax and let things happen!”
“No! I hate you! And I hate myself when I’m with you!” I sniffled, burying my face in my hands. “I feel like someone completely awful and selfish and self-absorbed! I hated those stupid rich clothes you bought me because you’re not comfortable with me being me! You want to change me; you want me to be someone else!”
“Audrey, that’s not true.”
“I want to quit being your secretary, I want to be left alone! Don’t you get that? I don’t want anything to do with you anymore! I want to be on my own!”
Enzo stared at me. “Audrey, come on.” He scoffed. “You can’t possibly mean that.”
A tear dripped down my cheek, hot against my cold skin, and I shivered. “I do mean that. I hate myself for being with you, I hate myself for having sex with someone like you.”
Enzo narrowed his eyes. “Someone like me? What the fuck does that even mean?”
“It means… someone like you!” I exploded. “Someone who doesn’t care about their family, or send money to their poor parents! Someone who hates dogs! Someone who ruin the lives of perfectly innocent women just because they happen to work for him! Someone who doesn’t even respect himself!”
Enzo shook his head. “Audrey, you have this all wrong,” he said, but even I could tell that his voice was shaking. “I know you’re stressed, and this has been a scary morning, but please calm down, I promise you’re overreacting.”
“Oh my god,” I snapped. “Yeah, that’s it. A woman decides that she doesn’t want to fuck you anymore and suddenly she’s the one who’s overreacting.”
Enzo swallowed. His face composed itself into a neat mask of calm. “Fine,” he said smoothly. “If that’s what you want, so be it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Enzo
I stared at Audrey, unable to conceal my disgust any longer. “Audrey, come on,” I told her sharply. “We have to get going.”
Audrey blinked. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Pepper and I are staying right here.”
“No, you’re coming with me. I don’t give a shit about hurting your feelings anymore, so I’ll tell it to you straight: you’re in danger if you stay here. Do you get that? You’re in trouble. Furthermore.” I glanced down at her dog, “Pepper’s in trouble, too. What happens to her if someone breaks in while you’re at work? Did you ever think about that?”
Audrey blinked. I could tell that I’d hit her right where it hurt. “She’ll defend the apartment,” she said, but her voice was shaky.
“Audrey, look at her. She’s not a guard dog. She’s a pet, and she’s not going defend shit. See, she doesn’t even act afraid around strangers.” I slapped my thigh and Pepper walked over to me, tail wagging broadly in the air. “Audrey, she’s going to get hurt if someone comes back here looking for you. They’re going to be really angry that you’re not at home, and they could hurt her. They could even kidnap or kill her.”
Audrey’s face crumpled again. “Okay,” she said softly. “I’ll get my things. Give me ten minutes.”
I sat on Audrey’s ruined couch as she bustled from room to room, packing a small bag full of Pepper’s foot, water bowl, and some of her clothes. I didn’t want to say anything, but I planned on getting rid of all of her clothing as soon as we got back to my condo. Just because she’d broken up with me didn’t mean she could continue looking so unprofessional at work. That is if she doesn’t quit like she told you she was going to do, I realized with an unhappy sigh.
“I’m ready,” Audrey said stiffly. She was standing there, looking like she’d seen a ghost. “Come on, Pepper.” She patted her leg and Pepper ran towards her, barking and drooling. “We’re going to stay with Mr. Enzo for a while,” she told the dog. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I led Audrey outside before calling a driver with a Town Car to come from LennoxCo and pick us up. The day had warmed slightly—the sun was out at least—but it was still bitterly cold. It was also beautiful, there wasn’t a single cloud in the bright blue sky.
Audrey shivered and wrapped her arms around herself in that hideous pink coat. “Pepper, don’t worry,” she told the dog. Pepper looked calm to me, and I knew that Audrey’s words were more for the benefit of herself than the dog.
Finally, the Town Car pulled up. Audrey and I climbed into the back seat. It was wide enough where our bodies weren’t touching, and Pepper curled up on the floor, drooling with her tongue hanging out of her wide, pink mouth.
“Take me home,” I called to the driver. “And then I want you to wait for me. I’ll be showering and then going into the office.”
“Yes, Mr. Lennox,” the driver called back. I frowned, he wasn’t one of the men I recognized. Normally, a guy named Rico drove me home.
“Where’s Rico this morning?”
“He’s sick, Mr. Lennox,” the unfamiliar driver replied. “I’m Lenny.”
“Right,” I muttered. It didn’t matter. Aside from Rico, most drivers blended into my memory. In fact, I wasn’t even sure that I’d memorized any other names.
“Enzo?” Audrey’s voice was quiet. “Do you have a second bedroom?”
I nodded. “I have three. Take your pick.” I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her right now. I rested my hand on my fist and stared moodily ou
t the window. “It doesn’t matter, Audrey. But I want you to have those clothes. I bought them for you.”
Audrey frowned. “I won’t need them if I’m no longer working at LennoxCo,” she said cuttingly.
I sighed. I didn’t have a reply for that. Just as Lenny was rounding the corner to my condo, I saw that he was turning on a red light.
“Hey, asshole. Lenny! Pay attention! You nearly got us killed!”
The car seemed to slow down, and panic rose in my throat. “Mr. Lennox, don’t worry,” Lenny said in a smooth voice. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” He turned around and flashed me a grin.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a car plowing across the intersection. My stomach jumped as I realized it was headed directly for the Town Car.
“Lenny!” I yelled, my voice giving way to panic. “Move!”
