by K. V. Rose
He holds the joint to his lips and I spot the cop car at the curb across the lawn. I yank it from his mouth without thinking. He whirls around to face me, brows pulled together, annoyed. I drop it and step on it, my heel smashing into and destroying it.
“What the fuck was that?” he growls at me. It’s weird. He’s obviously angry. But his voice is dangerously calm.
I throw my hand behind me, gesturing to the cop. “One, you can’t just smoke pot on campus right in front of the police and expect to get away with it. Two, you have no idea how much stalking I’m capable of. Three...I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late to my next class.” Which is a lie, but whatever, I needed to make three points.
He scoffs. “Which is what? How to Drive Like a Shithead and Destroy A Stranger’s Weed?” He slides his hands into his pockets, looking down his nose at me. It looks like it might’ve been broken once before. I like it.
I shake my head. “Business, asshole.” I turn to go, rolling my eyes.
He moves quickly, blocking my path. “What’re you doing tonight?”
He wouldn’t be the first guy I just met to ask me something like that. But I think of Tess. The gym. Of Dumont. Of my mother. Whatever I’m doing, it doesn’t involve this dude, no matter how hot he is. Not yet anyway.
“Nothing with you.”
He smirks. “I was going to see if you wanted to hang out with Riley. She’s new here.” He gestures toward the English building beside us. “But that’s cool.” Now he turns to go.
And damn me and him, but I don’t want him to. I mean, who else wears Tom Ford sweatpants on this fashion-less campus? At Campbell, wearing a polo shirt with wrinkled khakis is considered high fashion.
“Sure,” I say quickly, stopping him. “If you wanna give me her number...” I trail off, digging my phone out of my backpack’s side pocket.
He shakes his head. “She’ll contact you.”
And then he walks away, me staring after him, feeling slightly disturbed. And slightly like I like it.
Three
Caden calls me while I wait for Riley, tucked away on a stone bench between the building she’s in and a tiny little coffee shop with a line out the door.
“She okay?” is the first thing he says. As if on his flight from Raleigh to Toronto, I’d have lost sight of her or something.
I sigh. Heavily. “Yes.”
I can imagine him nodding. I hear the beep of a car, slam of a door, and then the sound changes as his car’s Bluetooth connects to his phone.
“You rode with her on the bus, right?”
I laugh, humorlessly. “No,” I say, and just before he starts to lose his shit, I beat him to it. “I drove her.”
Silence.
“How the fuck did you convince her to ride with you?” he asks, sounding equal parts in awe and irritated.
I shrug, unseen by him. “I didn’t ask. I told her.”
He swears under his breath. “That would never work with us.”
I switch the phone to my other ear so I can keep an eye on the cop still parked at the curb. Technically, I shouldn’t be in the States. They don’t like foreign criminals. But technically, my passport isn’t mine.
I’m still shocked at the audacity of that Ava chick to pull my joint from my damn mouth, but I’m also grateful. I hadn’t seen the cop. Which is unlike me.
“I know,” I say to Caden. “But that’s because you’re stupid around her.” I don’t mean it as a compliment, but I also don’t mean it as an insult. They’re not good together. It’s why they’re...good together. Which makes no damn sense and yet perfect sense all at once.
“Whatever,” Caden says, not even denying it. Then there’s the sound of his car driving down the highway, a quiet rumble in the background. But I know what’s coming next.
“Heard anything?” he asks, trying to sound indifferent.
“No.” Which pisses me off to admit, but it seems like Rolland Virani has disappeared off the face of the earth. “He hasn’t been to his house. And he hasn’t seen your mom.” I know, because I have people tailing her.
Caden blows out a breath. “Alright. If anything changes...”
“You’ll be the first to know.” Or second. Because I’d probably tell Riley first. Rolland won’t come for Caden. Not initially.
A pause. Then Caden says, “Thanks, man.” And I know he means it.
We hang up, and I wonder what he thinks about me. My work. Besides owning Shade, which is a hobby really that mostly takes care of itself. I know he doesn’t ask because he doesn’t want to know. He’s a lawyer, if not in practice. In practice, he’s the CEO of Scott Virani Enterprise, named after his brother. And while Caden is far from the most professional guy I know, even if he did ask me what I do for a living, for the real money, I would never risk his career like that. Especially not with Riley involved now.
Fuck, most days I don’t even know what I do. Hitman for hire? Dealer? Fixer? Yes to all of the above?
I tear my eyes away from the cop, not wanting to think about it. I served two years in prison, which is a hell of a lot less than I should have thanks to a good lawyer that my adoptive father paid for before he cut me off. I don’t regret what I did. But I don’t want to go back to prison either.
One day, I’ll stop doing this shit.
That day is not today. I pull out my burner phone and send a text to Felix, who takes care of shit while I’m away. He doesn’t text back. Which is a good sign. It’s when he texts me that I have to worry.
For ten seconds, I let myself think of Bianca. I close my eyes and imagine her: brown skin, long black hair, curves that made me wild. I think of her broken nose. The scar down her throat. Her bruised eyes.
And then I open my eyes and don’t think of her again. Not anymore today. Ten seconds is all I get.
I stand to my feet and walk inside Riley’s building, wondering how I’m going to convince her to invite Ava over for a drink. Because I really, really need one even if I shouldn’t have one. The Xanax I took this morning is starting to wear off.
They say you shouldn’t get high on your own supply. I don’t. I have a fucking prescription.
“You told her I’m new here?” Riley snaps at me as I drive away from her school. She’s supposed to head to work now but I told her Ava wanted to hang out with her and that I already told her boss she wouldn’t be in. Which I did. And Ava does.
I already texted her and asked. At first, she said no, not until I told her how I got her number. But I told her I’d only tell her that information in person. She agreed to come. To hang out with Riley.
The fake new girl.
I shrug, merging onto the highway.
“What the fuck, Benji? I’m not new!” She crosses her arms and slams her back against the seat.
I bite back my laugh. Her and Caden are actually a lot alike. She’s just better looking. By a little.
“But you don’t have friends,” I point out. Kindly.
She sighs but doesn’t deny it because we both know it’s true. Before, she didn’t have time for friends. She was too busy supporting herself and her mother. Now, though, she doesn’t need to be doing all of that shit. She needs to live.
“Where are we going?” Her tone is still angry but at least she hasn’t fought me about Ava. It’s not that I mind hanging out with Riley. I don’t. I like her a lot. She’s like a sister...never mind. Scratch that. I fucked her not all that long ago.
She’s like a best friend.
But I really would like her to have other friends. Caden is possessive and she doesn’t seem to mind but she needs people in her corner. Especially if she’s going to be here nearly an entire year longer.
And I kind of want to get laid. And she’s off limits unless I want Caden to try to kill me in my sleep. Which I don’t.
I need someone to take my mind off of Bianca. I keep to my ten second rule during the day. But at night, when I do manage to sleep, she’s there. In my nightmares. Even Xanax can’t help me es
cape that.
“We’re going to the liquor store. Here,” I say, lowering my voice conspiratorially, “they call it, wait for it...” she glares at me, “the ABC store!” I smack my hands on the wheel mimicking the drumbeat after a joke.
She doesn’t laugh. She slumps down further in the seat and glances out the tinted window.
“I’ve lived here for three years,” she mumbles. “I know.”
I don’t point out that I knew she knew. I just let her stew in silence. She misses Caden already and she’s tired of her security detail—me—already and this is her way of showing it.
I can deal with it. My adoptive mom had mood swings that gave me whiplash, until I got out of prison and her and my fake dad cut me off. Whatever.
We’re quiet a moment and then I see out of the corner of my eye that she turns to look at me.
“Do you know where he is?” she asks quietly. I know who she’s talking about.
She’s not scared. Honestly, she should be. But she’s not. She’s just worried for Caden, who is anxious about his father and it’s making him tense which is understandable.
“No,” I answer truthfully. I want to say something reassuring after that, but I’ve got nothing to say. We don’t know where he is. Maria Virani hasn’t spoken to him or I would personally know—her phones are tapped, all of them—and he hasn’t been spotted anywhere in Ontario. He even stopped showing up for work.
Riley just dips her chin in acknowledgement of my answer. She doesn’t have anything to add. What is there to say? Rolland sexually assaulted her after he drugged her when she came running to him to escape another assault. Caden thought she fucked his brother over and was somehow responsible for his suicide which was actually a murder. Then Caden made it no secret he hated her and wanted to get even. I was, unfortunately, a part of that, too.
Riley’s been through enough. She doesn’t need to concern herself with Rolland’s whereabouts.
I lean over and nudge her in the side as we get to a stoplight off the exit.
“Tonight will be fun,” I tell her with a small smile. “I promise.”
She huffs. “Doubtful.”
“Okay, Antisocial Little Girl,” she bristles when I say that which is why I keep saying it, “Ava seems cool.”
She nods. “She does,” she agrees as we pull into the parking lot of the liquor store. “It’s you that doesn’t.”
She laughs at her own bad joke and I put the car in park, shaking my head.
I don’t care if her jokes are lame. I’m just glad she’s smiling.
By the time we get back to Riley’s condo, we still have a few hours before Ava is supposed to show. I called her, refusing to text her the address. She sounded annoyed, but not annoyed enough to cancel on me.
On Riley, as it is.
Riley, for her part, is already on her second drink. She comes alive when she’s drunk, and I know she’s drinking from nerves. She isn’t social. She’s got rum and Diet, her usual. I haven’t touched anything that’s in the freezer yet. If I drink too much, well…it’s not a good first impression.
I heard Riley speaking to Caden on the phone earlier, telling him about Ava coming over. I heard, too, her amused reassurances that another threesome wouldn’t happen with me, here in this apartment. And then Caden text me to reiterate his point. Clarifying neither this apartment nor any of the two he owns. Or anywhere, with Riley. How that dude is going to get any work done during the week he’s away if he’s so busy micromanaging Riley, I have no idea.
We’re sitting beside each other on the cream-colored couch in the living room. Riley has her feet tucked up under her, still in the black tank top and jeans she wore this morning. I changed out of my sweatpants because it seemed like the polite thing to do, even though I’m pretty sure I caught Ava staring at my ass in them when I held the door open for her in the English building.
I’m pretty, sure, too, that she’s the type of girl that would know I paid over a fucking grand for them. Riley doesn’t appreciate that shit. She thinks it’s a waste. Ava, though…I think she’d get it.
“Look,” Riley says, gesturing toward me with her half-full glass, “if you wanna sleep with Ava, please do so at your own condo.”
Which is across the hall from hers. Her mom’s is beside her.
I laugh, rubbing a hand over my face. I see Riley’s eyes on my tattoos, but she hasn’t asked about them, which I like. People love asking about the meaning of ink, but the reality is sometimes it doesn’t have a meaning. Sometimes it’s just a feeling. I mean, what the fuck do skulls and roses and rosaries and a woman praying on her knees mean anyway?
I like to leave that shit up to people’s imaginations.
They don’t need to know Bianca was Catholic. That she fucked me up, and that it’s because of her I went to prison. They don’t need to know any of that shit. No one really wants to know my demons, least of all me.
“You mean you don’t wanna join in?” I ask Riley, watching as she blushes, takes a sip from her drink. She doesn’t meet my eyes.
My arm is hooked around the back of the couch, body angled toward her, but she’s at the opposite end. There’s plenty of space between us. Besides, even though he annoys the fuck out of me, I love Caden. And her. I wouldn’t fuck that up.
“That was a one-time thing,” Riley says, finally meeting my eyes.
I smirk at her. “Right,” I drawl, “that’s what they all say.”
Riley rolls her eyes and takes another gulp of her drink, the ice sliding and hitting her teeth. She winces then sets the drink down on the side table.
“You know anything about Ava?” I ask her. Ava had been in the English building and Riley is an English major.
But Riley frowns. “No,” she muses. “But then again, I don’t know much about anyone there.” She glares at me. “Antisocial, remember?”
I bite my lip, nodding. “That’s right,” I murmur. I glance at the clock above the flat screen mounted on the wall across from us. We’ve got an hour or so before Ava arrives or ditches us, which means it’s time.
I stand to my feet. “Be right back.” I feel Riley’s eyes on me as I leave the living room, walking on the plush carpet down the hallway to the guest bathroom. I close and lock the door, pull out the prescription bottle from my back pocket, shake one of the pills lose into my hand, turn on the sink and scoop up some water as I toss the Xanax in my mouth, swallowing.
I’m not addicted. Not yet. But sometimes, when I catch my own reflection in the mirror like now, I kind of wish I was.
Because even though my expression is neutral, all I can see when I meet my own gaze is how I must have looked then, nearly three years ago when I fucked that dude up. How I must have looked when I got in my Range Rover, when I put it in Reverse and…
There’s a knock on the bathroom door.
I screw the cap back on the pills and shove them in my pocket.
Why the hell is Riley knocking? She has her own bathroom. In fact, there’s two other bathrooms in this fucking place.
I unlock the door and pull it open.
She has her arms crossed and she’s leaning against the doorframe, eyes narrowed. Her cheeks are flushed, and I know she’s drank a lot in a short amount of time, and I wonder if that’s why she’s looking so confrontational right now.
“What?” I ask, shrugging.
“How many do you take a day?”
My mouth drops open. What? How the fuck does she know? I feel like the prescription bottle is burning a hole in my pocket right now.
“That’s not really your business, Little Girl, now is it?” I make to walk past her, but she blocks my way.
I laugh, shaking my head. “You really wanna do this?” I ask her. She’s inches from me, looking up at me with defiance. I step closer, until our bodies are nearly touching.
Nearly.
I hear her breath catch and watch her throat bob as she swallows.
“Benji.” Her voice doesn’t shake even though I kn
ow she’s nervous. But she doesn’t even take a step back. “How many do you take a day?” she asks me again.
I lean down, press my brow to hers, and she stills, holding her breath. “Little Girl,” I say softly, “I’m looking out for you. Not the other way around.” I close my fingers around her upper arms. “Don’t worry about me, babe. I got this.”
She breathes in. Out. She chews on her bottom lip and I think she’s going to argue with me, but then we both hear a knock at the door, and it makes her jump. I let her go and she steps back.
“Looks like your booty call is here,” she mutters under her breath and then turns around and walks down the hall, heading for the door.
I don’t go after her for a moment, I just watch her until she disappears through the living room. Then I hear her greeting Ava and asking what she wants to drink. She doesn’t waste time, that one.
I wonder if this was a stupid idea. I’m careful with my pills, because I have to be. My doctor isn’t an idiot. I could buy them elsewhere, of course, but it makes me feel grimy. Grimier than I already am. But I’ve never taken them in front of Riley.
I barely even drink in front of Riley.
She knows I smoke weed, but damn…she’s been paying attention.
I run a hand through my hair, smooth down my shirt, and go to find Ava Culwen, daughter of the mayor of Briar. Another thing she thinks I don’t know about.
Four
These condos are expensive. I know because my dad offered to pay rent for six months if I wanted one but warned me I’d have to put in my part after that because of how ridiculously priced they are.
But they’re nice.
I sweep my eyes over the foyer with marble floors, the plush cream carpet beyond, everything neat and tidy. And it smells new in here. This is Riley’s place, Benji had said. How the hell does she afford this?
