Page 62
Oh, fuck.
What the fuck happened last night?
The last thing I remembered was Court standing in front of the TV, and then…
What had I done? I never let myself get drunk past a certain point, but the fact that I could barely remember anything was mortifying.
A few fuzzy memories from last night began to seep through some thin barrier in my mind, and a profound horror overtook me.
I slapped my hand over my face and hissed, “Fuck!”
You’re not nothing.
My own skin didn’t feel like it fit right anymore, like there was too much space beneath it—and bugs were crawling freely in that space.
I shucked off all my clothes and turned on the shower, needing to wash whatever the fuck that was right off. Before stepping inside, I caught a glimpse of my reflection and gasped.
He’d marked the fuck out of my neck and shoulder. I tilted my head, pushing my hair aside so I could trace the bruises that were forming. Little sporadic indentations were embedded in my irritated skin. It felt hotter than the rest of me.
“Damn it, you bastard.” I cursed Court as I stepped into the shower. I scrubbed and scrubbed with his deliciously scented body wash, realizing that I was going to smell like him all day, which would only make this feeling worse.
Maybe I should just leave. Nothing had been right since I met Court and his very un-merry band of thieves. He’d upended my entire world and showed no signs of stopping.
But what about the twenty grand?
How was I supposed to pass that up?
I’d just have to practice better self-control around that pretty asshole. Stop making things up in my head. Stop seeing things that weren’t there. Stop looking at things more deeply than I ever had with anyone. I was on a job, and I had to start acting like it.
But…should I ask him what happened last night? The not knowing was so much worse than anything else.
I shut off the water and grabbed a towel, drying myself off. I’d forgotten to bring any clothes in here, so I wrapped it around myself and peeked out of the bathroom.
Court was gone.
But the oppressive feeling that I’d been dropped upside down into a foreign reality deepened and spread.
EIGHTEEN
I didn’t crawl into Court’s bed again after that morning. I couldn’t afford the same thing happening twice.
I didn’t know how many days it’d been since that night, but my mind had been working overtime and just wouldn’t stop. At least I wasn’t in a weird funk anymore. But I hated attributing that to Court.
I studied the information he’d given me, learning everything I could about Thorne, his business dealings, the people he handled transport for. He was in big with a slew of gangs, corrupt politicians and law enforcement. There were long lists of names and organizations I’d never heard of, shell companies as hollow as Thorne’s Army Surplus stores.
How had I never noticed before? That was why he kept me on inventory. So I wouldn’t see the complete lack of customers that never even came into the shop to purchase goods. Those products out on the floor were all just for show—the real inventory was what he had stashed in the back room.
And he stashed it all—drugs, guns, money. Whatever anyone needed him to store for a short time, he’d take it. In the packet Court had given me were lists upon lists of names, dates, dollar amounts. It went on and on, and what he earned from it all was dizzying.
I’d been working for a soulless man.
I hadn’t looked at the final pages of the packet yet. Part of me felt sick when I thought about the women he’d hurt. That their pain was listed here for me to read about. That I had almost been a name on one of these lists. I told myself I’d read about it later, that they deserved to be known, that maybe…
Fuck, I didn’t know. I’d gone from an empty life to one filled to the brim with the darkest parts of the world. But…still, I was here. I was alive and safe.
But even despite how forthcoming Court had been, I felt like there was more he wasn’t telling me.
His words about why they wanted Thorne’s money played over and over in my head. It was a much nobler reason than I’d expected.
