Chapter 20
Mary
The bus stop bench is burning through his shirt like a griddle.
I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes, watching buses pull up and leave without me. Watching people get on with their normal lives… purses, phones, shoes. Basic human accessories I apparently no longer qualify for.
My feet are already blistering. The asphalt in Vegas doesn’t mess around, and I’m learning that lesson one raw blister at a time.
A woman in scrubs glances at me, then looks away fast. Like maybe crazy is contagious.
I don’t blame her.
I’m wearing a man’s white button-down shirt that goes to my knees, gray sweat shorts that are barely hanging on by a drawstring, and nothing else. No bra. No shoes. No dignity.
I look exactly like what I am: a woman who ran for her life and didn’t think to grab the essentials first.
Smart, Mary. Real smart.
A bus pulls up. Route 15. I know it goes toward The Strip, toward civilization. The doors hiss open, and the driver looks at me expectantly.
“You getting on?”
I open my mouth. Close it.
“I… I don’t have money.”
His expression shifts from impatient to suspicious. “Then why are you at a bus stop?”
Good question. Why am I at a bus stop? Why am I anywhere?
What’s the plan here, Mary?
“Sorry,” I mumble, standing up too fast. My head spins. “Sorry, I’m… sorry.”
The doors hiss shut, and the bus pulls away, taking my last shred of hope with it.
Think. Think.
Essie.
Essie works at the Bellagio in the housekeeping department. If I can get there, find her, maybe she can help. Maybe she has a phone I can borrow, maybe she can—
Do what? Call who? The police?
After what just happened, I’m not sure I trust anyone.
But Essie’s good people. Tough. She’s survived Vegas for twenty years, raising a kid alone. If anyone knows how to handle a crisis, it’s her.
I start walking.
The sun feels as if it has a vendetta against my specific skin. By the time I’ve gone two blocks, the shirt is sticking to me like a second layer, and my feet are screaming protests I can’t afford to listen to.
But I keep walking.
Because what else is there to do?
A diner catches my attention—mostly because it has air conditioning and I can see a TV through the window. Local news is playing, and something about the reporter’s serious expression makes my stomach clench.
I press my face to the glass like a kid outside a candy store.
The chyron reads: “FOUR DEAD IN LAUNDROMAT SHOOTING.”
My blood turns to ice.
There’s Dave’s photo. The reporter’s voice is muffled through the glass, but I can make out enough words to piece together the story.
”…David Thornton, 42, regional manager at Brightside National Bank, was among four victims found dead this morning at a central Las Vegas laundromat. Police are calling it a robbery gone wrong, though sources say the other three victims may have ties to organized crime…”
Four victims.
Dave and the three men who came to kill us.
No mention of survivors.
No mention of me.
It’s like I was never there.
The reporter continues: “Thornton leaves behind a wife and two children. Police say there are no witnesses to the shooting…”
My knees give out.
I slide down the diner window until I’m sitting on the sidewalk, staring at nothing.
No witnesses.
Because officially, I don’t exist.
I’m a ghost in my own life.
“Hey, you okay?”
I look up. A waitress from the diner is standing over me, holding a glass of water. Middle-aged, kind eyes, the sort of person who probably has three jobs and still finds time to worry about strangers.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“You don’t look fine, honey. You want me to call someone?”
Call someone. Yeah. Who would that be exactly?
“The police,” I hear myself say. “Can you call the police?”
She studies my face, taking in the bruises, the too-big clothes, the general disaster of my existence.
“Course I can. You stay right here.”
Twenty minutes later, a patrol car pulls up.
The officer who gets out looks professional. Clean uniform, kind face, the sort of cop you’d want your daughter to call if she was in trouble.
“Ma’am? I’m Officer Rodriguez. I understand you need some help?”
I nod, suddenly unable to speak.
He helps me into the back of the patrol car; not the cage part, the regular seat. Turns the air conditioning up high and hands me a bottle of water.
“Take your time,” he says. “Just tell me what happened.”
So I do.
I tell him about Dave, about the men with guns, about barely escaping. I don’t mention Green Eyes—partly because I don’t know how to explain him, mostly because something deep in my gut says to keep that part to myself.
Officer Rodriguez listens without interrupting, taking notes. When I finish, he nods gravely.
“Ma’am, this sounds like you witnessed the incident at the laundromat this morning. We’re going to need to get you somewhere safe while we sort this out.”
Relief floods through me. “Yes. Please.”
“I’m going to drive you to a secure location where detectives can take your full statement. You’ll be protected while we investigate.”
He starts the car, and for the first time since I woke up in his penthouse, I feel like maybe everything will be okay.
We drive for about ten minutes before I start to get suspicious.
We’re not heading toward downtown, where the main police station is. We’re driving away from the city, toward the desert.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Safe house,” Rodriguez says without looking back. “Protocol for witness protection.”
Something cold settles in my stomach. “Can I see some ID? Your badge?”
“Already showed you my badge, ma’am.”
“Can I see it again?”
This time, he does look back, and the expression on his face makes my blood freeze.
Gone is the kind, professional demeanor. In its place is something cold. Calculating.
Familiar.
Like the men in the laundromat.
“I’m afraid that’s not necessary,” he says.
I look at the door handle. Child locks. Of course.
“You’re not a cop.”
He laughs. “Oh, I’m a cop. Just not your cop.”
The car slows, then turns onto a dirt road that leads absolutely nowhere.
My voice is unsteady. “What do you want?”
“Same thing everyone wants, sweetheart. To tie up loose ends.”
He parks the car in the middle of nowhere. Desert in every direction, heat shimmering off the sand like a mirage.
This is where I die.
This is actually where I die.
“Please,” I whisper, hating how small my voice sounds. “I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything.”
“Course you don’t.” He gets out, walks around to my door. “Nothing personal. Just business, sweetheart.”
The door opens, and he reaches for me.
I scramble backward, but there’s nowhere to go.
He pulls a gun from his holster.
“Make this easy on both of us.”
“Please… no… please.”
Tears spill hot and fast down my cheeks, blurring everything: his face, the barrel pointed at me, the world. My body’s shaking so hard it feels like it’s not mine anymore.
But Rodriguez doesn’t care.
His lips twitch at the corners, a slow, greasy smile curving up like this is his favorite part. Like he enjoys watching women beg.
I close my eyes.
Think of Grandma. Of her yellow kitchen and the way she hums when she makes cookies. Of Jasper and his terrible dating stories. Of the life I’m never going to have.
The gunshot is impossibly loud.
But I’m not dead.
I open my eyes.
Officer Rodriguez is on the ground, a hole just above his cheekbone, blood leaking into the dirt in slow, thick streams.
And standing ten feet away, gun still smoking, is him.
Green Eyes.
He’s wearing all black, like he materialized from the shadows. His expression is cold, clinical, like he just swatted a fly instead of killing a man.
“You done running now?” he asks.
I stare at him. At the dead cop. At the impossible fact that I’m still breathing.
“How did you—?”
The words collapse in my throat. My chest heaves.
Tears stream down without permission, blurring my vision again.
My whole body’s shaking—hard. Violent. Like the terror’s still stuck in my muscles, trying to claw its way out.
I can’t catch a full breath. I don’t even know if I’m awake.
This feels like a dream. A nightmare. A glitch in reality where men get shot in the face, and I’m left behind to witness it.
I look at the body again—Rodriguez. His head is twisted unnaturally, one eye still open, his badge catching the moonlight like some sick joke.
He killed a cop.
He fucking killed a cop.
And I’m still here.
“I’ve been following you since you left the building.” He walks over, checks Rodriguez’s pulse out of habit, then looks at me. “You really thought you could disappear in this city without me knowing where you were?”
“I didn’t— I mean—”
“You went to the police.” It’s not a question. “Let me guess. Helpful officer offered to take you somewhere safe?”
I nod, still in shock.
“And you believed him.”
“I thought—”
“You thought wrong.” He holsters his gun, then crouches down so we’re eye level. “This is what happens when you run, printsessa. This is what happens when you try to trust anyone else.”
The desert is silent except for the wind and my ragged breathing.
“How many?” I whisper.
“How many what?”
“How many people want me dead?”
He considers this. “All of them.”
The honesty takes the breath from me.
“All of them?”
“Everyone connected to this operation. Everyone who thinks you know something. Everyone who sees you as a threat or a liability or just a loose end that needs tying up.” He stands, brushes dirt off his knees.
“The only reason you’re alive right now is because I decided you were worth keeping that way. ”
I look at Rodriguez’s body. At the blood soaking into the sand.
“He wasn’t really a cop.”
“Oh, he was a cop. Just a cop on someone else’s payroll.” Green Eyes walks back to wherever he left his car; I can’t see it, but I hear an engine running somewhere behind the ridge. “Corruption goes deeper than you think in this city.”
“What about—? What about real police? FBI? Someone?”
“Someone like who? Someone like Rodriguez?” He shakes his head. “Mary, the people who want you dead have been operating in this city for decades. You think they don’t have contacts in law enforcement?”
The weight of it crashes over me.
There’s no cavalry coming.
There’s no safe place to run.
There’s no one I can trust.
Except…
“Why?” I ask. “Why do you keep saving me?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, studying my face like he’s trying to solve a puzzle.
“Because you’re useful,” he says finally.
Not because he cares. Not because he feels responsible. Because I’m useful.
The honesty shouldn’t hurt, but it does.
“Useful how?”
“That’s a conversation for when we’re not standing next to a dead body in the desert.”
A black SUV crests the ridge, driving toward us. For a second, panic flares—more enemies?—but Green Eyes doesn’t react, so I force myself to stay calm.
The SUV stops, and a man gets out. Tall, lean, all sharp angles and cold eyes. He looks at Rodriguez’s body with the same expression most people reserve for roadkill.
“Clean?” he asks Green Eyes.
“Clean,” Green Eyes confirms.
The man nods, then looks at me. “She good?”
“Good enough.”
“She doesn’t look like much.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
They’re talking about me like I’m not here. Like I’m cargo.
Maybe that’s all I am.
“Come on,” Green Eyes says, walking toward the SUV. “Time to go home.”
Home.
To his penthouse. To his protection. To his control.
I don’t move.
“Mary.”
I look at Rodriguez’s body. At the endless desert. At the reality of my situation.
I have no money. No phone. No allies.
Everyone I’ve trusted today has tried to kill me.
Everyone except him.
“If I come with you,” I say, “what happens?”
“You live.”
“And if I don’t?”
He glances at Rodriguez. “You don’t.”
The math is simple. Brutal, but simple.
I walk toward the SUV.
Green Eyes opens the door for me—a gentleman’s gesture that would be sweet if it weren’t attached to a man who just committed murder to save my life.
“For what it’s worth,” he says as I slide into the leather seat, “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”
I look at him. At those vivid green eyes that have become the only constant in my shattered world.
“No, you’re not.”
A ghost of a smile crosses his face.
“No,” he agrees. “I’m not.”
The door closes, and we drive away from the desert, from Rodriguez’s body, from any illusion I had left about having choices in this new life.
I’m not going back to Green Eyes because I trust him.
I’m going back because he’s the only predator who’s decided not to eat me.
I close my eyes and lean back against the leather seat, feeling the air conditioning wash over my face.
I don’t know what’s real anymore.
I don’t know what’s a lie, what’s protection, what’s manipulation. I don’t know if the man sitting next to me is my savior or my captor or both.
All I know is that I’ve almost died twice today.
And Green Eyes?
He’s the reason I’m still breathing.