CHAPTER FIVE MOLLY
CHAPTER FIVE
MOLLY
I did not recognize the sheets I was lying on, and I’m picky.
I liked my warm sheets. These were cool and smooth but not silk.
They were cotton, but like the most expensive form of pure cotton there was.
Another odd thing about me. I knew my bedsheets.
I’d worked in a bedding store one time, and I could outsell everyone except Marjorie Jones.
Damn that Marjorie Jones. She also had a side business selling Tupperware that was killer.
I didn’t like Tupperware, so I was cool with that, but the bedding crown was still a sore spot.
I sat up and looked down.
Total déjà vu moment, because I had on silk pajamas, and the room was the nicest room I’d ever been in. Where was I?
I went to the bathroom and gulped at how nice it was.
Or I tried, because I was fully focusing on where I was and not how I was feeling, because if I started thinking about how I was feeling, I’d not be getting out of that bed for another whole week.
My whole body was stiff and in pain, and I felt like a walking black bruise.
Throbbing, but nope. I was focusing on the positive.
Functional thoughts. Those were the only ones that mattered in circumstances like this.
The way I grew up, sometimes when you woke, you had no idea where you were, and you didn’t have the time to wallow in your misery.
That old survival skill was kicking in right now, but kinda in the opposite way because I wanted to wallow. This place was off the rails.
The sink looked like a water rock fountain you’d see in nature.
It was glorious. And the shower, oh my goodness, the shower.
A clear glass partition separated the bathroom from it, and there were five shower heads.
Some lined the entire wall from floor to ceiling.
I was looking at the one set right where my butt would be. That would be ... yeah.
Then, taking a breath, I did look in the mirror.
I winced at myself. My face looked swollen, red, patchy eyes, and I grimaced as more pain rushed through me, half knocking me over.
I grabbed onto the sink, steadying myself.
Deep breath in. One. That was all I was giving myself. Just one breath, and I pushed back, on to the next.
I knew I should be freaking out that someone must’ve changed my clothes, but I wasn’t. A part of me was just in awe. Go to sleep in the hospital and wake up at the Ritz-Carlton. That’s how I was feeling, and my eye caught a button on the wall that was blinking.
I pressed it. I had to.
A female voice came over a speaker system. “Good morning, MissEaster. Would you like breakfast and a beverage brought to your room?” She sounded soothing, like Alexa.
I leaned over. “Yes. I’d like a coffee—”
“Press again for a list of the full menu.”
I frowned, straightening back up. She kept going, giving me all the options, but there was only one button to press.
“I’d like a coffee.”
She kept talking. I could do a burrito, pancakes, a croissant, or an omelet. There were other options, but I didn’t want any of them. I pressed the button again, but she kept speaking.
I should really—my staff! The robber. The rest of last night (was it last night?) was coming back to me, and now a little panic was setting in.
I finished up in the bathroom, then looked around for my clothes. They were folded and set in a pile on a couch in the corner of the room. I lifted one and took a good whiff. I loved the smell of fresh laundry, but who had done all of this?
After changing clothes, I left my pajamas on the bed, half considering trying to take them with me because they were the softest material I’d ever had on my body. I left the room and saw I was in a back hallway, and as I moved down, lights lit up ahead of me on both sides.
Soft music played ahead, so I followed, coming across a giant dining room with floor-to-ceiling glass walls. At least I knew where I was now: in a high-rise in Manhattan, and we were seriously high up. The Hudson River below was right next to us.
There was a giant waterfall island. All the cupboards looked sleek, like something that I would’ve imagined being on a spaceship.
There was a room on the other side of the kitchen and a second sitting area, so I went over, coming to an opened doorway, and through what looked like a library was another door.
I followed, finally seeing whose place I was in. I was floored.
Absolutely.
Truly.
Gutted.
Sitting behind a large mahogany desk was Ashton Walden.
The fuzzies started.
That’s what I felt when I was around him.
My body always did a whole swoop, feeling like I stepped into my own vortex, because he had the ability to make me want to lose myself, to flip my switch, and make me want to throw him down on the nearest bed.
Plus, he always looked at me like he half wanted to fuck me or half wanted to strangle me.
It’d been like that since as long as I’d known him, and it had only intensified over the last six months once he’d come back into my life.
He was the new head of the Walden Mafia family. The head. Not a head. The head honcho over it all. I was rambling in my head because I was freaking out that I was in Ashton’s home. Power, control, danger. Those three words clung to him, walked with him wherever he went, and I’d seen him walk.
I’d seen him do a lot over the years. I was aware of him growing up, every time I saw him with Trace or their other rich friends. How everyone knew not to mess with them, and if they did, it was never Trace who handled their enemies.
It was Ashton. Always.
He got a reputation because of it. No one messed with Ashton.
I think the only person who wasn’t aware of how truly deadly he could be was his actual best friend, Trace West. Though, none of that mattered now since both were the heads of their families, and I was breaking out in a cold sweat because how the hell had I gotten myself here?
Sensing me, he lifted heated eyes my way, but they switched to the cold and dead eyes I always associated with him.
Dead. Cruel. Ruthless.
I suppressed a shiver and tried not to take in his cold beauty, but dammit. I couldn’t stop.
“What am I doing here?” My voice was hoarse, coming out raspy.
Ashton didn’t respond, instead taking his time as he studied me. Another cold flicker of emotion passed in his gaze before he stamped that out and stood, coming around his desk toward me. A predator stalking his prey.
I always had that feeling when he was around me, but this time it was the worst it’d ever been. I was in his home. Not the giant house his family ran their business out of, but his personal home.
Ashton and me. He didn’t think I remembered him, but I did.
I remembered the day we’d met when we were kids, though I didn’t remember a whole lot about that day.
It was fuzzy, another reason I got the fuzzies around him.
There was a whole theme going on. I had some gaps in my memory about that, but him, I remembered.
Even back then, he was cute and striking and I’d liked him, immediately.
Liked him—that wasn’t the right word for what I felt that day, but I’d been a kid.
He was angry and cold now, and I guess not much had changed.
He’d come into Easter Lanes one night, looking for Jess, and I’d never forget that night. How he looked like he wanted to murder her, and how I had been reaching for my bat under the counter before Jess went with him. She reassured me everything was okay, but I knew it wasn’t.
It never was with Ashton Walden.
He’d come in flanked with his security guards, and then the other time at the nightclub when he’d yelled at me before having me whisked away. I wasn’t altogether sure what went down that night, but I’d felt zapped from him. He had pierced me inside, and that feeling never went away.
I felt it again, all over again.
“What am I doing here?” I asked again, cursing internally as my voice dipped. A slight tremor slipped out.
Hearing it, Ashton stopped. His eyes flared slightly. “You and I have some things to discuss.”
I was shaking my head as he went past me, heading through the library and to the kitchen. A shiver trailed down my spine at the same time. “No, I don’t. I want to go home.”
I followed him, hugging myself in the opened doorway.
He acted as if he hadn’t heard me, pressing a button. A deluxe coffee machine appeared, and he pressed another button. It began rumbling, and soon the smell of brewing coffee filled the space.
God.
My stomach did its own rumble because I really loved coffee. It was a weakness for me. I never got that order in from my room.
“We have things to discuss.” He lifted his head, those dead eyes lingering on my clothes. “Business and your father.”
My toes curled in. “My father?”
There was another flash of emotion in his gaze, and was I imagining it? I thought I saw a softening come over his face, but then it was gone. He took out a cup and motioned to the island. “Sit, Molly.”
He angled his body so he was half leaning against his counter, half turned toward me.
God. His face was always so unreadable.
Nearly black eyes. Dark hair. A face that could’ve been an angel, though I knew he was anything but.
Dangerous. Powerful. Sleek. A toned body, but it was so much more.
He was both beautiful and so dark, so deadly, that I couldn’t contain a shiver.
At every phase of his life, he’d always been good looking.
He was pretty when he was young. When he was a teenager, he’d been hot .
But now, my mouth was almost watering, and I hated that, but I couldn’t deny it.
Now he was a masterpiece to look at, and my stomach dipped because I knew how ruthless he could be at the same time.
He was a dichotomy. That’s what he was.
I seated myself at the island, taking one of the barstools that lined the far side. “Did you hurt her that night?”
I wasn’t looking, but I felt him grow still. Very still.
“Hurt who?” he asked quietly.
I looked up. “That night. You came in and took Jess. You looked like you were going to hurt her.”
He didn’t answer, but his jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed.
The coffee beeped that it was done. He set the mug down in front of me, surveying me in silence for another second. “I thought your friend was a mole.”
I took the coffee, pulling it closer to me before looking down at it. “Then you were being stupid.”
I still felt his gaze on the top of my head as he murmured, “It’s nice to see you have a spine. I wasn’t sure.”
I shoved back from the counter. “Fuck you.”
Gone were the functional thoughts from earlier, the nice thoughts of whose place I was in, and all the anger, the bitterness, the resentment swirled up now. Because of him. Because of what he thought about Jess. Or my dad. Probably more my dad, but Jess was the tipping point.
“You thinking Jess was anything but loyal just shows the asinine way of thinking your family operates. Your family,” I spat.
“They could’ve put my father out of his misery long ago, but you didn’t.
Your grandfather didn’t. You just kept adding to his debt until he’ll do anything for you now.
That’s how I got here. My dad’s my contact person.
I meant to change that, but I keep forgetting.
I’m betting they called him, and he called you. Am I right?”
Ashton’s eyes narrowed even more. “I’d be very careful about how you insult family members of mine that were not long ago put into the ground.” Ashton was still leaning against the counter, but his head inclined forward. “And you’re wrong about your father. I called him.”
I flushed; my whole body felt it. “Why?”
“Because, Molly Everly Easter, you just became a part of the war that my family is involved in.”
I frowned. “How? It was a random robber. I’m assuming you got the CliffsNotes from someone. That guy had nothing to do with your war.”
“Detective Worthing does. I was told that he tried to question you about the robbery.”
“Because it was a robbery and he’s a cop.”
“He’s in the organized crime unit. He’s not a beat cop. He knows our family connections. That’s why he was there. So him showing up brings you into my business.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “What?”
Ashton tilted his head to the side. “I was told Detective Worthing tried to question you at Easter Lanes?”
My body suddenly grew tired. “The ambulance got there first and took me to the hospital.”
“They weren’t at the hospital when I arrived.”
Right. To the hospital, because that made sense how I got here now.
“I guess? I remember talking to Nea and Sloane before I fell asleep. I woke up here, and—” I swallowed my register’s key! I gasped, grabbing for my stomach and looking down. Oh, god. That was in there. “I have a foreign object inside of me.”
“It’ll pass out of you within a day to two days.”
I jerked my head back up. “What does that mean? I’ll—”
His lips thinned again. “You’re going to shit it out. That’s what that means.”
Oooh. That was comforting, but also uncomfortable at the same time. I eyed him warily again. “You got the 411 on me?”
“Your father appointed me in his stead. It’s why they released you to me.”
I shot him a look as those fuzzies in my stomach started to warm up. He and I both knew I got released to his care because of his last name. “What am I doing here? I’d like to go home. I’d like my phone. I’d like to call my staff and make sure everyone and everything is okay.”
He reached behind him and opened a drawer. He lifted my phone out of it and leaned over, putting it on the island and shoving it to me. It glided over to me smoothly. “Your staff is fine, and I have a man at Easter Lanes, running it until you and I have concluded what we need to conclude.”
I started to unlock my phone but I stopped. “You have a man? Easter Lanes is not a part of your family’s business. You have no right to send a man over there, or to pick me up, or to have anything to do with me.”
“Except that’s where you’re wrong. Besides talking about Detective Worthing, that’s the other business you and I have to discuss.”
“What is?”
“Easter Lanes. The bowling alley your father ‘sold’ you.”
“What about it?”
“It wasn’t his to sell.”