Chapter 3
three
. . .
Armin
I keep my head down and trail Mia and Harvey and his henchman at a distance, my heart in my throat.
For once in our goddamned lives, I want to come across her someplace safe, boring.
But no, Mia’s never doing boring. She’s either stuck in a car that’s flooding with storm waters, or tased and chained to a wall by a low-level hitman. Sometimes getting assaulted by a mafia boss, tracked at an art gala by a luxury assassin.
I’ve offered her an out, a hundred times over. She always says no. And this is the life she won’t quit: sex work for a crime boss.
God knows what else she does for him. I can’t think about it too much, or it drives me insane.
One of the thugs fobs open the marina gate, and I exhale in relief. My rental’s paying off already. I pause in my tracks, lean up against the railing, and follow them with my eyes.
But my heart shatters when I see that she’s following Harvey unrestrained—willing, obedient. He’s got his hand on her elbow and for fuck’s sake, she’s grinning up at him. I strain to catch a glimpse of the look in her eyes.
I need to know it’s not the same look she’s got on her face when I touch her.
They duck behind the biggest yacht in Bluefin Marina, the shiny new Delta lurking in the last slip on the far end, and she’s gone.
I have to make a decision.
I hold my breath and open the door, slow.
Nothing. Main cabin’s empty. Bed’s made, somebody folded the towel into a swan shape.
I don’t know who Harvey’s trying to impress, but he’s got this yacht squeaking clean.
I hold in the middle of the cabin and listen, but I don’t hear Mia’s voice.
Harvey’s so untouchable these days, he didn’t even leave a guard on the pier to keep me out.
I creep down the hall to the next cabin, turn the doorknob, and push my way inside.
Right into Mia’s bare shoulder.
She gasps, sharp, and grabs her shoulder, and she registers that it’s me. There’s no gratitude there. She’s not afraid. And she’s not all drugged up like last time, either.
She’s sober. Those eyes say they want to cut me down the middle with a dull knife.
She points at the door and mouths a few words I wouldn’t want to know.
My heart’s in my throat, and all it wants is her, and that’s the damndest part of all this.
I close the door, slow and quiet.
“What the hell are you doing here?” She whispers.
“Protecting you.” I flash my badge.
“Says who?”
“Per the DA back in Halo City.”
“Bullshit,” she whispers, and she can see all over my face that she’s right. She sighs, a long and drawn out exhale, disgusted but resigned, like I’m a bad dog that chewed up her favorite high-heeled shoes.
But I’m her dog.
I take a step towards her, and she hits me square in the chest, backs me right up.
Sometimes she’s happy to see me, and sometimes she isn’t.
“You coming with me or not?” I snap, and I hate myself for it, but I think she likes me better that way.
I watch her do some kind of internal calculations, and I wonder what they are, if I figure into them at all.
“Let’s go,” she whispers. “While they’re busy with their damn circle jerk.”
I smile, too big, and take her hand. She gives me a dirty look, but I assign it the meaning I want.
And for the first time since the last time we were together, I’m at peace. Even as we sneak our escape from her boss or pimp or boyfriend or whatever the hell he is to her.
If we make it off this boat alive, I’m going to demand the truth.