Chapter 7
7
Leah
Gage does something on his phone. Not speaking. Ordering a car, maybe?
I cover myself with the sheet and sit up to watch him.
He’s leaving—I know without him saying anything. Of course he’s going down there to be with Claudia and Jess…whatever happened.
Please let Claudia be okay. Jess, too.
I don’t blame him for going to them, but my heart is wrapped up around my throat, squeezing me with fear.
“I have to go.” He gets up, moving fast, dressing in the near darkness.
“Anything I can do?” Dmitri asks.
“Stay here with Leah while I’m gone.” Gage shrugs on a shirt and buttons it.
“Gage, wait. We can go with you.” I drop the sheet so I can get out of bed. “It isn’t safe?—”
“I’ve already texted Ironwood. One of their guards will meet me in the garage and drive me to LA. I won’t be alone. It’s safer here for you, though.” He grimaces. “Away from me, it’s safer.”
I want to argue with him, but Dmitri nods in agreement. They’re right, but I hate this, I hate it.
“Stay with your bodyguard.” I can’t keep the waver of fear out of my voice. “Please.”
His gaze softens behind his glasses. He swoops down to give me a kiss—fierce, protective, full of love. “I will. Stay with Dmitri or your own bodyguard. Don’t go anywhere without one of them.”
It’s Gage who’s in danger, not me. But I can do this one thing to help, this one thing to keep him from worrying. “I promise.”
“Thank you.” He kisses me once more, exchanges a look of wordless understanding with Dmitri, and then his phone is to his ear and he’s gone.
I’m left with questions. Is Claudia okay? Jess? Someone is going after the AoG actors, and now Gage is throwing himself into the heart of it.
“He shouldn’t go down there,” I whisper.
“He’s taking a bodyguard.” Dmitri wraps his arms around me, gently pulling me back so I recline against him. “At least he isn’t going alone.”
“I know, but someone’s coming after everyone who worked with him. He’s in a lot of danger. We should go, too.”
“Then he’ll worry about you, on top of Claudia and Jess.”
I don’t want to cause Gage more worry—I want to be there for him. “This is terrible,” I say. “All the worry, all the uncertainty.”
Dmitri gently traces the red marks each of them made on my breasts. “Some things are certain.”
His tone sounds dangerously close to another forever statement. I switch it around. “I guess it’s certain that if you suck hard enough, you’ll leave a mark.”
“Leah. I’m being serious. What’s certain is that Gage and I love you.”
His sincerity stabs through my defenses. I capture his restless fingers and bring them to my mouth to kiss them. “I love you, too.”
“How much?”
I roll over and lie on top of him, my breasts pressing against his chest. “So much.”
“Enough to marry me?” His gray eyes meet mine, challenging me to look away. “Enough to marry Gage?”
Heartbeat thundering in a new form of panic, I roll all the way off of him. “Not you, too, with this marriage thing.”
“Would it be so bad?” He strokes my shoulder.
“Yes.”
After that, neither of us speaks. We both pretend to sleep, but I know I don’t sleep. And I don’t think he does, either.
* * *
Dmitri
My post at Low Vice’s back door isn’t nearly busy enough to keep me from obsessing about Leah and last night’s conversation about marriage. I’ve come to a couple of conclusions as I stare over the parking lot.
One: Leah is incredibly talented at anything she sets her mind to.
Two: Unfortunately, she has set her mind to ignoring the idea of marriage.
It’s not like there’s any huge rush. No one is telling her we need to run to the courthouse today and put rings on her finger.
And yeah, maybe my pride hurts a little—or a fucking lot—because I thought she wouldn’t freak out at the idea if it was coming from me.
Nope. Things are off with her now. Fucking her in the shower this morning took our minds off it. But her forced smile as we said goodbye this afternoon told me everything I need to know.
My girl’s upset.
And all I can do is stand by Low Vice, checking IDs and letting in members.
My phone buzzes with a call. A quick glance at the screen tells me it’s Gage, so I answer. “How are your friends? Did you find them?”
“I’m Claudia’s emergency contact, and the hospital called. They’re banged up, but they’ll be okay.”
“That’s a relief. Did they catch the guy?”
“No. The car sped away. It was found abandoned underneath an overpass this afternoon. No prints. LAPD is keeping it out of the news for now. I’m not sure if that’s the right call.”
“They could find eyewitnesses if they publicized it, you mean.”
“Exactly.”
We’re quiet for a moment. I break the silence. “Have you talked to Leah?”
“I just got off the phone with her. She’s worried—not about herself, ironically.”
“Nothing ironic about that. You’re the one whose former coworkers are being targeted.”
He sighs. “I suppose you’re right. Well, I wanted to see how you’re doing, too.”
I stare out over the dark parking lot. “I’m fine. I’m not worried about getting hit by a crazy driver, at least.”
“I’m talking about the big piece of news I dropped on you the other day. We didn’t have a chance to discuss it.”
“Oh, you mean the impulsive proposal?”
“How do you know it was impulsive?”
“Because if you’d thought about it for two fucking seconds, you might have included me.” Anger flares in my chest, but I try to tamp it down.
He’s quiet. “You’re right. I should’ve talked to you. She’s in a relationship with us both. It’s been obvious to me from the beginning that you feel the same.”
“Yeah.” I say it in the same tone a snotty preteen would say, Duh . “She’s skittish now, because we—and by we I mean you —didn’t think it through.”
“I would apologize, except I meant every word of that proposal.”
I wait.
He sighs. “But the timing was suboptimal.”
“There we go.” I laugh. “Christ, you’re such an asshole.”
“Yeah. But I’m an asshole in love with Leah, so I can’t be all bad, right?”
“Just try not to fuck things up anymore, okay?”
“That, Dmitri, is my number one goal.”
* * *
Leah
Today, my bodyguard is a woman named Lauren. Her blond hair is pulled tight in a braided crown around her head. Like Cora, she looks like she could bring a knife to a gunfight and win. Heck, she could probably win with a nail file.
Gage stayed in LA last night. He put me on the phone with Claudia, who spent the night in the hospital for observation—they were worried about internal injuries. Jess was hit harder. She was left with a broken arm, and needed surgery for internal bleeding. “We’re shaken up, Leah, but we’re okay,” Claudia said. “Thanks for sparing Gage for us.”
“Of course. I wish I could be there, too.”
“We’ll have a proper visit once I’m out of rehab, okay?”
I agreed, spoke briefly to Gage, and waited up for Dmitri. He and I fucked again in Gage’s bed, which felt so wrong and so right at the same time.
And thankfully, Dmitri didn’t bring up any difficult topics afterward.
Now, Lauren is accompanying me to Dmitri’s place. Because I never throw away books, I have some of my old SAT prep books in Dmitri’s garage. They’re outdated, but one of them came with a really great appendix of test-taking skill-builders and hacks that will resonate with not only my student Hector, but several of the students in Olivia’s program.
I let myself into Dmitri’s house, then go to the garage. Last time I was in here without Dmitri, Patrick showed up.
I wonder how I didn’t realize something was off with him, then. He was still someone I considered a friend.
Maybe my instincts are broken.
I square my shoulders and turn on the garage light. Patrick won’t be here this time. And Lauren’s with me.
“Can I help go through boxes or anything?” she asks.
“If you don’t mind,” I say with a laugh. “Do you see any labeled high school ?”
We have to heave a few to the side. Thankfully, Dmitri’s Mustang isn’t in here, or we wouldn’t have any room to work with.
I feel bad for Lauren doing all this manual labor. “I know, I know, I have too many books.”
“No such thing.” Lauren pulls a stack of boxes to one side. “I found it.”
“Amazing! Thank you.” I yank open the top and pull out books, searching for the one I want.
As I flip through, a sage-green notebook catches my eye.
My high-school diary. One of them, anyway. I was terrible about keeping up with a diary, filling maybe a third of a journal before abandoning it and starting over, months later, with a new one. I wonder what this one chronicled. I flip open the cover to reveal my name, with that little heart I used to add to the end of the H. I used to be such a romantic nerd.
I expect the first page to be something about my crush on Dmitri.
Instead of girlish fantasies about my future as Mrs. Dmitri Montrose, I find pure vitriol about my stepdad.
Fuck stupid fucking Peter in the fucking face. And Mom too. I’m never getting married. Every time I ask Mom why she lets Peter talk to us like this, she goes on about how she loves him, he’s her man, she married him for better or worse. She says I’ll understand when I’m married to the man of my dreams.
That’s never going to happen. I’d rather die than marry some asshole like Peter who thinks he can tell me what to do.
Love is bullshit.
I slam the journal shut. The words continue to swim before my eyes. I can hear my stepdad’s voice like he’s standing right in front of me, spit flying from his mouth. “Fucking whore. If you get raped, you’re asking for it.”
And my mom standing nearby, eyes lowered, letting him say those things.
Because she loved him. Because she chose him, she married him, and a good marriage is for better or worse.
Emphasis on the worse , I guess.
“Leah?” Lauren squats down next to me.
I hadn’t realized I sat down on one of the book boxes.
“Are you okay?” She puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah.”
It’s a lie. I just figured out why I’m not okay, and why I never will be.