Chapter 11 – Ferrin
FERRIN
Everything is fucked. Or perhaps the start of something terrifyingly brilliant. Or fucking terrifying.
It started with this…
A: I know you have my daughter. Bring her back to me, and I’ll let you walk away with your life.
Interestingly enough, she didn’t mention the necklace, which means Genevieve hid it well.
It also means that our leaving triggered another alarm that her mother saw on video.
It’s a problem if I want to get my necklace back.
It’s also a problem for Genevieve, though I’m not sure I’ll mention that her mother contacted me because then I’d need to explain why.
Me: I do have your daughter. I want the tiara back. I know it was you who broke into my house and stole it.
Technically, it wasn’t my house. It’s not even Sven or Lars’s. They’re renting it under a shadow name, but she doesn’t have to know that.
A: Bring her to me, and we’ll swap.
And just like that, red flags.
Me: Or proof of life for proof of life. You show me my tiara, and I’ll show you the girl. If you play ball, I won’t hurt or deflower your pretty virgin, and I’ll bring her back to you in one piece. If you don’t, I can’t guarantee either.
She doesn’t respond, and I don’t know what to make of it, but now, as I said, everything is fucked. I can’t take her back to that house because now it’s too risky. I have no clue where this woman is. For all I know, she could have tracked us to this town. It’s not as though it’d be difficult.
Then there were the other texts that came in. Almost immediately after, which is suspect to say the least.
Lars: You can run...
Because everyone knows what comes after “you can run,” But you can’t hide.
Fabulous. Because why should this get easier instead of harder and more complex?
Does that mean they know where I am? If they’re here, I have to imagine they’d come after me.
Same with the woman. We headed south from the forest, but if we had gone north, there’s another town not that far off.
It’s reasonable for her to think we could have gone there.
As for Lars and Sven, they don’t know where I ended up or about the girl.
Unless they’re somehow linked to the woman.
She broke into the house in France and into my safe while we were out of town.
They didn’t have the code to the safe—or so I would have sworn—but somehow she knew it.
Have they been working together all this time?
I don’t think they knew the tiara was a fake from the start.
They never would have let me run off with the necklace if they did.
Which means she doesn’t know them or never told them what was in the safe.
They know about the necklace. If they all know each other, does that mean she does too but didn’t mention it? And how the fuck is this all happening at once? The girl, the woman, Sven, Lars, the necklace, and the tiara. I mean, what the absolute fuck, and what are the odds?
Too many questions, and all of those questions are fucking with my retirement.
It’s the girl. I should have overpowered her from the start and forced her to give me the necklace. Why didn’t I do that? I honestly don’t know. Something held me back. From the moment I woke up and saw her, something about her has thrown me off-kilter.
It needs to stop. Right the fuck now.
I got these texts, and when I looked at her from across the store, she was smiling over a purple dress like it was the best thing she’d ever seen, and I found myself smiling too. I don’t smile. Not in any real way. Not unless it’s an act and I need something from it.
Now it’s starting to rain, and I want to get her back to the hotel.
I mean, I do, and I don’t. Because she nearly kissed me before all this other shit, and I’m positive I would have kissed her back.
I need to distance myself from her instead of wondering if she tastes like the French 75 she’d been drinking all night or the whiskey she bravely dumped down her throat.
Her eyes said kiss me, and for once, my brain knew better.
Smart that was considering the predicament we’re now in.
We leave the store, both with bags dangling from our wrists, and I draw her into my side, holding her close as we brave the rain and run across the street. I’m everywhere, tracking every dark corner, every nook, every passerby.
I want my necklace. I want the tiara too.
And the girl?
Well…
Whatever I have to do, I have to do, right? Isn’t that how it always goes? Considering she’s using me as much as I’m using her, I don’t feel like shit about that either. I don’t.
We enter the inn and go upstairs, my heart beating faster with every step.
Once we’re in our room, I lock the door and press myself against it, watching her as she flitters about, hanging up her dress in the tiny closet and holding her swimming costume up to her body, shifting left and right to try to get a full image of herself in the half mirror.
“Try it on,” I suggest, though I don’t know why. Her getting into that thing won’t help anything. It certainly won’t help my dick that’s all too aware that it’s just her, me, and that bed in this room.
She takes it to the bathroom and shuts the door behind her.
Thank god. I don’t think about what she’s doing behind that door.
That she’s getting naked and trying on a tiny bikini.
Instead I focus on what I have to. The fact that there could be people in this inn out to get us. The woman or Lars and Sven.
We need to leave early tomorrow. We need to get a car and get out of here. The sea. I wonder if her mother knows that’s one of her dreams. I have to imagine she knows about the festival. That’s where she found her, isn’t it?
And is this woman her mother? Or did she steal her from her actual mother? Kidnap a child and lock her away in a tower, never to be seen again. Or, could she be—
The door flies open, and there she is in a fucking bikini. My jaw locks, and my eyes grow hard. So does my dick, but that can’t be helped with all of that perfect skin.
She spins around as if I asked for a goddamn show. “What do you think? How do I look?”
“Like a fucking cock tease,” I mumble under my breath, though I suppose this is what I asked for.
“What?”
“I’ve seen worse, I guess.”
She frowns, and I feel like shit for lying to her, but whatever.
“I think I look great.”
“Good for you.”
“You don’t have to be so mean.”
Yes, I do.
“Honesty isn’t mean, princess. It’s reality that isn’t sugarcoated. You asked, I answered. Simple as that.”
She flips me off, and it makes me laugh. A real laugh. Fuck, she’s irritatingly adorable and wholly unpredictable.
In a huff she storms into the bathroom, and I sit on the edge of the bed with my phone in my hand. It’s a rechargeable burner phone I’ve had for years, and I have every shadow app that hides your identity and whereabouts on it. I don’t like this. I don’t like any of this.
If it weren’t for the necklace, I’d ditch the girl and be out of here. But I need that fucking necklace. Only now we can’t go back, and I have no clue how I’ll get it without having to handle the old woman one way or another.
Maybe I should just go. Cut my losses, find a new piece to steal, and move on with my life. Forget the necklace, forget the tiara that was probably bad luck to start with, and definitely forget the girl.
The idea grows within me the longer I stare at the woman’s texts.
Just as I’m about to put my phone away, pack up my shit, and walk out of here, a text comes in from her.
A: I don’t have the tiara.
Me: Bullshit. I know it was you who stole it from my safe.
A: That was my sister. The woman you took it from originally. If you track her down and kill her this time, I’ll let you keep the tiara. But the girl comes back to me untouched and unscathed.
My eyes round and I rub a hand across my mouth. Holy fuck. I glance at the bathroom door. Does Genevieve have any clue what’s happening in her life?
My phone vibrating in my hand pulls me back to it.
A: Do we have a deal?
Me: Yes. But if you try to double-cross me, I will kill your daughter and make you watch before I kill you, too.
I release a breath and pull up my text stream with Lars and Sven.
Me: I know who has the tiara. It’s yours if you take it and get rid of the woman who stole it.
Lars: Why should we believe you or do that?
Me: Because I just said it’d be yours. I’m out of this.
Sven: Or we kill you and take the necklace.
Me: You could try, but you don’t know where I am, and I don’t have the necklace. It was taken. I’m trying to make amends, but the truth is, I want no part of any of this. I’m done.
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’d rather deal with Sven and Lars than go searching for that woman again. Let them chase her while I sort this side of it.
Sven: Send us what you have on the woman, and we’ll look into it.
With that piece sorted, I stand and pace over to the window. The street below, illuminated by yellow lamps, is wet with rain, and the sky is dark. I’m not going anywhere tonight. I shouldn’t be here with her.
What do I care what the girl does with her life?
I sigh and scrub my hands up and down my face. This is growing more complicated by the minute, and it all centers around—
The bathroom door opens, and she comes out, her hair wet and her face clear and shiny. She’s wearing the same thing she wore last night. A tank top with no bra and tiny sleep shorts. I grit my teeth, grab my bag, and go into the bathroom.
I turn the shower to cold, strip down, and get in, jumping around and gasping in pain as ice water shoots down on me.
I wash up quickly, thankful my dick is no longer hard, and get out.
But with that cold shower and all the shit that’s happened today, I’m more determined to get away from all of this than ever.
Nothing good will come of my sticking around.
I’ll either get killed or have to kill, and I’m not in the mood for either.
This girl has managed to fuck up my entire world in a little more than a day.
If I believed in karma or penance, this would be mine.
I don’t, though. So all this means is that I have to devise a new plan.
I brush my hair, throw on a pair of clean briefs, and say fuck it. She dresses like that, then she can deal with me sleeping how I’m comfortable.
When I step out of the bathroom, she’s sitting up in bed above the covers with a book in her hand. Her chin slowly lifts, her eyes raking me in, and when they reach mine, they’re dark with lust, and her face is flushed.
Fuck.
“Never seen a shirtless man before?” I quip, making sure she feels my tease.
“No. I haven’t,” she bites back, but she’s still staring all the same.
“Take your fill then, princess. Look all you want.”
I expect her to look away, to be embarrassed as she tends to get, and return to her book. But not this girl. The book hits the bed, and she sits there, working her lip between her teeth.
“You have a lot of tattoos. And muscles. I didn’t know it was real…” She laughs. “I have no clue what I expected. Most of the men I read about look like that but have weird-colored skin and stuff. Are you, um, are you going to sleep like that?”
“Yup,” I pop the p sound.
She swallows and nods, but to my surprise, she climbs out of bed and walks toward me. “Does it hurt?”
My brows furrow. “Does what hurt?”
Her hand comes up, and her finger lingers over my sternum without touching me. I glance down, and she swirls a circle around the cut she gave me with the knife last night.
Chills erupt across my body, and gooseflesh rises on my skin, and she’s not even touching me. But I want her to. The notion of her soft hands on me has my cock once again pulsing with blood. The cold shower rendered all but useless.
I look back up at her, but her eyes are on her finger and not mine. No. It doesn’t hurt. In fact, I all but forgot about it. Yet for some reason I can’t comprehend, I say, “Yes.”
“Can I… that is, would it be okay…”
My stupid mouth, driven purely by my dick, answers, “Yes,” before I can think better of it.
Her finger presses to the skin beside the cut, and it’s nothing. Barely anything. Yet, I feel that one small point of contact everywhere.
“I don’t think it’s infected. I know I shouldn’t. I know you’re not good. But I want to anyway.”
Before I know what the fuck is happening, or even what she’s talking about, she dips and kisses the cut. Her lips are soft, and her breath is hot, and I shudder like a guy who’s never been touched or fucked anyone before.
“What are you doing?” I manage.
“I don’t know,” she admits, gazing up at me through her lashes. “I suppose I’m still drunk or whatever, but I was curious about what that would feel like. Today I’ve done a million things even when I was afraid. Anyway, I’m not sorry for it.”
If she were to look down instead of up, she’d see exactly what she’s doing to me. She’s playing games she knows nothing about, and I no longer feel like being the good guy.
“You’re about to be.”