Luxe #2
“Bring me a lemonade, and I want to get the burger with everything on it. Make sure that it’s cooked medium rare.”
I didn’t like no charcoal-ass burger.
“Okay. Will that be all?”
“For now.” I handed her the menu, and she left the table.
My phone chimed. I picked it up and saw that it was a text from Solei.
Lil Sol: Have you heard anything from Grim? I’ve been trying to reach him all morning. His location is off.
Grim was pretty much like me. He liked to disappear from the world from time to time.
I didn’t blame him. If I’d seen as much shit as he’d seen in his life, I would want to disappear as well.
Grim stayed in the shadows. The family used him to clean up their messes.
He never really had much of an opinion about anything.
His favorite pastime was doing art on the side of buildings.
We all used to call it graffiti, but Grim was so sensitive about his work.
He’d get pissed off at us and go off on everyone for calling it that.
In his eyes, it was art—the work that he loved sharing with the world.
He was damn good at it. I would give him that.
Honestly, if he wanted to create real art and sell it, I bet he’d make a ton of money.
I’d even suggested it to him before, but he didn’t want to do it.
He was content with being the family flunky.
He got to blow off steam when need be and got paid hefty for all the jobs that he did.
To him, selling artwork was a liability.
Me: No. But I can try to reach out and see if he’ll answer me. You probably pissed him off. Lol.
Lil Sol:
I snickered. Glass clacked against the table, bringing me back to reality. “Your food will be out shortly. While you wait, is there anything else I can get you?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Okay.”
She left the table. I grabbed my lemonade and lifted the cup to my lips. The glass shattered in my hand. Before I knew it, I was pushed to the ground. People screamed. My ears ringed.
“What the fuck!” was all I could manage to get out.
More glass shattered. I looked up and saw Ghost with his gun in his hand. He stared over the railing.
“Are you okay?” he observed me and asked.
“Ye-yeah, I think so.”
“We gotta get you out of here.”
He removed his phone from his pocket and texted something before scooping me up into his arms and grabbing my purse. That was when I noticed the blood on the ground. With all the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I hadn’t noticed that I’d been hit.
“I been shot! I think I been shot!”
Panic set in. I patted myself in search of the gunshot wound. Ghost stopped inside the building and planted me on my feet. His fingertips glided my frame in search of the injury.
“That glass cut you deep on your thigh. I need to take you to the hospital.”
He picked me up bridal style and headed for the elevator.
People were running around the restaurant, trying to figure out what was going on.
I noticed the glass shot out the window where I’d been sitting at.
Whoever was after me wanted me dead bad as hell.
They were willing to jeopardize innocent people to make it happen.
Ghost watched the numbers on the elevator.
He already had his gun aimed at the doors before they even opened.
We were met with pure chaos downstairs. People were lying on the floor; others were running around the hotel lobby.
The guy that was behind the desk when we came in was no longer there.
He probably ran for cover himself, which I didn’t blame him for.
I was carried out the door where Ghost didn’t even want to wait for our truck.
I knew he didn’t want to take any chances when he jumped into the first vehicle he saw parked at the door.
He placed me in the passenger seat and got into the driver’s.
I saw the valet run out behind the sedan soon as Ghost sped away from the curb.
He didn’t stop until we made it to the nearest hospital.
Hopping out the car at the emergency entrance, he ran around and grabbed me from the passenger seat.
I wrapped my arm around his neck and rested my head against his chest as he carried me into the building.
Though Ghost was only supposed to be solely there for my protection, I felt like he genuinely cared about me.
No one other than my family had ever gone this hard for me.
“I have a woman that needs medical attention,” he said soon as he stepped through the door.
The security ran from around the desk to where we were. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She got hurt in a shoot-out. She’s bleeding.”
He could’ve easily just told him that I needed stitches, but I think he said it that way to get me the help he knew I needed. Had he not, I would’ve been sitting in the waiting room, waiting to be seen.
The security ran over to the desk where the women sat. “She was in a shoot-out.”
Everyone’s eyes in the lobby fell on us. I knew once they heard shoot-out, they were being nosy, trying their best to figure out where I’d been hit and what happened.
One of the women jumped up from behind the desk and said, “Follow me.”
Ghost carried me over to the door that she used her badge to open, and just like that, we were in the back.