She gives me a perplexed look. “I never stopped.”
I’d suspected as much, but it still makes a heavy, disappointed weight settle in my gut. “Killer’s right, you know. It might not be safe for you here, so if you need to leave—”
“I couldn’t give two fucks about ‘safe’，” she sneers, pitching forward. “Wasn’t a day in my life I ever was. I might be old and tired, but I’m not stupid. The second I walk out that door, I’ve got a bounty on my head. A dozen or more paranoid old men just waiting in the rafters for the chance to take my head off with one clean shot. You think I’m here because it scares me, boy?” She fixes me with a long, challenging stare. “I’m not scared to die. I made peace with my maker before you were even a stain on your mama’s tattered bed sheets. Death is coming for me just as sure as it is you. All that matters now is what I’m dying for.”
“Well, you sure as fuck didn’t come here to die for us,” I argue.
There’s a suspended moment of silence as her gaze wanders to the distance, a pensive frown creasing her face. “I came here because I was sick of training South Side pussy for scum like Daniel Payne. Me and my girls worked hard building an empire we never had a chance of running. Knock one of them down, another pops up in his place.” She flicks her hand in a sharp, frustrated gesture. “I can’t keep stabbing men to death.”
I snort. “Not with that attitude.” It’s the first time it occurs to me that maybe she didn’t just kill her husband because he was a major league piece of shit. Maybe she thought she’d inherit it all, do it her own way.
And then Daniel had to swoop in and save her from prison.
That doesn’t come cheap.
She continues, “Now we have some psycho running around killing women who work for Daniel. I’d rather fuck myself with a chainsaw than work for the likes of him again, but you listen to me, boy.” She shakes a finger at me. “If something happens to Auggy, or any of my other girls, I’m going to be using those shoes I’m sleeping in to run my crusty old ass back to them, and none of you three are going to stop me. You hear?”
Ah, so this isn’t just about me setting my sights on safer pussy.
She wants someone with Auggy. Someone who’ll watch out for her, protect her, shelter her. It’s such a fucking joke, because I’ve been stoned and drunk out of my mind for the past six weeks. Something heavy and alarming churns in my stomach at the realization that anything could have happened and I wouldn’t have been in the position to stop it. Killer and Tristian were there to pick up my slack, but I wasn’t protecting a goddamn thing. I was a weak link. A perforation.
Suddenly, I don’t feel worthy of whatever approval was hidden within Ms. Crane’s offer. I push my hair from my eyes, promising, “We’ll try to keep a closer eye on the Hideaway. But whoever this guy is, I don’t think he’s interested in them. I think he just wants to piss us off.” Looking up at her, I add, “So my showing an interest in Auggy will just make it worse for her.”
She doesn’t exactly seem relieved, but some of the tension fades from the lines in her face. “You don’t care about that. You’d just rather be gunning for the pussy upstairs.” Sniffing, she leans back into her seat. “Can’t say I’m surprised. We don’t got it in us to go for the simple stuff. She might be a lot of things, but easy isn’t one of them.”
“She fucking drives me crazy,” I burst, thinking of those empty bottles of liquor. “She can’t sleep, but she refuses to sleep with someone else, even though she’s walking around here all day like a goddamn zombie. So now we have to…what, exactly? Fuck if I know. Prove ourselves or wait for her to come to her senses. It’s fucking stupid. The whole point of having a Lady is that you don’t have to play these games, but here I am, dancing like a goddamn monkey.” I shove my fingers through my hair, too agitated to care about the bemused look Ms. Crane is giving me. “And you know what else? I’m the one who should be pissed at her. You heard what she did to me. Am I making her jump through hoops about it? Fuck no.”
“I tried to tell you,” she says, tapping her pack of cigarettes. “There’s only so much a woman will take before she strikes back.”
I don’t need to notice the dark gleam in her eye to know she’s talking about herself as much as she is about Story. “So what do I do?” I ask, realizing that Ms. Crane has, like, perspective here. “How do I wear her down?”