I scrunched my nose. “They have a lot of snakes and spiders there.”
“They do. But I think you have bigger problems here,” he said, grimacing as a taxi driver screamed at a man on a bike to get out of the way.
The light turned green and Sebastian continued to follow me all the way to the bus station. I stopped at the kiosk to get my ticket, but my fingers faltered on the screen when Sebastian coolly said, “Two.”
“No,” I breathed. “Thank you for offering though.”
“If that’s how you want it, Elena. I was planning to give Ace a call anyway.” He reached for his pocket, but before he could get his phone out I turned and grabbed his hand. A smirk pulled on his lips. “See what I mean? I’ve hardly begun charming you and you’re already dying to touch me.”
I swallowed. “Don’t call him.”
Darkness flashed through his eyes. “Why not, Elena?”
“Just . . . you can’t.”
“Are you running?”
“No,” I insisted. “I swear it. But there’s something I need to do.”
“With thousands of dollars in your pocket?” he asked with a sardonic tone.
I only nodded.
“And a thoroughly pissed don on your trail?”
Another nod.
He gave his head a shake, tightening his jaw. “What the hell,” he muttered. “This city was beginning to bore me anyway.” His hand dropped from his pocket and his dark gaze met mine. “Two. Tickets. Elena.”
With no other choice in the matter, two tickets it was.
“I have killed no men, that, in the first place didn’t deserve killing.”
—Mickey Cohen
THE FAN WHIRLED AS SWEAT dripped down my back under the heat of the sun. I wiped my neck and tossed the rag on the worktable. Tension coiled beneath my skin, and I gave in and grabbed a pack of smokes from a drawer and lit one. I inhaled until my lungs burned and nicotine spread through my veins in one relaxing rush.
In all honesty, I didn’t feel like working on my car right now. I felt like fucking my wife, or even staring at her. Whatever I could get. But I came out here for a reason. Inside, she was everywhere. The sound of her voice. Her soap in my shower and her clothes in my room. Her hair ties and little wedding notes on every surface. The soft scrape of her nails on the back of my neck whenever she sat on my lap.
Fuck, I was in so deep I didn’t know the way up.
I needed a few hours to think, or maybe just to stew in spite over never getting that fifty-cent ring off her finger. I wanted her. Her genuine smiles. Her loyalty. Every fucking piece of her. I’d been testing the waters earlier, but as tense as she got I realized she was nowhere near where I was. Not by a long shot.
I gave my head a small shake.
The worst had happened. I loved the fucking woman. And now my biggest weakness walked outside my body, with soft brown eyes and long black hair. There were a lot of men who would love to hit me in my weak spot; the reason I had never wanted the vulnerability. But what I didn’t expect was this calmness to come with it, this surety that I would fucking die before I let them.
My cell phone rang on the table, and I picked it up without looking to see who it was. “Yeah?”
“Hello, this is Judy from AMC Gold. Am I speaking to Nicolas Russo?”
“You are.”
“I just need you to verify your birth date before I can proceed.”
Jesus, the lady fucking called me. I rubbed a thumb across a brow and rattled off the information.
“Great, thank you. There’s been some suspicious activity reported on your account, and I’m calling to make sure you’ve authorized it.”
I leaned against the table and blew out a breath of smoke. “What kind of suspicious activity?” Hell, everything I did was suspicious.
“A transfer from your savings account today, on August sixteenth, at eleven-forty-two a.m.”
I stilled. “The amount?”
“Two million dollars even, sir.”
I ran my tongue across my teeth, a sardonic breath escaping me. “This transaction already went through?”
She hesitated. “Yes, sir. There was a note on your account not to flag transactions, but we appreciate your business here at AMC Gold and wanted to inform you in case it in fact wasn’t authorized. You have sixty days to dispute the charge—”
“It was authorized.” It goddamn wasn’t. But I didn’t deal with thieves through the normal channels.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said, before awkwardly clearing her throat. She apparently knew who I was. “That’s great to hear. I’ll go ahead and note it on the account. Have a great day, sir.”