“Get up, girl. You’re safe now.”
I stood and turned to find the most glamorous woman I had ever seen dabbing blood from her face, neck, and chest.
“Um. This isn’t my car. Take it if you want.”
She laughed. “It’s yours now if you want it. He can’t use it.”
She looked down at her feet, and I followed her gaze to find the man still gurgling on the ground, a knife sticking out of the back of his neck.
“What if he comes after me?”
“He won’t. He’s paralyzed. That’s why his head is the only thing twitching. He can’t move, and he’ll die right here unless you call for help.”
I stared at the man, knowing the right thing to do, but I ignored that look. He was no different from the man I’d run away from.
“Fuck that. I’m not calling anybody,” I said, trying to sound tough.
Sadie smiled and held her hand out. “I’m Sadie.”
“I’m Maureen, but my friends call me Mo.”
She cocked a brow at me. “You have friends?”
“I did. Back home. Now, it’s just me.”
She nodded and pointed at the Ferrari. “You know how to drive that thing?”
I nodded, remembering those lessons that started at fourteen. He would let me sit in his lap, stroking my tits while he explained the different gears, caressing my pussy through my clothes when he let me press the pedals. Yeah, I knew how to drive one, but I never would.
“But I want an automatic.”
I don’t know what she saw in my expression, but Sadie nodded as if she understood. “I’ll take care of it. You ever waited tables before?”
“Yeah. Sure. But why me? How’d you find me in this alley?”
She pulled a wipe out of a purse that I later learned cost more money than I’d ever seen in one place ever in my life.
“I make it my business to what goes on in this town and who comes and goes in it. I’ve had my eye on you, Mo. Let’s just say you remind me of myself when I was your age. I know what it’s like to make it in this town with nobody having your back.”
She turned to me, green eyes fierce. “So, let’s just say, this is payback for me. But I have one rule. Don’t lie to me. Not ever. Tell the truth, and you and I will be good friends.”
I never lied to her after that, and she gave me a job, first as a waitress at the underground card games and then Midnight Mass when it opened. Later, she offered me a chance to make real money, fucking for cash. I took her up on the offer, and she didn’t take a percentage of my earnings like she did with the other girls, not once. She asked only one thing in payment.
“You see or hear something you think I should know about, you come to me. Nobody else, you hear?”
How could I refuse a deal like that? I’d been her eyes and ears ever since.
Then, I was making more money than I’d ever seen at one time, and I was hooked. On the power and the money, and of course, all the shit that money could buy.
Knowing the truth of the matter, where I stood in this world, where I belonged and where I didn’t, I sipped my beer and resolved to play my part in the Ashby organization. I was good old reliable, big-tittied, always down for a fuck, Mo.
Thankfully, thoughts of Sadie and Jasper blended with thoughts of the past until it was all one beer-fueled blur that let me fall asleep while formerly famous people were being yelled at by professional chefs.
It was better than the fucked-up memories.
Chapter Five
Jasper
“Any updates on Sadie?” Terry and Thomas sat with me around a private table in the back of Midnight Mass, a round of Velvet Fire in front of each of us to toast good news or commiserate over bad news.
Thomas nodded. “I just came from the hospital. They took her off the meds this morning. Her vitals are good, and she has no signs of clotting. She’s healing better than they expected. But,” his shoulders hunched forward, and Thomas dropped his hands into his lap, “she still hasn’t come to. They expect her to wake up any fucking minute, so all we can do is wait.”
The anguish in Thomas’ voice was like a gut punch, but even that didn’t stop the smile on my face. “Just like Sadie to do things in her own sweet time.”
Terry laughed. “Remember that time we got in trouble for fighting, and she showed up an hour after school let out and just stared at the principal for a full hour in total fucking silence?”
I chuckled at the memory and nodded, sitting up a little taller to mimic Sadie.
“Since you wasted my time, bringing me in because my boys beat the shit out of bullies you have yet to deal with, I think it’s only fair to return the favor.”