Chapter2
Daisy Stone was a dead woman.
Option A: She was already dead in a ditch somewhere, in which case I'd feel terrible.
Option B: She was off galivanting with some new boyfriend which was supremely unlikely, in which case I was going to find her, tell her how excited I was that she'd found love, and then kill her.
Yep. Either way, Daisy was dead. I don't know what had gotten into my roommate.
She'd been MIA and not answering her phone for days now, and all of a sudden, I get a message from her to stay away from the fucking apartment?
What had my sweet, innocent best friend gotten herself into?
This had better not have anything to do with back home. Her parents, for the most part, left her alone and forgot she existed. Mainly because they knew she was broke, and they couldn't squeeze anything out of her. But if they somehow rolled into town and thought they could somehow extort her for money, they had another think coming.
My blonde hair and the fact that I'm only five-foot-five might fool people, but I can hold my own in a fight and have a talent for making anything around me into a weapon. There was no way in hell I was going to leave Daisy on her own to deal with this shit.
So, I’d left my shift at the daycare as soon as I could and was now running down the streets of the bad side of Miami as I tried to make it to the apartment I shared with Daisy.
The heat of the day was already oppressive, and I was going to pretend I didn't feel the beads of sweat that were trickling down my back. I turned the curb to my street and immediately my eyes laser focused on the dark hair and blue eyes of my roommate.
She saw me at the same time but instead of waving in greeting, all her attention went towards someone else.
There was a man leaning against our apartment building. The moment my eyes found his, the rest of the pedestrians on the street seemed small and insignificant. Like ants. He towered over everyone else with a presence that was so strong it was like a punch to the gut. His dark eyes narrowed in on me. His full lips behind a thick but well-trimmed beard tightened. Before I could wonder what that was about, his attention was then drawn from me to Daisy, so all I could see was his back.
A strong back, with muscles that bunched and pushed against the thin fabric of his t-shirt. Who the hell was this and what did he want with Daisy? This wasn't some lowlife from the trailer park. He emanated power, money and danger. Not like the drug pushers and users we grew up around.
I was still moving toward them, albeit at a slower pace, as though being drawn by a magnet.
And that's when the black van pulled up next to my best friend. I had to watch powerlessly as the men got out and picked her up like she was nothing and dragged her away.
By the time I was able to force myself to move, to do something, it was far too late.
Because by then, the stranger in front of our building had his arms around me. There was no escaping him.