Behind me I can hear James laughing and cursing. “Fuck, that shit burns.”
Peter laughs even louder. “You better ice that.”
“Shit. I didn’t see that coming. That was close.”
“Yeah, she almost took your head off. Looks like Lucifer has got himself a little hellcat.”
I spend the morning locked in my bedroom. I consider changing my clothes and putting makeup on, but fuck it. I don’t care what people think, and I sure as hell won’t go out of my way to make myself look good for him.
I keep expecting Lucifer to come knocking on my door at any minute, or one of the guys to try to pay me back, but thankfully the house remains quiet. They seem to be leaving me to my own devices.
I dig into Marshall’s side of the closet, searching for anything that he may have kept hidden. If he borrowed five million dollars from a guy like Lucifer, he must have been into some pretty shady shit.
I spend at least a couple of hours dumping out all of his things. Boxes from high school. Drawers full of odds and ends. I search through his clothes, checking all his pockets. I even lift his side of the mattress.
In the end, I come up empty-handed. If there’s anything in this room he has it well hidden.
The house is so quiet that by the time my stomach starts to rumble for lunch I have enough courage to open the door and peek out my head.
The hallway beyond my room is empty.
I tiptoe down the stairs. I can hear quiet voices coming from the kitchen.
“I can understand why he decided to keep her, she’s fucking hot. What I can’t understand is why he’s keeping the children,” Peter says.
“He can’t rightly kill her children and expect her to deal with it.”
“I guess so, but shit, this whole thing is messed up.”
“Yeah.”
“If he wanted to keep a woman, he could have kept that blonde of Hammond’s. She didn’t have any kids.”
“I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he’s the boss. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Still… it feels like an awfully big risk just for some pussy. I’d feel better if we just stuck to protocol and killed them.”
“It’s not up to us, so quit fuckin’ talkin’.”
“Do you hear something?”
I try to creep quietly back up to my room but James appears at the bottom of the stairs.
Our eyes meet and he grins. “Hey.”
My heart quickens with panic and I almost trip trying to walk up the stairs backward.
“Hey, no hard feelings, okay?” He takes a step up the bottom step. “We’ve got lunch in the kitchen if you’re hungry. Ordered out some sandwiches.”
I shake my head.
These men are complete psychopaths. One moment they’re talking about how much easier it would be if they just killed me and the next they’re offering me sandwiches.
He frowns and casts a look behind him as Peter appears behind his back.
“Listen, if you don’t start packing up soon, everything is going to be left behind,” Peter says.
“Yeah, take it or leave it. We’re not coming back.”
I continue to walk backward.
James’ face hardens with frustration and he growls out, “I mean it. You’re going to lose all your shit.”
Is there anything I want? I was planning on leaving it behind anyway, it’s just stuff. Why do they care anyway?
I reach the top of the landing and keep on walking.
Peter snorts and James nods his head at him. “Yeah, she’s planning on making a run for it.”
My stomach feels like it just dropped right out of me.
“No, I’m not,” I gasp, turning back.
James smirks smugly at me. “Only a person planning on running wouldn’t care about all of their things.”
Peter nods at James and threatens, “I’ll put in a call to Lucifer.”
Dammit.
“All of it,” I croak as Peter starts to walk away.
James’ smirk sharpens. “What was that?”
I take a deep breath and then say more clearly. “All of it. I want all of it.”
Bastards. They are so getting a kick out of this.
Peter stops and turns back. He grins triumphantly. The two assholes just played me well. “I’ll get the movers in here so they can get started.”
I take another step back, planning on hiding out in my bedroom again.
“You’ll need to stick with us while the movers are in here,” James says.
My first reaction, of course, is to shake my head.
Peter’s grin is downright feral as he says, “We wouldn’t want anyone to have an accident.”
What the fuck does he mean by that? Is he implying I could have an accident? Or one of the movers?
James takes another step up and holds out his hand. “Come on. Come have some lunch with us. You look like you need it.”
My stomach chooses that exact moment to growl loudly and I can feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment.
I want to ask him if he’s going to kill me but I don’t want to give away that I eavesdropped on their conversation. From what I heard, it sounds like at least Peter would prefer to kill us but he can’t.