The Kingpin's Weakness

“Same goes for us,” the Russian calls back. “And I’ll wait for Whitney at the same distance you wait for her sister. Or we’re gone.”

A detached part of me sees the humor in this. Two men snarling like territorial beasts over their women. These sisters who have arrived to steal our rationality and calm. But I’m too shaken up knowing there’s a contract on Scout, so my appreciation of the humorous moment is only fleeting. Muscles tense, I open the door and help Scout out…

And then I watch her run toward Whitney in the open field with my heart in my throat.

They embrace, tears flowing down their cheeks. Talking a mile a minute.

I harden my jaw and stem the flow of emotion that threatens to upend me.

Scout will be okay. With a bond like she has with her sister, she will heal. She will be strong.

One day, she will thank me for what I have to do.

8

Scout

I wake up in my old bedroom, my vision fuzzy around the edges.

There is a poster of the periodic table taped to my ceiling, one of the corners peeling off. There’s no cigar scent. No ocean salt tingeing the air. No male warmth beside me. That’s how I know I’m home, not in Easton’s mansion by the sea.

Panic sets in quickly, my throat constricting hard.

I sit up and look around, tears already brimming in my eyes.

Maybe I’m dreaming?

No.

No, I remember getting back into the SUV last night. Easton taking me home in dead silence and giving me a glass of wine, telling me it would calm my frayed nerves after my crying jag in the middle of the field. Then a second glass that made the room start to spin. He didn’t drug me. I’m just a complete lightweight. Any kind of alcohol knocks me out cold if I drink enough of it—and that’s what happened. The last thing I recall is falling asleep standing straight up with my head lolling on his broad shoulder, babbling on about how much I love him.

Oh God.

He said this morning we would part ways.

He never took it back. Never changed his mind.

This is it then?

He’s just…gone?

We’re over?

A pitiful sob wrenches free of my throat.

I start to call for Whitney, before remembering she’s been hijacked by a Russian MMA fighter. I’m alone here. Did he even leave anything? A note?

A search yields nothing. Just my school books stacked neatly on the coffee table in the living room and the vaguest hint of his scent. Did he carry me in here, lay me in bed and walk out? Did he even look back or second-guess himself?

In this moment, I truly hate him.

He stole me out of my life, made me love him and abandoned me.

Left me floundering with a broken heart and no way to reach him. No recourse or closure. I don’t have his phone number and the way to his house is a blur, because he always made sure I was distracted in the back seat.

An alarm beeps on my phone.

Class. I have class.

Going to school seems like such a foreign idea when I’ve been locked in a fantasy for two days, but I have to go. There is an exam next week and the next few sessions will be spent reviewing. Feeling like something inside of me has died, I go through the motions, taking a shower and getting dressed, piling my hair up in a bun. Books in hand, I leave the apartment…

…and I immediately know I’m being watched.

Every hair on the back of my neck stands at attention, prickles riding up my arms.

I turn in a circle on the walkway outside the building, trying to find the source of my intuition, but I can’t see anything out of the ordinary. At least until I get on the bus.

When I take my seat, I watch over my shoulder as two nondescript cars pull away from the curb outside my residence and follow the bus at a discreet distance. But I’ve watched a lot of suspenseful movies and I’m not fooled. I know what a tail looks like. But I can’t tell who is in the driver’s seat from this distance.

Resolutely, I turn back around in my seat, crack open a textbook and fire through some review questions. If those are indeed Easton’s men tailing me, they can suck it. He doesn’t get to control me from a distance. He’s either in my life completely or he isn’t. These half measures aren’t going to work for me. I want the man or nothing at all.

And I miss him.

Terribly.

All through class that morning, I feel like there’s a hard-boiled egg stuck in my throat and there’s a hot iron pressed to the back of my eyes. I replay every moment of our two days together. Me fainting in his luxury box, Easton buying drinks in the Speckled Hen, making love in the ocean, falling asleep in each other’s arms, making a lava lamp in his kitchen. Was it really so easy for him to just offload me and go about his merry way?