“I have an idea,” Vanessa said.
“Yeah?” Max said. “What is it, sweetheart?”
“Call her that again, and I’ll turn you into a punching bag,” I threatened.
Max grinned. “Someone is pussy-drunk…”
Vanessa watched the anger on my face, watched the way I became possessive of her even with my closest friend.
“I told you she was off-limits,” I said quietly. “I meant it.”
Max raised both hands in the air. “Alright. Loud and clear.” He turned to Vanessa. “You’ve got him under your thumb. Make sure you use that against him if you can.”
She was under my thumb just as much.
“What’s your idea?” Max repeated.
Her gaze turned to me, like she knew I wouldn’t like the idea before she even announced it. “I could be the hooker.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded.
Max didn’t expect the idea either.
“I could be at the right place at the right time, and I could take him to the hotel. I would leave and let you do what you need to do. They’ll never find me again because I’m not really a prostitute. And presumably, I’d wear a wig.”
“And he definitely wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to grab her,” Max said. “She fits his type perfectly.”
I was still staring at Vanessa, shocked by the offer she’d just put on the table. Why would she help me? Why would she put herself in danger when she got nothing out of it? “What do you want in return?”
She took a deep breath before she answered. “My family. I do this for you, and you leave them alone.”
Max sat between us, eyeing us back and forth. He stayed quiet, knowing he had nothing to do with this.
“No.” I wasn’t giving up my revenge just to fulfill a different vendetta.
“You could use me,” Vanessa said. “I could make this work.”
There was no doubt in mind that she could. If I put her in play, he would be just as obsessed with her as I was. “I’m not putting you in danger like that. I’ll find another way.”
“It’s too risky to have someone else do it,” she said. “You know that.”
“I’m not sparing your family,” I repeated.
She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes shifting back and forth as she considered it. “Bones—”
“No.” I wouldn’t change my mind. I wouldn’t drop my vendetta, and I wouldn’t put her in danger. Joe would take one look at her and eye-fuck her to death. He would imagine the ways he would fuck her before he killed her. He would fantasize about leaving her in a dumpster somewhere.
Not my woman.
“Okay…” Vanessa said. “Then I’ll do it anyway.”
Max looked up again and shifted his gaze to my face.
“What?” I asked blankly.
“I’ll lure him anyway—to help you.” She stared at me with those beautiful green eyes, those thick lashes making her feminine and beautiful. “I want you to kill him, Bones. I know this is important to you. I know you’ll never stop until you get justice for your mother. So let me help you.”
My eyes were wide open as I stared at her, unable to believe she’d offered to put herself in a dangerous situation just to help me. She got nothing out of it, but she wanted to see me succeed. “No. I don’t want another man looking at you. I don’t want him touching you. I don’t want him anywhere near you.” The idea of Vanessa ending up in a dumpster like my mother made me sick to my stomach. If someone was going to kill her, it was going to be me—no one else. “You aren’t involved in this. End of story.”
I didn’t come out of my office until later that night. My stomach was full of scotch and I was at the perfect level of drunkenness, so I wasn’t as angry as I usually was. Vanessa made that offer to help me, but I was ticked she’d made the gesture at all.
She was mine.
I wasn’t going to let my enemy think, even for a second, that he was going to fuck my woman.
When I walked into the living room, she was sitting on the couch in one of my t-shirts and her panties. This was normal now, a habit to see her in my t-shirts on a regular basis. The shapeless cotton was somehow sexier than the lingerie I got her. Knowing it was my clothes she wanted on her back turned me on.
She must like my smell.
She turned her eyes away from the TV and met my gaze. “Still mad at me?”
“I’m always mad at you.” I stood behind the other couch, my hands gripping the back.
“Yeah…I picked up on that.”
I gripped the furniture tightly, my knuckles turning white. I wasn’t livid with her for the comment, but livid that I found her so painfully beautiful in my clothes. I should demand her to take it off and never wear it again, but I didn’t. I didn’t because I loved the way it looked on her—so fucking perfect.