Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“You sure? It’s no big deal.”
“Yeah, really,” I said, sliding off his lap and trying not to feel too disappointed. “Thank you for this. I’ve really been cycling lately with the anxiety.”
“Don’t, ha, worry about it,” he said, shooting me a bemused smile. “You have my number now. If you need someone to come sit with you when you’re freaking out, I’ve got time.”
“Thanks,” I said, sliding out of the backseat. Kylo did the same. “Really,” I added, forcing my gaze to hold his.
Kylo was about to say something when another voice joined us.
“Pretty girl, I can’t let you leave without a plate after what I promised,” Eddie said, rushing across the street.
He didn’t have a plate.
He had one of those throwaway aluminum trays you bake lasagna in. It looked heavy, too.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, even if my stomach was still churning painfully.
“Of course I did. Can’t have anyone leaving my kitchen hungry.”
He handed over the tray with no fanfare, told me to enjoy, waved off my gratitude, and rushed back across the street.
“You sure you can’t stay?”
“I think I need to go home and research some psychologists,” I admitted. “And get some extra sleep.”
“Okay. If you need anything, shoot me a text.”
With that, not even waiting for me to thank him again, Kylo made his way across the street. But he waited in the driveway to make sure I pulled off okay before he disappeared into the night.
I went home and did exactly what I knew I needed to.
I took my rescue meds, stuffed my face, and researched some new shrinks to go to. At least to adjust my meds.
It wasn’t like I could talk to anyone about what was triggering my anxiety and panic.
And short of closing Vital Greens and fleeing the state, I didn’t think there was anything anyone could do to stop it.
CHAPTER TEN
Kylo
This was fucking ridiculous.
All because of some coincidence.
There weren’t hundreds of assisted living places in the area. And Rue’s grandmother, Claudia, seemed to have finer tastes; of course she wanted to live in a nice, new facility if she could.
The problem was, now Caymen and Huck had suspicions and were in each other’s ears about it.
Which led to me decked out in all black in a borrowed nondescript black sedan belonging to one of the club’s old ladies, parked on Rue’s street, watching her house like a fucking stalker.
At first, Caymen said he was up for the job. But I’d pulled rank on him. Huck, surprisingly, trusted me enough to not let my feelings get the better of me.
So, yeah, I was the one tailing Rue. Someone who was already anxious enough and didn’t need to be worrying about seeing strange cars around everywhere she went. But if it had to be someone, I wanted it to be me. At least she wouldn’t be scared of me.
The thing was, I was right about Rue. I knew I was.
Three days of following her only seemed to prove that.
She went to work and went home. She occasionally went to pick up take-out or force her lazy dog on a walk (which usually just meant about five yards off of the driveway and back, and even then, she was practically dragging the dog back into the house), and the newest trip was to a large brick building complex. The kind that winds around and immediately disorients you. I didn’t know who the fuck built those kinds of places, but they needed to find new vocations.
Rue parked and got out at four different buildings to read the signs listing the offices before she finally found where she was going, parked, and buried her face in her hands for a few minutes, trying to pull it together before she went inside.
Once I was sure she was in, I went up to the sign, snapping a quick picture, then going back to my car.
I scanned the names, plugging them into a search engine until I was pretty sure I knew where she’d gone.
Dr. Alison Jones.
A psychiatrist.
Likely to fiddle with her meds since she was struggling.
In what world was this girl, who had one friend and one family member and debilitating anxiety, some sort of cold-blooded criminal mastermind?
And the theory that she’d inherited the gig from her grandmother was even more absurd.
Did old people sometimes run criminal empires? Sure. But it wasn’t a common thing. The underbelly of the world was a young person’s gig.
Even not accounting for her age, Claudia seemed like a fun, harmless, horny old woman—not someone who even knew how to hold a gun, let alone understand the intricacies that come with importing them from other countries.
I understood that as a president, Huck had to entertain even the most asinine ideas. In the same vein, Caymen was used to running shit for him and his brother, another position of power, with all the worries that come with that.