“We can finish what we started, or you can kill me now,” he’d said.“Just promise not to hurt my family if you choose wrong.”
I’d been afraid the entire night, but Wilder had put his life up to chance, and it was worse than waking up when my candles had gone out. It was the manifestation of my nightmares, lonelier than parents who never loved me, more obscure than the closet, and colder than Elijah’s eyes in Sunday school.
Nico shook his head and said,“Blood for blood. We’re even now.”
And it was over.
Or more realistically, it was just getting started.
When we drove home that night, I whispered, “You could have been killed.”
And Wilder said,“Now you know I’d die for you.”
“So, correct me if I’m wrong. I want to make sure I have this right,” Dog Mom says. “You’re ex-escorts, who now run the largest organized prostitution ring in the state. And Talent and Wilder Ridge, Grand Haven’s crown jewels …” She smiles dreamily. “… are really lawyers, but they also work for the mafia?”
Clasping Dawn’s hand between mine, I nod once and gently say, “Yes.”
She’s come to the apartment every day since the kidnapping with offerings. Coffee in the mornings and baked goods in the afternoon, ending the evening with dinner. It turns out anything can be made into a casserole, much to Lydia’s annoyance. Private security is stationed around our apartment complex during all hours of the day and night, a la Wilder and Talent, but Dawn took it upon herself to schedule extra rotations for the neighborhood watch volunteers. They linger outside our doors and windows, probably waiting for their chance to give the Ridges the Heimlich if they choke on the lasagna casserole. But it’s the thought that counts.
Dog Mom falls back against our rock-hard couch, throwing her arms up in exasperation. “I knew it!” She wags her index finger back and forth between Lydia and me. “I knew there was something going on around here. To be honest, a couple of the ladies in building D guessed you were actresses. Why else would Talent and Wilder date sisters from our little corner of Grand Haven if they weren’t famous movie stars?”
“I’ve lived here for nearly a decade. Have you ever seen me in a movie?” Lydia sips whiskey too early in the day, unamused by apartment complex gossip.
“No, but I don’t get out much,” Dawn answers, smoothing down her frizzy hair. It pops right back up, and she picks lint from herBooks. Coffee. Dogs.T-shirt, purposely timid. “Now that I know what you do for a living, maybe your starring roles are in the … spicier variety?”
Lydia slams her glass down. Amber liquid sloshes over her fingers, and the reindeer antlers Dawn somehow wrangled onto her head slant. A little bell suspended from a point jingles, and it’s all I can do to keep from laughing.
“The reason I’m telling you this is because—”
“Because I saw you get kidnapped?” Dawn asks.
“Yes,” I answer, meeting Lydia’s indifferent stare. “But we’re also impressed at how well you handled the situation. Anyone else would have gone straight to the police, but you went to Lydia.”
Lydia wrote off Dawn’s quick decision and conflict resolution skills as panic and had been prepared to lock her in the bathroom until I was found. But when the cops showed up, asked their normal script of questions—Gunshot? I didn’t hear a gunshot. I bet it was a backfire—and left, she’d known Dog Mom hadn’t called the police. She offered her as much information about my abductor as she could—tall, dark, eyes as dead as a doornail—and went on to have a conversation with the twins’ father in Building C—What happens in the complex stays in the complex, Billy.
After I returned with scraped knees and a busted face, Dawn didn’t pry. She went in motion, and now we have a fridge full of brownies and trays of food.
This morning over coffee, I said to Lydia, “Maybe…”
And Lydia replied,“Not likely.”
But I thought it was worth a try, and Lydia agreed.
“Wait a minute.” Dog Mom scoots off the couch and stands to her feet. “Now that you’ve told me this highly secretive information, do you have to kill me?”
“Yes,” Lydia deadpans.
No period.
No emoji.
Dawn gasps, holding her hands to her chest like she did before Luca took me. “But who will take care of my dogs?”
Waving Lydia off, I pull Dawn back to the couch and rest a comforting hand on her shoulder. “No one is killing anyone.”
Lydia snorts.
I widen my eyes in annoyance, and Lydia’s indifferent at my attempt to shut her up. She pours herself another drink, and I rest a reassuring hand on Dawn’s shoulder. “I don’t have the time to go over the ins and outs of the entire organization right now, but we’d like to offer you a position at Hush.”
