When he stays curled up in a ball, I reach down, grab his collar, and yank him to his feet. He’s unsteady when he stands, but I don’t think he’s drunk. Just fucking scared. There’s a terrible odor and I glance down.
“Are you pissing your pants, you piece of shit?” I yell into his face. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You think that you can treat Eva like that and then come to her apartment to…what? What in the fuck did you think that you were going to do to her?”
Fuck, all of the rage I’m feeling towards him right now is pouring out of me. I want Eva, and I want her to be safe and mine, and those things can’t fucking happen when this piece of shit is walking around alive.
He swallows hard and I press my pistol against his forehead. “You have something that you want to say, David?”
“Fuck you. She’s mine.”
I swear to God, I almost laugh at that. How this piss-soaked bastard could possibly think that Eva would ever want him is ridiculous. “Get on your knees, you bastard,” I tell him, pushing the pistol harder into his forehead. I assume that he’s going to buckle and kneel in front of me, but he doesn’t move.
“She’s mine. You may think that you have her, but she’ll come back to me, you’ll see. You have no idea how much she loves me! I’m everything to her and – ”
I’ve heard enough. The silencer on my pistol means that the sound of his body hitting the floor is louder than the shot itself. Quickly, I step back. He’s not worth ruining my shoes over, and I don’t want a spot of his fucking blood on me.
Pops already has his phone out and turns away from us to complete the call. I don’t need to hear what he says to know what’s going on. We’ll get some of the cleanup started, but the crew will be here in just a few minutes to take care of the rest.
Nobody will know we were ever here.
Matty reaches out and shakes me by the shoulder, causing me to look up at him. “You good there, Roque? You ready to go?”
Pops is off the phone and waiting. They’re all waiting.
Eva is waiting.
I pull my phone from my pocket and quickly check it for any messages, but there isn’t anything from Ricky or Johnny. Good. That’s good news.
That means that she listened and she’ll be in one piece when I get back home to her. First, we all have to go back to Pops’ and debrief, but then there’s nothing keeping me from getting back home to my sweet little Eva.
Chapter 20
Eva
It’s not that I’m worried, exactly, but Roque told me not to leave the house, even to go to the porch, and then he left me. I haven’t heard from him in hours, and I have no idea how much longer he’ll be gone. He has a great book collection, and I shamelessly snooped in his bedroom to see what I could find.
I mean, I don’t know what I was looking for. Lingerie from another woman, maybe? Hidden money? There wasn’t anything like that, no red flags that made me really worried, although my eyes widened when I found the whip and the crop.
Would he…use them on me? My core tingles at the thought, even though I’ve never done anything that wasn’t vanilla. The thought of him taking complete control…it’s almost enough to make me crazy.
Almost.
What will make me crazy, though, is how hungry I am. I know that he has a fully stocked kitchen and that I just ate, but my nerves are getting the best of me and all I want to do is turn on some tunes and cook something. It takes a little digging, but I finally find an apron in a drawer by the oven, put it on, and start digging through cupboards.
If the leftovers he gave me before were any indication, his mom is a hell of a cook, but I have a few things up my sleeve, too. Part of me wants to impress him, but I keep telling myself that it’s just common sense to have some food going for when he gets home later and we’re both hungry.
There’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge, and I pop it open and take a sip. It’s light and crisp, with a little bit of fruity taste to it, so I pour myself a glass to drink while I cook.
Now for music. He has a stereo in the kitchen and I turn it on. It’s playing a cd, and I turn it up, squinting while I try to recognize it. Ella Smith. Not who I would have thought he would be listening to, but it’s really the perfect music for cooking, so I turn it up louder so that the sound fills the small kitchen.
One of my favorite meals is chicken a la piccata, and he just happens to have everything that I need in the fridge, including a large jar of capers, which I sample right away, squinting a little at their delicious briney taste.
I have no idea what Roque is going to say or think when he comes home and I’ve been cooking, but it’s the best way for me to pass the time and maybe thank him.
The thought stops me cold while I’m cleaning the chicken. Thank him for what? I know exactly what he’s gone to do, and while I can’t say that I’m not glad about it, there’s some part of me that’s terrified. What if David gets the drop on him?
What if he doesn’t do it?
What if he brings David back here to me?
I put the knife down on the cutting board and grab the edge of the counter, dropping my head down to breathe deeply. If I’m not careful, I think that I’m going to spiral out of
