The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,514

past and they put a boot on my car.”

“Probably just did it to be a dick.” He almost smiles. Almost. It’s more of a smirk.

“Really?”

“Probably thought you were some yuppie, suburban soccer mom with that Volvo.”

I wish I could tell him that I didn’t choose that car, that I didn’t even want it, but my parents insisted because they wanted the safest, most reliable car they could find for their “precious cargo.”

Digging into his pocket, he retrieves his phone and thumbs through his contacts. A moment later, he lifts it to his ear and paces a few steps away. The sound of traffic and revving motorcycles drowns out his words, but when he returns, he slides his phone away and rests his hands on his hips, studying me.

“He’s on his way,” Madden says.

“Who’s on their way?”

“Dusty. Works for the city. You’re lucky he owes me a huge fucking favor.” His gaze grazes over my shoulder before returning. “You can wait inside if you want.”

“Thank you,” I say, taking careful measures not to look at his hand this time. “I really appreciate this. This has never happened before. I don’t know what I’d have done if—”

Madden gives a nod before strutting off while I’m still mid-sentence, almost like a silent way of telling me to shut it.

No one’s ever done that to me—walked away while I was speaking to them.

I watch him stride down the block, stopping next to a black muscle car with two white racing stripes—I think my brother had a model of something like that many years ago—and when he climbs inside, I catch him glancing at me for a single fleeting second.

Fumbling with my keys, I get into my own car and crank the air. It was kind of him—at least I think he was being kind—to offer for me to hang out and wait in his shop, but I think I’m going to ride out the storm in my own little UFO, counting down the minutes until I’m en route to my home planet of Park Terrace.

I kill some time on my phone and pretend not to notice when Madden drives by, his engine rumbling with the kind of contradictory unruffled intensity that almost matches his personality perfectly.

Twenty-six minutes later, a white-and-yellow City of Olwine truck pulls up behind me and a little gold light on its roof begins to flash. A minute later, a man in a gray uniform steps out, grabbing an oversized wrench of some kind from the back and waddling toward me.

I roll my window down. “Thanks for coming. I tried calling the number on the ticket, but I couldn’t reach anyone.”

Dusty, as the name on his shirt reads, doesn’t look up from what he’s doing, crouched next to the front tire on my side.

“You’re lucky you’re friends with Ransom,” he says when he stands, his face red and his breaths shallow. The wrench hangs in one hand, the boot in the other.

Free at last.

“Ransom?” I ask before remembering that it’s Madden's last name.

“Madden,” he says. “I was on break. You’re lucky I answered for the bastard.”

An elaborate “piece” runs down his left arm, intricate and filled with bold greens and reds and purples, and barely hidden by the cuffed, long-sleeved button down the city forces him to wear even in June.

“Oh. Right. He was just helping me out. We’re not actually friends.”

Dusty snorts, his squinting eyes scanning the length of my car. “Yeah. Of course you’re not.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Right.” He begins to walk away.

Climbing out of the car, I yell for him to wait. “Do I need to pay the ticket?”

He hoists the wrench in the back of his truck, the metal hitting metal with a hard clunk, and then he waves his hand.

“So is that a ‘no’?” I ask, just to be sure.

Dusty gives me a thumb’s up before squeezing back into his truck.

I swear, it’s like I don’t even speak the language here.

The tattoo hidden beneath layers of bandages begins to throb just enough to grab my attention, and I return to my idling five-star-safety-rated princess carriage. Pressing the “home” button on my GPS, I head back to Park Terrace, back to Charles and Temple Karrington’s castle-like manse complete with iron gates, a staff of seven, and a million security cameras.

You can make a prison beautiful but at the end of the day, that doesn’t make it any less of a prison.

But I’m making plans to break out.

And this tattoo? It’s only the beginning.

Two

Madden

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