I can’t in front of her. Not so she can show me more pity.
“Okay…”
Deciding to preserve some ounce of dignity I leave.
I leave and stop by the balcony to catch my breath.
What the hell am I supposed to really do about this now?
Why did he stop me from being booked if he doesn’t want me?
This is some kind of game to him when this is my life I have to worry about.
As I think of the vile words Brent and his friends said to me, and once again in front of Rosie the tears come.
When I remember how scared she was and how hard she cried I feel like a complete failure. I couldn’t even succeed at selling my body.
One tear falls and then another that I can’t stop. I fail at that too.
Laughter fills the area and I look over my shoulder to see a bunch of women coming down the corridor. They’re waitresses here and part of the batch Louise warned me about who like Christian. There hasn’t been a kind one among them. Each has gone out of their way to give me filthy looks since I’ve been here.
They saw me with Christian and took an instant hatred toward me for it. I heard one of them drop the comment the other day that Christian must have gotten tired of me. She was supposed to be whispering to one of the other girls but she purposely said it loud enough so I would hear. That was just as I was leaving for the night.
I’m used to bitches like that from the dance world. They see me now and start whispering when they note I’m upset.
Instead of waiting for them to get closer and make me feel more like shit I leave. I take the back entrance and go down the stairs instead of the elevator.
It’s three floors down, but I’d rather go this way than have to either lose my shit in a fight or start crying in front of people who want to see me fall. I’m not exactly sure which I’d do.
Drying my tears, I rush down the stairs and out the door. The cool night breeze stings my cheeks but wakes me up a little. I’m on the furthest side of the parking lot. My car is on the other side.
I calm my breathing but my breath hitches when something shuffles by the dumpster.
I glance around and see nothing, but…I get that prickling sensation again. Just like the other day. I’m at the club though.
The parking lot is packed with cars but there are no people where I am. everyone is inside the club having a good time. I still look around though to check.
Seeing nothing I keep walking straight ahead. I look around again when the chilling sensation burns the ends of my spine and that’s when I see a hooded figure standing far away in the distance, right by the dumpster.
My heart races, galloping. I’m sure that’s the same man I saw the other day.
Fuck… he’s just standing there.
I start to run, and I don’t stop until I get in my car. I’m far away from him and he didn’t come after me. He was just watching. Just watching me.
What the hell is this?
The other day was bad, but this makes it worse.
He was watching me for a reason, why?
Chapter Fifteen
Christian
I’m exhausted as fuck.
As I stare back at the computer screen everything jumbles together in a swirl.
Salvatore and I have been looking through files for hours. So far, we haven’t seen anything that jumps out at us. We set things up at my place so we could research properly.
Gibbs is out working with some people from his team. He’s investigating the police side of things because he has more resources to do so, while we’ve been trying to see what we can garner from the files in regard to where Falcone might be keeping the guns.
There’s a lot of information on stolen shit. We’ve looked through a lot over the last six days and there’s still more to go through. I thought we would have had something by now.
The clock’s ticking and my patience is wearing out. Exhaustion from working so hard over the last few days is coming for me and it’s getting to the point where I’m finding it difficult to concentrate.
Salvatore leans back in his chair and sighs with frustration. I glance at him and he looks over at me.
“Sometimes I miss the days when I could just ass