Anger flashes before my eyes. On my one-track mind nothing can get in my way. Not an excuse. Not an explanation. Maybe it’s irrational. Unreasonable. But I can’t see past my hurt feelings that have been stomped on and thrown out with the trash.
I walk past Roamyn in the kitchen and pull open the front door to his apartment.
“Hey. Where are you going? Why are you back in wet clothes?” He frowns at me, confused. I stop and look at him. His features fall. Guilt riddles his face.
“Was this your plan the whole time? I thought you cared about getting to know me. I thought you wanted to know me. But all you wanted was what my record doesn’t tell you. Well, here’s a secret for you, Roamyn. I can’t tell you anything that will help you bring down the Marino family because I’m nobody. I don’t know any more details about their business than you probably do because all I do is work a shiny silver pole six nights a week. Hell, half the time I’m so out of it I don’t know what I’m doing let alone what laws they’re breaking,” I all but shout, my arms rising with my voice. Letting out a long sigh, my shoulders fall. My hands slap my sides. “I’m just a girl nobody really wanted.”
Roamyn’s lips flatten into a hard line and his eyes round with pity. My heart splinters with a truth I’ve never voiced but always felt. I was too young to remember my dad before he died. My mother was too self-absorbed to love me. My sister got stuck with me whether she liked it or not, and the only reason the Marino family took me in was because of her. No one’s ever wanted me for me.
“Whatever your plan is, whatever it is your boss wants… it won’t work. All it will do is get us all killed. So do yourself a favor and stay far away from me. For both of our sakes. Or you won’t like how it ends.”
Roamyn walks toward me, hands up in surrender. “Ali. Stop for a second and listen to me. What you think you heard—”
“No,” I cut him off. “Just don’t. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
“Alison, wait!”
I pause, sucking in a deep breath of courage to ignore the deep voice centered in my dreams for the past four years. Every time I wanted to die, his voice would heal me. The hope of finding him again would give me hope. But not now. His desire to protect me would be his downfall. Just as my selfish want to have him in my life, have him rescue me would be mine.
I shut the door behind me and my feet whisk me away before my mind can gather any logical thoughts or common sense. I run with my heart beating right out of my chest and uncertainty seizing me with every step. Running from Roamyn is the smartest move. So why does it feel like a grave mistake?
Pain slams into my knuckles as I hit the bag.
She left.
Smack.
She left without letting me explain.
Smack. Smack.
I was trying to help her, not hurt her.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
Sweat drips down my temple and my heart races from adrenaline. I pull my fist back, ready to pound the boxing bag again when blood spilling out of my knuckles catches in the corner of my eye. I force myself to stop. Resting my hands on my hips and taking a moment to catch my breath, the yellow and pinks of the sunrise seeping through the window of my apartment reminds me I need to be leaving soon for work. Mason’s call late last night—a mere few hours ago—was to tell me there’d been another murder. Another stripper from Sweet Tarts. Another killing with Marino weapons, and this time, the shooting was close to the club. Two days ago the squad came up with a new plan. One that would lead to the downfall of the Marino crime family should it work. One to bring them to justice after four generations of lawlessness in New York City. But my palms were ready to spill blood, not seek the justice a lonely prison cell can bring. In a city where everyone can be bought, what use is a prison full of corrupt law enforcement? The thought was infuriating, but it wasn’t what made my insides twist to the point of agony. Or why