and ink covered almost every fucking inch of him. Bree was kind of right about Cass being hot as hell... for an old guy.
"Kid," he snapped. "You’d better have a really good reason for interrupting me right now."
"Um," I started, then flushed when I heard a woman's voice from farther inside his apartment. "Sorry, I shouldn't have knocked. I was just planning on going to the gym and wanted to, uh, clear it with you I guess."
Cass stared at me, totally impassive, and I definitely regretted not just going on my own.
"Wait here," he finally said. "One minute."
His door slammed in my face before I could protest. It reopened again less than a minute later, and Cass stepped out dressed in his own work-out gear.
"You didn't have to come with me," I protested, feeling all kinds of awkward as a sultry, red-haired woman in a rumpled cocktail dress followed him into the hallway. She glared absolute daggers at me, and I badly wanted no part of that poisonous energy.
"Yes, I did." Was his only reply. He barely even acknowledged the woman as he stabbed the elevator call button, then stepped inside the box. "Come on, kid. Let's go. I've got shit to do today."
Uncomfortable as hell, I joined him and the redhead in the elevator and tried not to fidget with the tails of my braided hair while we descended to the foyer. Cass made no move to introduce me to his friend, and she was trying to skin me alive with the strength of her glare, which I pretended not to notice.
When we got to the lobby, the girl tried to pull Cass into an embrace, and he shook her off like she meant less than nothing to him. He hailed a passing taxi and all but shoved her inside, then slammed the door.
"Was that necessary?" I commented, watching the taxi drive away.
Cass just glared at me, and I found myself babbling. Better to pick apart his love life than talk about the reason I so badly needed to hit the punching bag at five thirty in the morning.
"Who is she, anyway? Girlfriend?" I fell into step with him as he strode down the block toward the gym. Or I had to take two or three steps to every one of his giant strides, but I kept up well.
He gave a grunt of disgust in reply. "Not even close, kid. She's no one."
My brows shot up. "Well, that's rude. She's clearly not no one if she’s good enough to fuck."
Cass rolled his eyes. No shit. I counted that as a win for simply getting a human reaction out of him. "Okay, fine. She's a place-filler. Happy?"
Well, now I was even more intrigued. "A place-filler is hardly an improvement on no one, but I get the picture. So... what's the story, then?"
He levelled a glare at me, holding the front door to the gym open for me to enter. "No fucking story, kid. Let it drop."
I grinned. I'd spent enough time with Cass to know he wasn't going to hurt me over a bit of teasing banter. He cared about my safety in his own gangster sort of way, regardless of what Steele thought the Reapers’ real motivations were.
"No way," I replied with a laugh. "Okay, if you won't tell me, I'll have to guess." I thought on it for a moment while we made our way across the mostly empty gym to the punching bags. "She's a place-filler... which means you're fucking her instead of the girl you really want to fuck. Ex-girlfriend? Ex-wife?"
Cass remained impassive, helping me tape my hands and get my gloves on while I waited for a response.
He must have realized I wasn't letting it drop, too, because he let out an irritated sigh. "Not ex-anything. Just unavailable."
I pursed my lips, thinking. Then gasped. "Rival gang?" Cass's face flickered with something close to surprise, and I knew I'd hit the jackpot. "Damn, Cass. That's Shakespeare shit, right there. Which gang? Wraiths?"
"I'm not discussing this with you, kid. Hit the damn bag and vent out whatever has you so squirrely at this time of morning." He pointed at the bag. "You know what to do."
He stomped away, ending our conversation, and I was left alone with my scattered thoughts once more. Damn it.
Breathing deeply, I took to the bag and tried to work out all the fear and paranoia from my stalker’s latest game. It was so freaking hard, though, when I had no face to