Gone - Anna Brooks Page 0,23
her…” I trail off, leaving the rest open to interpretation.
His demeanor changes at the unspoken threat. “Not sure you want to threaten me, Damien.”
“It’s not a threat, Danny. Whatever you got going on, anything even breathes in her direction, we’ve got problems.”
He cocks his head, and then he does it the other way, and then he asks a very weird question. “Why are you the one here on her behalf?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Who else would you expect?”
Danny’s brow raises, and he grins. That is some type of expression I’ve never seen on him before, and I don’t even know what it is. Amusement, maybe. “Nobody, man.”
I drop my arms. “I’m asking because I need to know for her. How deep is Rickman in?”
Danny looks over his shoulders at his guys and angles his head at the building. They disappear like the good soldiers they are, and Danny walks closer to me. “Rickman started out as a low-level pill pusher, but much like all the greedy morons out there, he didn’t quit while he was ahead. Now that motherfucker is so deep it’s only a matter of time before he’s capped.”
I clench my jaw and flex my fists knowing for sure that he’s into shady shit, and Izzy has the potential to be exposed to the backlash of her boss’s mistakes.
“But I wasn’t there to visit Rickman.”
“Who were you there to see?”
He smirks. “Why don’t you ask Isabel yourself?”
I have my hand around his throat and slammed against the bricks before he can blink. “Talk.” I release him only because my weapon is in my glove compartment, and I am not in the mood to get shot in my back right now.
He holds his hand up to ward off his men and then shakes his head at me. “That was a mistake.”
Ignoring his threat, I demand, “Talk.”
“I’m not the one who needs to talk, Damien. Isabel is.”
Izzy
I’m so relieved today is over. I hate days that Danny visits me to collect because they’re always unannounced, and I’m never prepared. Being my first day back after a week and all the things on my mind with Damien, I did not want to deal with him, too.
All I want is to get home and have Damien hold me and forget about everything else. Seeing him waiting for me makes my belly flutter, but as soon as I get into his car after my shift is over, I know something is wrong. And it’s my fault he’s upset. I shouldn’t have snapped at him like I did this morning. “Listen, I’m sorry about earlier, okay? I just, I come from a big family, and I’m the youngest, and I was always treated like a baby. I hated them thinking I was fragile and I needed to be taken care of, and I never want to ask them for help again because when I do it makes me feel like a loser.”
He pulls out but turns in the opposite direction of my house. Maybe he just wants to get something to eat. “When did you need to ask them in the first place?”
“Random things like money for security deposits and car repairs. It might not mean anything to you, but I’ve struggled my whole life for my independence, and I can’t lose it. If I lost my job and had to go crawling to them for money, I’d be mortified.”
“You not good with money, Iz?”
That’s an understatement. “I’m a single woman in my twenties who has no college degree, bounced around from job to job except for the vet the past three years. I barely have any savings, and, and I’m just… I’m sorry for making you mad earlier.” He lifts his chin and continues driving without responding. Crap. “Where are we going?”
“My house.”
“Oh, okay.” I’ve been wondering when he was going to have me over to his place, but I didn’t want to ask and seem overzealous.
He keeps staring straight ahead, and I try not to sink into my seat too much. I know I irritated him earlier, but it was just a knee-jerk reaction. What I should have done is just told him that I’d let him take care of me because that’s what he needed to hear.
I look around as he slows down, curious where he lives. When he pulls onto a gravel road, I sit up as he parks next to a house nestled toward the back of quite a bit of land. “This is your house?”
He shuts the ignition