Havok: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance - Riley Rollins Page 0,8

with her for sneaking up on me like that. Her hair's pulled up into a sloppy bun, like she rushed to leave work tonight to catch up with me.

"Penny," she says, puffing a little bit. "Hold up. I need to ask you something."

"What's up?" I say, shifting my purse to the other shoulder. I'm exhausted and a bit spooked.

She brushes stray blonde hairs out of her eyes and tucks them behind her ear. She always looks so damn good in any lighting. I'm jealous. I wonder if my life would be different if I had her looks.

"Girl," she says, "Me and Violet have been trying to get ahold of Marcy and Jen."

"Marcy and Jen?" I say. "Those dancers who worked for like… a month?"

"Yeah."

"Ah." I'd completely forgotten about those girls, to be honest. They came and went so fast. Like so many girls in this lifestyle.

"Their numbers are disconnected," says Mackenzie. "So I stopped by their apartment. A Mexican family lives there now."

"Okay," I say slowly. "So they moved. Got new phones. Who cares?"

Mackenzie knits her brow and looks worried. And that's what she is, a worrywart. I love her to death, but she's always thinking up worst-case scenarios, and after a while it gets really old. I already see where she's going with this.

"I asked around. No one knows where they went, Penny. No one's heard anything. And it's the same story with that other redhead chick, Meg."

I frown. "Girls come and go in this line of business. You know that."

"But they're totally gone. Like they dropped off the face of the Earth." She's starting to kill my buzz, and her anxiety is rubbing off on me, even though she's being ridiculous. I'm getting annoyed. I start idly groping around in my purse, and then my fingers close around my pill bottle. I instantly feel a rush of calm.

I can deal with this. As long as I can dose afterwards.

"Alright," I say, calming myself, pushing my annoyance to the side. "So what do you wanna do about it?"

"I don't know."

I smile at her, trying to look reassuring, and put a hand on her arm. "Come on, Kenzie. You're just being silly."

"Yeah," she says, nervously shifting her weight. "You're probably right."

"Walk with me," I say. Mackenzie lives catty corner from me, in an apartment building that's managed by the same company.

I change the topic, and we turn the corner onto Country Club road. We walk side-by-side through the concrete jungle, passing by cheap Chinese joints with barred windows, psychic reading joints, and a tattoo parlor hoping to get a couple more drunk customers before the night ends.

Sometimes I imagine mustering the courage to move my stuff across the street to Mackenzie's apartment while Brock's passed out in a drunken stupor. It wouldn't be hard, and I know Mackenzie would let me stay with her. But then fear prevents me from following through. Brock would find me at work and cajole me into coming back, and I'd succumb to it because I'm a coward who craves the comfort of the familiar, no matter how bad it is.

When we're about halfway to our apartments, I sense that someone's following us. I look over my shoulder, trying to peek through my hair without being obvious.

What I see sends a jolt of dread through my stomach. It's not just some random person. It's worse than that. It's Brock, and he's carrying a brown paper bag with the lip of a glass bottle protruding from it.

I freeze, and Mackenzie stops short, twisting around to see what's spooked me. I know in my gut that Brock recognized me, and there's no sense in trying to slip away. The consequences wouldn't be worth it.

"Brock," I say nervously. "What are you doing?"

His face is red, his eyes glassy. He's obviously several drinks deep as usual. His hair is stringy and unwashed, his sweatpants stretching to accommodate the girth of his stomach. He's overweight, but in the dangerous way, where he can throw his weight around and do some real damage.

"Hey, doll," he says, slurring his words, and coming closer. "Fuck you doing? Supposed to be at work, you little liar." He sways around, clasping the bottle against his side.

He's always accusing me of cheating and sneaking around behind his back, although the truth is that I've never touched another man while I've been with him. No matter how much he's abused me. I think he's projecting his own guilt onto me. And in fact, I'd like to know