You Know I Need You (You Are Mine #4) - Willow Winters Page 0,62

to follow them down the hall. But they’re gone before I even get the chance to stand.

I swear it was her and I go to reach for my phone to send her a message, but glancing at Evan, he stops me in mid reach.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him as he stares at his phone.

“We have to go.” His response is hard and nonnegotiable.

“We just got here,” I object, but that doesn’t stop him from standing up abruptly as the waiter returns to our table.

“I’m so sorry, we have to go,” Evan tells the waiter. “Please cancel the order.”

“Are you serious?” I hiss as the couple from before looks at us again.

“I’m sorry, but something just came up,” he tells me and there’s a look in his eyes that’s begging me not to push him.

“Please, Kat,” he says, ushering me away. “We need to leave. Now.”

Chapter 28

Evan

“This alley smells like piss,” Mason says as we stop between a Chinese restaurant and a shoe store. I met up with him on Prince Street and we walked our way here. Just me and him … and business to take care of.

I take a whiff and immediately regret it. “This is where he’s going, though, right?”

“Should already be there,” he answers.

“That’s what it said on his profile. ‘Getting ready for the party,’” he elaborates beneath his breath and shoves his hands in his pockets.

It’s bitter cold and the city streets are packed with people shopping and moving about like normal.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I tell Mason and bring it up again.

His eyes flicker to me and then back across the street.

“There’s no way she happens to do speed,” I tell him. I’ve known Samantha for a long damn time. “Her husband dabbles in all sorts of drugs recreationally. But she doesn’t touch it. She never has.”

“It’s possible she does it on the down low,” he suggests. “You’d be surprised how many people do coke nowadays.”

I shake my head. “There has to be a connection between her and the dealer.”

“We’re gonna find out, aren’t we?” he asks me, although it’s a rhetorical question.

“What’s the plan?”

“All we need is an address.”

“Just follow him, then?” I ask with disbelief.

“Only for a bit, then we switch off so we aren’t seen.”

“Switch off to who?”

“I got some guys,” Mason says, and frustration gets the best of me.

“I want to be the one—” I start, but he’s quick to cut me off.

“You want to keep her safe? Getting into this shit isn’t what you need. That’s not what the man who deserves to be at Kat’s side would do.”

That shuts me up, but I fucking hate it. He’s been edging me out of this. Giving me less and less.

“So, we just wait?” I ask him again.

“Yeah,” he answers, and his breath turns to fog, “just wait.”

Almost an hour passes before I think about going back to Kat. She has no idea what this could mean. I’m sure she’ll be pissed I took off in addition to cutting our date short. Sirens wail in the distance and the busy city night reminds me of how things used to be.

“Fuck me,” I say out loud and run my hands down my face.

“Sorry, you’re not my type,” Mason says so matter-of-factly from his spot next to me, I grunt a short laugh despite myself. “I feel so fucking trapped.”

“I know the feeling,” Mason tells me, and I give him a sidelong glance. His stare only hardens. “I know what it’s like to be in a lose-lose situation where the stakes are high.” He looks forward, staring at the opposite brick wall in the thin alley. “Too high,” he mutters under his breath.

“So, what do you do?” I say and get his attention again. “How do you win?” I ask him with all sincerity as if he has an answer that will put an end to this hell.

He shakes his head as he looks down at the ground and replies, “Sometimes there’s not a way to win, only a way to survive.”

I have to tear my eyes away from him, knowing he’s right and when I do, I spot something. My arm reaches out and I smack him in the chest.

“Visual.” The single word is barely spoken from me, and Mason doesn’t hesitate to take out his phone and call the tail. “He’s here,” he speaks into the phone as both of us watch the perp, chatting with some guy in an open doorway on Twentieth and Broadway. Even from his profile, I