She circles around me, presumably to look at her son.
They’ve stuck us in here together, their own child with their enemy’s.
How messed up is that?
“I didn’t rat anyone out, Mom,” Grey coughs, his voice ragged but much better than it was when I pulled him out of the cabin. I wonder if this is all a scare tactic for him, if the mafia is actually treating his injuries? That’d be something Cat would do, leave me in a torture chamber just to teach me a lesson. Guess it depends on how much they love Grey … or if they love him at all. “I already told you: Gidget and I knew each other from before, when Kian and Queenie were together.” He coughs again, and when he starts speaking, his voice is dark with determination. “We fell in love, just like they did. I’ve explained this a hundred times.”
My heart thunders in my chest, but I’m not stupid enough to say a word.
Instead, I sit there with my eyes closed, hating how the feeling in my body is returning slowly, in little slices of agony. Look at how much that toe hurts, and that one. I can’t wait to feel my legs again. Getting skinned alive by high-speed pavement, not a good thing. When I open my eyes again, I can barely stand to look at the pink fleshy patches.
“In love?” Giulia asks, her voice soft and pleasant, but threaded with steel. This is not a woman who’s easily manipulated. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Gidget and I were hiding out in a cabin when they found us. I was only with the club for a few days, and I don’t break that easily.” Grey holds onto this story of his, and I listen carefully. He’s giving me details that I need to memorize. My life depends on it.
If the Grey Wolfe Mafia thinks I helped spring their heir, I might not die here today.
“Why haven’t we seen a doctor yet?” I ask, trying to play the part. “Grey needs one.”
“He’s seen a doctor,” Giulia continues, still circling us, studying our faces and trying to determine what, exactly, it is that’s going on here. “But we don’t generally waste time on prisoners. You think you’re worthy of care?”
“I love your son,” I lie, my voice thick with conviction, “and I risked my own life to save him. The club will kill me when they find me.” There’s a tremor of fear in my voice that I don’t bother to hide, that I don’t need to fake. That, that’s one hundred percent the truth.
“When?” Giulia asks, clearly amused. She pauses in front of me and folds an arm under her breasts, resting the elbow of her other arm in the palm of her hand. A laugh escapes me, bitter and broken. Now that I’ve actually done it, made my big break from the club, I feel like a lone sailor floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Nobody knows I’m here. Nobody cares. No one is coming.
“It’s never an if with the club, it’s a when,” I tell her, and I can’t hide the small streak of pride in my voice. After seeing Queenie’s name on that baseboard, with the flowers on her Qs and Is, I don’t know what I believe anymore. Cat must’ve known the truth; she had to have told him her feelings for Kian. “They’ll find us eventually. And then they’ll kill your last remaining son and bury me alive in the same unmarked grave.”
Giulia doesn’t look fazed. Why should she be? She’s married to the Don of the West Coast’s most powerful crime family. I’m sure she’s heard—and seen—much worse.
“Mom,” Grey whispers, his voice softening. “All I did was fall in love.”
“All you did was go to the casino with a rowdy group of your asshole friends. And now look at you, sitting tied to a chair next to the club’s last, little princess. It’s a fitting punishment.” Giulia reaches out and touches a strand of my hair before letting her mouth stretch into a tight smile. When she turns and leaves the room, there’s a tangible difference in the air pressure. That woman is a tour de force.
“You know they just put us in here together, so we’d talk,” Grey says with a sigh, shifting in his chair. I can’t see him, but I can feel his movements as he struggles to find some iota of comfort. Me, I’m already too far gone to even consider it. And as the shock wears off, and the pain comes rushing in, I realize that I’m in serious trouble, too.
“About our torrid love affair?” I ask, closing my eyes and wondering how the fuck my life managed to get worse. I lost my sisters, pushed my best friend away, poisoned my classmates, got my dog’s leg shot off, managed to get a girl killed, had a gun pointed at my head by my own father, and now … this. It really is the icing on top of the cake, huh? “There’s nothing to talk about. We’re both going to die here, Grey.”
