Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
A part of me didn’t want to obey.
But it was kind of hard to stand your ground when you were shot in the leg.
So I hobbled over and carefully got my ass back up, reaching for the blanket and holding it against my chest.
“What are you here to talk to me about then?” I asked when he didn’t immediately start speaking.
“About the conditions and parameters for you going home.”
“You’re serious?”
“Do I look like a man who jokes around?” he shot back.
He had me there.
He didn’t seem like he knew how to genuinely smile, let alone laugh.
“What kinds of conditions and parameters?” I asked.
“I have some questions for you first.”
“Like what?”
“Do you live with someone?”
“How is that any of your business?”
“Babe, you’re just dragging this out. Think we’re all tired and over this. The faster you answer, the quicker we can get you back to your life.”
Well, it would be stupid to keep ticking him off if he was genuinely going to let me leave.
“I live alone. Sometimes, my sister will come and stay with me for a weekend, but not often.”
“Try to push that off until you heal then,” he said. It wasn’t a suggestion, either.
I was getting really sick of douchebag guys dictating my life. But it looked like I didn’t have a lot of choice in this matter.
“Because she will have questions that I can’t answer,” I said.
“Exactly that.”
“So, I’m supposed to just… go back to my life like nothing happened.”
“Pretty much. Except you’re going to need to treat those wounds. And come back to get your stitches out.”
“Come back here?”
“Yeah.”
“So… I… I have to see you guys again?” I asked, tone choked.
“No offense, right?” he asked, smirking. “Yeah, babe, you’re going to have to see us guys again. Well, me. You’re going to be dealing with me.”
“Lucky me,” I grumbled, getting a snort out of him.
“The deal is, you keep your mouth shut. In turn for that, we pay you.”
“You’re… paying me for my silence?” I asked, brows knitting. “There’s a phrase for that, isn’t there?” I asked, talking mostly to myself.
“Hush money,” he said, making my gaze shoot up. “It’s called hush money,” he repeated.
“Right. You want to pay me hush money. Just to… not tell anyone about this.”
“Yeah, babe, that’s what hush money is for. For you to hush.”
“For how long?” I asked.
Someday, someone was going to have questions about the scars I was sure I was going to have.
“For as long as we are willing to pay you for it,” he said, shrugging it off.
Like it was no big deal.
Like they had an endless supply of cash to just toss at me. Forever.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to… you know…”
“Whack you?” he asked, chuckling.
Whack?
Whack me?
That wasn’t gang terminology.
That was… that was the mafia.
Right?
I mean, those were the only guys I’d ever heard use that term in movies and TV shows.
My gaze lifted, looking at his dark hair flecked with gray, his dark eyes, his somewhat tanned skin, his slacks and dress shirt. And the other guy, Maine, he was dressed up too.
What gang members looked like they were ready to go out to a fancy dinner?
None that I knew of.
These guys were the mob.
For some reason, that fact let my stomach untwist a little bit.
It shouldn’t have. The mafia was notoriously violent. But they also had a code, didn’t they? Was that why they hadn’t just killed me? Because of that code?
“We don’t kill innocent women,” Surgeon said, shrugging off that fact.
“But you’re willing to pay us indefinitely for silence?”
“It’s just money,” he said.
Just money.
It was just money.
That was only something someone who’d never struggled would say. Because to those of us who cut coupons and bought used and pinched every last penny, money was not “just” anything. It was essential. There were days when it was all there was, all you could think about, all there was to worry about in your world.
I couldn’t fathom a world where I didn’t turn off the lights early or sweated in the summer heat to keep the electric bills low. Or when I refused to buy my favorite soup because they raised the price by twenty cents a can.
Things had been tight for my entire life.
And they’d gotten much, much tighter over the past six months. With no end in sight for several years.
Now here was this random guy who’d already saved my life—you know, after nearly taking it—offering to lighten the load of those worries?
“What are we talking about here?” I asked, ignoring the churning in my stomach when discussing money.
“Five grand a month in weekly installments.”
Five grand a month.
That meant an extra twelve-fifty every week.
Just to not go to the cops about what I’d seen.
Was there really even any choice at all?
“Okay.”
“Okay?” he asked, taken aback at my sudden compliance.
“Well, it really doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice here,” I said, trying to play it down.