As Damien Rice belted out his favorite faded fantasies, I was stuck in the grind of gears and wheels as the cops did what they did best—traffic duty. Pulling out all the stops to get the roads churning in the aftermath of a car crash that was definitely going to make me late.
Checking my messages as we were at a standstill, I saw I had one from her.
Camille:Is everything okay? Are you on your way?
Me:First time I could message. There’s been a crash. Are you safe?
I wasn’t sure what had been the trigger, wasn’t sure why tonight was the night when she’d shattered, especially when she was going to be free from her father’s clutches tomorrow, but I saw no point in pouting over spilled milk.
She didn’t need that shit from me.
She’d just killed her fucking sire—no bitch I knew would be okay with that. Even the ones who hated their folks didn’t want their blood on their hands, and I couldn’t blame them. My da hadn’t exactly been a saint, and there were some days when he drove me to want to stab him in the neck to get him to shut up, but I never went through with it.
I knew exactly what he was. Knew his failings, and his weaknesses, and that I didn’t kill him was a testament to the fact that I didn’t want him dead.
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, but on the days when he pissed me off, on the days where, at forty years of fucking age, I had to pull shady moves to keep my bride’s identity from him—those were the moments when I could throttle him.
Vasov, on the other hand, was a different kind of monster.
Da celebrated family. At least, in his own way he did.
Vasov wasn’t like that.
That had been clear to me every time Inessa was around us all. She looked like she was waiting for a time bomb to detonate, and when Da had his explosive bursts of temper, even now, after months of Eoghan’s protection, she would always flinch like she expected him to hit her. That meant Camille would be the same way, which wasn’t exactly something to look forward to. Maybe her time with the Sinners would have toughened her up some.
Ironically enough, she was the one who took a long time to reply to my message, which filled me with concern. I peered around, my foot tapping against the foot rest as I tried to figure out how long it was going to take for the pigs to get a move on, when finally she replied:
Camille:I had to drive somewhere else. I recognized a group of boyeviks heading into a restaurant nearby.
So, at least she had a fucking brain.
That was something.
Me:Good thinking.
I was about to ask her to send a live location, but she did that without me having to request it.
While she hadn’t reinvented the goddamn wheel, in my world, some women had been raised to ask when they could go for a shit, so that she had some initiative gave me hope for the future.
Me:Thanks.
Another glance around the street provided me with the sight of a bunch of red lights flashing off up ahead as traffic finally began to shift.
Me:On my way now. Hopefully I won’t be long. If there’s a problem, and you need to move again, send me another live location.
Camille:Will do.
Short and sweet.
Just how I liked it.
Once traffic was underway, it didn’t slow down again, so finally, I made it down the Beltway and toward the live location where she was hiding out—she hadn’t sent me another, so I was glad to know she considered herself safe enough.
As safe as any woman could be in that fucking neighborhood.
Parked up on the border between Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay, I found the same SUV she’d driven this morning behind a small bakery that was closed now and a bar and sushi restaurant, both of which were teeming with patrons.
Thankfully, there was a lull in traffic, which, after what I’d just driven through, meant luck was on my side, and I pulled up next to it, giving her just enough space to open her door, lock it, then to climb into the passenger seat.