He stepped closer, and I stood my ground, not about to cower. Those days were over.
“Try it, asshole. See what happens,” I growled at him, and his eyes opened wide for a second as if surprised. As if impressed.
“I’m no one,” he said again. “You need to concentrate on your own life.”
“You need to fuck off.”
He was repeating himself, and if he wasn’t going to bring something new to our conversation I was done. Done with him. Done with who he’d turned me into. The gate was cockeyed and open, and I pushed past him and slipped between it and the fence heading into the forest, down the trail back to my house.
I didn’t turn around despite the fact I could feel the burn of his gaze on the bare skin of my neck. That had to win me some points, right?
One thing was clear—he was the danger. Ronan was the unknown. The new monster in my life. And I’d learned some valuable lessons from my last one. Information was key. I wouldn’t be walking into anything blindly. Not again.
Once I was out of sight of the compound, I opened my purse and pulled out my phone.
Four texts from Zilla. A missed call. I had enough battery left to call her back.
“Hey!” She answered halfway through the first ring, and it did not escape me that our roles for the moment were reversed. “You had me worried.”
“Sorry, I left my phone at a gala. I just got it back.”
“A gala,” she said. “Sounds awful.”
“It was. It really... was.”
“What’s wrong, Poppy?”
I bit my lip and stared up at the sky. This was a big dangerous step. “If you needed to find out something about a Constantine, how would you find it?”
“None of this sounds like a good idea.”
“There’s a guy working for Caroline, and I just need to know his story.”
“Have you tried asking him?”
“You’re hilarious.” This was crossing a line; I was well aware of that. But I couldn’t live like this anymore. The girl left in the dark. And I couldn’t wait for people to decide to tell me what I needed to know.
I had to get my own answers.
“Well, you won’t like my answer,” Zilla said.
“What would you do?”
“Call a Morelli.”
“I don’t know any,” I said.
“I do. But, Poppy, are you sure you want to do this? You might start another Morelli and Constantine war, and you’ll be right in the middle of it.”
“Zilla,” I said, stepping through the tall grass. I hit the top of the hill. The senator’s house...myhouse, down below. “I don’t have that kind of power.”
“Well, you’ve never been a good judge of how much power you have, Poppy. But stay by your phone. I’ll be in touch.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Another?” the bartenderat the Red Hook dive bar asked me. He had a t-shirt on with the sleeves cut out. I could see his armpit hair. It was revolting. And fascinating.
“No, thank you,” I said, thinking I needed to be on top of my game. Whatever game that was. One very cheap Pinot Grigio was all I was going to have before meeting my sister’s mysterious Morelli.