Page 5 of Under His Watch

I hadn’t heard from her for a month now, though, and I missed her terribly. I couldn’t fault her for pretending to date DanteConstella, the wealthy crime lord she’d run into the night Ricky lost her in a bet to the notorious motorcycle gang.

Based on her last call, when she admitted that things werereallygetting heated up between her and Dante, I assumed all was well. Her phone no longer worked, though, and I wasn’t sure whether she’d changed her number or not. Maybe living the easy life as the kept woman of a rich man had her wanting to shed her old identity completely.

No. That can’t be it.Nina and I were best friends. She’d reach out sooner or later. This call with my dad was souring my mood so much that I was thinking negatively.

Nina would contact me. I counted on it. Until she did, though, I would continue to wish that she could rub a little of her luck on me. It would be a miracle if I could meet a man I’d actually be attracted to. A normal, good, and decent man who’d encourage me to get close and maybe lose my virginity.

The pause in my dad’s rambling rant jarred me. I’d tuned him out, thinking about Nina and missing her fiercely. Now that he’d stopped to catch his breath, I realized it was dumb to sit here and let him shout into the void.

“I’ll have the car back before you go to the fishing store with Joey,” I said, dull and deadpan, before I hung up.

Never mind his caring whether I got sleep. Never mind his concern about his twenty-two-year-old daughter getting home and relaxing after her long double shift of work. He was selfish to the core, and I knew better than to think highly of him.

Finally!I shot up from the stool I was waiting on while my supervisor watched my coworker. She strode toward the bathroom, winking at him over her shoulder. This was mychance. I tapped his back and cleared my throat. “Hey, can I go home now?”

He frowned at me. “Jeez. Being patient wouldn’t kill ya, you know?”

My anger boiled hotter.Fuck you.I smiled, forcing this polite expression, and pointed at the checklist he still held. “Sorry to interrupt.”Not.“But I’m expected at home.”

Rolling his eyes, he went through the list. Everything was done. Of course, it was. I might hate my jobs, but I did them well, trained for too long to be a perfectionist and people pleaser. The more perfectly I behaved, the more likely I wouldn’t annoy men—that was the unspoken lesson my parents taught me.

I exhaled in relief as I strode out of the bar.

Walking through this area of the city at almost two in the morning wasn’t a bright idea. I liked to think I had a decent amount of street smarts, but I wasn’t aware of my surroundings.

My feet ached, and my back was sore. In my mind, I calculated the tips I’d gotten today and I figured out how much I could try to keep and hide from my dad. Stuck in my head, I made the biggest mistake of all.

I didn’t notice the group of three men following me toward my car until it was too late. A sixth sense of feeling like I was being watched prompted me to look back, glancing over my shoulder.

They made eye contact, smiling with a predatory glee. Then as one, they ran after me.

“No!” I screamed it, terrified as I tried to sprint to my car. In my haste, I tripped and fell. Coins scattered from my apron as I dropped. Dollar bills sprayed out over the pavement.

Before I could register the burn and pain from tripping and falling, their hands were on me. Dragged off and silenced with a dirty hand over my mouth, I panicked.

Forget hating my life and feeling like I had no way out of it.

I had to suffer an even worse fate now.

3

ROMEO

Even though I spent all day working at the house, hauling out bags and bundles of ripped-out wallpaper, I wasn’t calling it a night yet.

Just like Franco and I decided, we would keep up with gathering intel for this war my father declared against the Giovanni Family and the Devil’s Brothers MC. So, by day, I avoided being idle by renovating that house. And by night, I met up with the spies I’d delegated to follow the bikers.

“I’m sorry I don’t have anything new to tell you,” Andy, one of my spies, said. He shrugged as he cradled a beer bottle between his hands. He was a bourbon drinker, but to blend in near this part of the city and stay undercover, he was trying to look more like a middle-class, blue-collar working man.

I sighed and shook my head. “No. It’s all right.” I sat up straighter, regretting that I might have pulled my back dragging debris and junk out of the house earlier. I was only thirty-one. I wasn’t old yet. But maybe I was overdoing it.

He chuckled, noticing my wince. “Work out too hard or something?” He smirked before taking a sip of his beer. “Like father, like son.”

I grunted a laugh. My father did enjoy working out a lot. He was so much of a gym junkie that he renovated and arranged for a state-of-the-art gym at the mansion. However, it seemed Nina also enjoyed exercising. I stopped going to work out there as often when I walked in on them getting a quickie in between reps.

I furrowed my brow, annoyed that I couldn’t shed this envy. I wanted that. I wished for that feeling of just fitting with someone so perfectly, but I doubted any such woman was made for me like that.

“I hope no news is good news,” Andy added. He’d been undercover spying on the Devil’s Brothers bikers for over a month now. Several others were always watching them. Together, they didn’t have much to report.

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