Page 6 of Hushed

God damn it. Calling now was a terrible idea. Kenzie would torture herself with worry until he arrived. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words over the phone.

“I’ll be there in three and a half hours. Send me your address and I’ll explain when I get there.”

He hung up before she asked about her brother again. There was no way he was giving her this news without being able to see her face.

When the train pulled into New York City a few hours later, Gage found himself grateful he’d listened to Peter. At least on the train, he was able to get up and walk the aisles when he got restless.

He hated not being in control of the vehicle taking him somewhere, but Peter was right that it was safer than trying to take his truck in his current mental state.

Now for the task of getting to Kenzie’s apartment. Judging from the address, she lived in a sketchy part of town. Why would Reggie put up with her living there? He had the money to make sure she had better living arrangements. Gage would be fixing that as soon as possible.

He considered the subway, but that meant too many bodies crammed into a tin can. So, he hailed a taxi. It was going to take an hour to get to her even though she wasn’t too far from the train station.

Stupid New York traffic.

He would definitely kill some idiot pedestrian with his truck if he’d driven. No way Gage would ever admit to Peter that he was right, though.

When the taxi pulled up in front of the rundown apartment complex, Gage’s stomach twisted with worry and disgust. He couldn’t stand the idea of her staying in this place for one more night. In fact, he was determined to get her out by any meansnecessary. Even if it meant he had to hire movers for her stuff while he carried her kicking and screaming from the building.

There was no elevator, so he climbed the stairs to the third floor where her unit was, growing angrier about her living situation with every step. With a calming breath, he raised his fist and knocked on her door. Two other doors in her hallway cracked open at the sound, and he could see the eyes and noses of neighbors peering out to check out the visitor on their floor. He ignored them and knocked again a little louder this time.

“She’s probably got those fancy headphones of hers on,” an old woman said, opening her door a little wider. “She usually has the delivery people text her.”

He scowled and pulled out his phone, giving the woman a curt nod of thanks.

GAGE:Answer your damn door.

The door flew open, and Gage stared. Part of him was expecting an awkward teenager to greet him. But a gorgeous creature of a full-grown woman stood there glaring up at him.

She wore her dark brown hair in a chin-length bob, and her lips were coated in a bold red lipstick. Smudged eyeliner and mascara suggested it was yesterday’s makeup, and she’d only taken time to refresh her lips, but it still looked sexy as fuck. The dark denim jeans she wore hugged her thick hips and showed off shapely legs. Her tank top stretched across ample cleavage that practically spilled out the top of the shirt, and he averted his gaze, forcing himself to look beyond her and into the messy apartment behind her. He had to remember why he was here.

She pulled a pair of expensive headphones off her ears and let them rest around her neck.

“You’re really here. I was starting to think I’d hallucinated that phone call.”

Gage frowned. “You have reason to believe you’d hallucinate?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not doing drugs, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You gonna invite me in?”

As much as he was enjoying her sassy, sarcastic responses, he had to do what he came here to do. Reggie would absolutely murder him for having inappropriate thoughts about his sister anyway.

“Yeah. Come on in.”

He stepped into the apartment and shut the door as he looked around.

“You shouldn’t wear headphones when you’re home alone. It would have been so easy to bust through that door and snatch you before you ever heard a sound,” he scolded. She ignored him, and he didn’t push because he was too busy counting all the things wrong with this place.

The cramped studio apartment resembled a chaotic tech lab rather than a living space, with two desks overflowing with gadgets and expensive equipment dominating what would have been the living room. There had to have been ten thousand dollars or more in tech sitting out in the open. A dining room table sat near the desks covered in a collection of gadgets, trash, and dirty dishes. A bed sat tucked into one corner near the dingy bathroom and based on the mountain of clothing and other belongings on it, the sheets had likely gone unchanged for weeks. The kitchen barely qualified as a kitchen, and she clearly didn’t clean up often. Not that cleaning up would have made it look much better. The sink overflowed, and every cabinet in the place was open.

Gage’s horror amplified, the more he looked around the small space. The locks were flimsy, and the windows didn’t even have bars on them. The fire escape near the main window would provide easy access to any intruder who wanted her equipment. And since she didn’t have her curtains closed, there was nodoubt someone staring at them through binoculars at this very moment, planning to rob her blind.

“Why the hell do you live here?” he blurted, unable to keep quiet anymore.

Her laugh was incredulous, as she stared at him with arms folded across her chest, making her cleavage even more fucking noticeable. “Have you seen rent prices in this city?”

He waved his hand at the overflowing desks. “You clearly have enough money to afford all these gadgets.”

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