Page 4 of Curse

I watch as she wobbles on the rocky ground, and I glance down at her feet. Who wears heels out here? Someone not from here, that’s who, which is why I have to get to her and figure out why she’s here before she fucks everything up.

She looks dazed as she heads down to the water. Something about her is familiar to me. I can’t place it, but she resembles someone I know. And not someone I like.

I check to see if people are watching, what kind of cover I have, and weigh my options. I could snatch her, drag her behind her car, and figure out what she wants before anyone else sees her. There are a lot of people around, but they’re busy, and if she’s not from here, they’re not expecting her.Still, it’s risky and potentially unnecessary.

Usually, I’d say it is better to be safe than sorry—‘safe’ being the option to throw her in my trunk until I can find out more about her—but I don’t know whose territory I’m in or who she is.

Orwhoseshe is.

As I’m working through my options, I watch her move past me toward the dock. She doesn’t see me, and I fall in behind her. Her ass is phenomenal, the way the waistband of her jeans dips low enough below the hem of her shirt to show the edge of her black lace thong, the denim hugging her curves.

If she were mine, there’s no way I’d allow her to look so fucking edible in public.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

She spins around, and it’s impossible to get a read on her. She looks angry, startled, but also… sad. Cocking her head to the side, she shields her eyes from the sun, assessing me.

Something about the curve of her neck steals my attention. Her sweater is gaping at the shoulder, and I can see a hint of black lace beneath. My dick moves, and I clench and unclench my fists, telling myself to stay focused.

“Speak.”

She doesn’t like that. I stifle a laugh as her big brown eyes narrow in anger, and her lips twitch into a sneer. She’s sexy without trying, and seeing her angry makes me want to piss her off more, just to see the reaction I get.

But the fact that she’s irritatingly familiar makes me wary.

“Who the fuck areyou?” she asks, jutting her hip out to the side and licking her lips.

I glower at her, bored with the conversation. “I’m the one who’s in charge here. What. Do. You. Want.”

My vague answer is purposeful. Maybe she’ll believe I’m law enforcement, FBI, something like that. I’m not sure if she’s buying it, because she doesn’t calm down at all.

Good. That’s fine, too. If her anger means I get a reaction, then she might spit out who she is and why she’s here. And I can get her the fuck out.

Then it hits me.

There’s something about her that looks like that fuck, Franco Bellamorte, the guy we call the Tricycle Cop behind his back because he’s such a dumb fucking douchebag.

Franco is the kind of guy who watches too much TV and thinks it would be cool to be mobbed up. Most of the time, when he’s talking to you, he’s acting out some play in his head instead of staying focused on whatever dumbass errand we send him on.

The woman squirms under my gaze but keeps a scowl on her face. “In charge of what, exactly?”

I gesture impatiently toward the lake without taking my eyes off her. “I don’t have time for questions. If you don’t have any business here, you need to get in your car and go back where you came from.”

It would be too easy if she just listened to me and did what she was told. I bite back a smirk. I wouldn’t mind punishing her for being the little brat she is. Forcing her into submission would be a much more interesting way to spend the day than what I’ve got planned.

We’ve had feelers out on the streets for days now trying to track Mikey down, and when we heard about this plane crash, my boss, Aurelio Demonio, sent me down to check it out. He’s especially interested in tracking down one particular item that Mikey took with him when he went on the run. It’sa wild goose chase in the best of circumstances, and trying to search through the wreckage of a waterlogged plane crash surrounded by cops is not the best of circumstances.

If this woman is connected to Franco, is she down here for the same reason?

Mikey is Franco’s brother-in-law, married to Franco’s sister, and as I survey the woman in her tight red top that makes her tits look like two ripe cantaloupes, I freeze.

Holy shit. Is this Franco’s sister? Mikey’s wife? Is she down here looking for Mikey?

I scrutinize her more carefully. She doesn’t appear to have just survived a plane crash, so she must not have been on the plane. But why else would she be here? How would she even know to be here?

The woman spins on her heel awkwardly in the dirt and starts making her way down to the lake.

Fuck. A worried wife, who knows what she’ll say? I should have grabbed her when I had the chance. She’s too close to the dock now; people have seen her, and it’s too late to throw her in the car and disappear.

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