Page 32 of Text Me, Take Me

You mess with their heads. Guilt strangles me as I think of Evie. I need to focus.

He shrugs. “I’m just a man trying to do right by my organization. Let’s play it like this: you’ve got one week to give me fifty million, or things are going to get very bad for you.”

“Are you threatening me? If you know who I am, you understand what a terrible idea that’d be – for you, not me.”

“I disagree. I think you’re proud of your business. You’ve avoided contact with the mob for a long time for a reason. I think you’d prefer to end this peacefully, as would we. Fifty million, and your impressive business keeps its legitimate shine. And we leave Evie alone for the rest of her life. That’s a fair deal from where I’m standing.”

If it wasn’t for the video feed of that poor woman, I’d shoot him in the head right here. I’ve been around enough killers to know he’s not bluffing. He strikes me as a psychopath, seeing the woman as a tool. I believe he’ll let her live if I let him walk out of here. Not because it’s the right thing to do, but because killing her would no longer serve a purpose.

In my head, I hear Dad’s voice, his mobster’s tone gruff with impatience:Why do you care about some random woman? Just shoot him.

But when I left the mob, I swore I’d be better than that.

There’s no damn way I’m paying this man a single dime. With fifty mil, The Vultures could expand, become more than a two-bit gang. Drugs, trafficking, all kinds of nasty shit. I didn’t leave the mob just to fuel another criminal organization.

“I presume you want the payment in cash.”

He grins. “You presume correctly.”

“That’ll take me longer than a week. Closer to a month.”

“Pfft. I’ll give you ten days.”

“If you?—”

“Ten days,” he cuts in. “Or things get fucking bad very fucking fast for you.”

“You’re used to scaring people, to being the big bad wolf.”

“I have to assume, since you saved Evie like a wannabe knight in shining armor, you have some concern for her future.”

I try not to let my reaction show. It’d be so easy to leap across the desk, smash his teeth in, make him beg for mercy, for daring to use my Keepsake’s name.

“Before you do anything rash, I need to show you something else.”

He takes his phone from the desk, swipes, then shows me the screen. It’s a video taken from outside a diner. A biker pushes a satchel across the table to a younger Evie. The biker was clearly wearing a bug.

“I hope you know how important this package is,” the biker says.

Evie sounds resigned and depressed. I hate hearing her like that. “Just jewelry, right?”

“Nobody gives a damn about your sad hobby.” My chest tightens. Those bastards have no right to devalue her talent. “Explain to me why this is important.”

“There are drugs hidden inside the pieces. Do you think I’ve forgotten? I’m your pet, right? Yourmule. My job is to carry the drugs to the right place at the right time so that some innocent people can shoot it up their veins and maybe OD. Do you think I needreminding? God.”

“Watch your mouth.”

Mason aims a shit-eating grin at me. “I’ve got more videos like this.”

This is why Evie didn’t want me to call the cops. He’s holding this over her head, threatening to take her down with him. The sick fuck.

“Ten days,” Mason says, pocketing his cellphone. “If I see you in my rearview, Crystal gets a bullet in the head. If you were still in the mob, you wouldn’t care about that. But now that you’re anupstanding citizen, I have to assume you care.”

And he’s right, damn it. I do care. I’ve got enough on my conscious without adding an innocent woman’s life.

He backs up toward the door. “We’ll reach out. No tricks. A war with The Vultures might not scare you, big man, but how would you feel if the world learned that little angel Evie was a criminal?”

Once he’s gone, I spin, aiming my fist at the wall. I’m about to beat my office into rubble, but I stop myself. A tantrum won’t change anything.

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