Page 94 of The Kingpin's Call Girl

“I’ve been dictating.” It’s definitely weird that I haven’t shown the injury to her yet, but you can still see the bruises from Bender’s handprint on my skin.

“Don’t forget to keep icing it,” she says.

“Got it.”

She fills her overnight bag with every toiletry possible, and then her phone pings for the limo. “Feel free to finish the carrot cake.”

“Carrot cake activate! Have fun!”

She does ironic pistol hands at me, and then she’s off.

I spend the afternoon and into the evening curled up in an overstuffed chair in the fourth-floor study lounge, legs hanging sideways over the arm, feet clad in the colorful socks Odetta knit for me, trying to first predict what questions might pop up on my Indo-European language exam and formulating answers to them and then search for sources in the Digital Library of the Medieval Manuscripts.

School isn’t that hard if you stay ahead.

But I can’t stop thinking about the big meeting. Sometimes I search for mentions of arrests in that part of the Bronx. There’s been nothing, which is a relief.

It’s not impossible.

I think about being back with Luka that night in his hotel room. He’s standing, swaying slightly at the foot of the bed, beastly and desperate to fuck. I loved him like that.

I’m spreading salve over his back, caring for him with every stroke. Docile for once. I loved him like that, too.

And then he rejects me so totally the next morning. And it hurt so badly.

Could Bender be right? He took away the phone to take away the temptation?

Every time my phone makes a sound, I’m paranoid it’s Bender calling or texting to let me know that Luka is at the restaurant and that I have to go there—or else.

Luka is bound to show up at the restaurant at some point. And then I’ll need to go over like a needy stalker and get his hair and more information—or else.

In what world is that even possible for me to do?

It’s like I’m trapped in a dark maze with no way out, and there are trapdoors hidden all over.

Yes, I’d love to see him again. Just not like that.

But then I realize if the worst-case scenario happens and Luka is at the restaurant and Bender makes me go... all I need is the name of a language and one human hair. Just one tiny human hair. Bender would have no way of knowing who I got the hair from.

Right?

One simple question. One strand of hair. And my sister could be coming home.

During a study break, I spin through outpatient drug rehab programs in the area.

Odetta already said it would be okay for Mary to stay with us for a couple of days, and she would stay with Chad. It seems like a dream to have Mary with me in the residence hall. I’d feed her and pamper her. Connect her with whatever support and resources she needs. I’m under no illusions about the rough road in front of her. I’d help her find a roommate while I finish my master’s.

It could happen.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

EDIE

It takes me forever to get to sleep because the students on the floor above are blasting music, and the bass is thudding like a heartbeat in my skull. It doesn’t help that at any moment, Bender could call, and I’d have to race across town to face Luka again.

A man whose face I still search for in crowds.

A man whose voice echoes in my dreams.

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