Page 50 of Femme Fatale
She snorted. "He used to say only idiots lose their coats in summer."
"He said a lot of things." I walked over to her, keeping my hands in my pockets to hide the tremor.
She finished the call, thumbed it off, and drained the glass in one motion. "I called the lawyer," she said. "Also, the fixers.They'll take care of the office and the other bodies. The cops will arrive in ten minutes, maybe less. We don't have much time."
I watched the liquid in her glass wobble, the ice chattering against the crystal. "I'm not staying," I said. "It's yours now. The money, the debts, all of it."
She smirked, but there was no joy in it. "I've been running this place for a year already. All you did was make it official."
"Good," I said, and meant it. "You deserved better."
She set the glass down hard. "We all did."
We stood there, two orphans in a suit of marble and glass, neither willing to admit how fucked up we were. I looked at her, really looked, and saw for the first time the woman she’d become. Hard, beautiful, brittle, and sick with the same poison that had twisted me. We were different, but cut from the same raw material.
"I don't want to do this anymore," she said, her voice a splinter. "Maybe we should just sell everything. Dump it all on some dumbass from Dubai and walk away."
"Sounds good," I said. "You think they'll buy it?"
She shrugged. "Vegas is full of rich men who want to pretend they're gods."
I nodded, then looked past her to the dark smear of blood trailing from the office. "What about the past?" I said. "You really think you can leave it behind?"
Simone traced a finger around the rim of her glass. "We can try. That's more than he ever did." She stepped closer, so close I could smell the sharp tang of her perfume and the burn of the liquor on her breath. "Are you going to be okay?"
It was the first time she'd ever asked me that. I could have lied. Maybe I should have. But the pain in my side was honest, and for once, I decided to match it.
"No," I said. "But I will be. I think."
We stood like that for a long moment, the silence hanging heavy. I wanted to tell her about Selene, about how she made me feel alive even when we were fucking each other to pieces. But I didn't know how to explain it. Not to someone who'd only ever known love as a liability.
So I just said, "I met someone. She's… different."
Simone raised an eyebrow. "Selene?"
I grinned, and it split my lip. "Yeah. She's trouble. But she makes me want to live."
For the first time all night, Simone smiled. Not the cold, court-mandated version, but the real thing, the one from when we were kids and still believed in running away together. She reached up and ruffled my hair, and I let her, even though it hurt.
"Go find her," she said. "Don't let this place eat you alive."
I nodded, and she pulled me in, hard, for a hug. We weren't a hugging family, but it felt right. We held on until it hurt, and then a little longer. When we broke apart, there were tears in her eyes, and I felt something warm drip down my own cheek. I didn't wipe it away.
And then we shared a kiss the way we did when we were teenagers, when we only had each other because nobody else wanted either of us with a father like Jack Smalls. The kiss was warm, deep, and passionate because, back then, we were our greatest teachers.
I turned to leave, then hesitated. "What about the lawyer?" I said.
She grinned, showing a mouthful of wolf. "He works for us now."
I grabbed my jacket from the coat hook, ignoring the blood stains. I shrugged it on, and every inch of my torso screamed. But I walked out anyway, into the neon and the smoke and the chaos of the Strip. Behind me, the sirens were closer, maybethree blocks out, the red-and-blue bounce already lighting up the sky.
I didn't look back. I never did.
Instead, I limped toward the only place in Vegas that had ever felt like home, knowing she'd be waiting, knowing she'd probably punch me for making her worry. Knowing, for once, that I wanted to survive whatever came next.
Maybe even enough to deserve it.
Chapter Fourteen
