Page 6 of Sweet Revenge

That made sense. But how the hell did she know that? “How am I alive?”

“Well, after she shot you, I heard the commotion and came running into the bakery.” She shrugged, like it was no big deal. Like she was my backup or some bullshit.

“You came running into a place where you heard gunshots?” I clarified.

“That’s right. I could see through the window that she’d gotten the jump on you. If I hadn’t, she would’ve shot you in the head, and you’d be dead.”

I wasn’t sure what to say in response to that. The obvious answer would be for me to thank her for saving my life, especially since she could’ve easily been killed in the process.

But I never went with the easy way in life. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

She arched an eyebrow. “No, you’re probably right. I shouldn’t have. But I did. I threw a tire iron at her, hitting her in the face, and she dropped her gun. I scooped it up and fired at her. I missed, though. You need to teach me to be a better shot if we’re going to continue to fuck around in this ridiculous world of danger where an ambush may lie around every corner. I suppose I should probably get in some target practice.”

“If?” She said that as if there were a choice. This was my life. If she didn’t want to be a part of it, well, I’d have to show her to the door.

Swallowing hard, I fought the voices in my head that said I wouldn’t be willing to do that, to give her up, and ignored what she’d just said about the future, concentrating on the past. “So it was Ragno’s sister? I wonder if your father sent her after me or if she came for me herself.”

Elisa shrugged. “It’s hard to say, but she won’t give up. Drake thinks we need to go someplace where we can lay low for a week or two.”

“We should probably find something less conspicuous to drive. My spaceship car was probably one of the reasons she was able to follow us so easily.” Had she been hanging out at the warehouses, just waiting for me to leave?

The more I thought about what had happened, the angrier I became at myself. Visions from that dream I’d had, the one where I was watching myself in the bakery, came back to me. God, I’d really fucked up. “I should’ve never let my guard down. For once in my life, I tried to do something nice, something normal, and this is where it gets me.”

Even though I wasn’t looking directly at her as I spoke, I saw her flinch with each word. I’d hurt her. I hadn’t meant to, but I wasn’t going to take it back now.

“It’s my fault,” she mumbled.

I looked over at her, an apology on the tip of my tongue, but it wouldn’t come out. Nothing I’d said wasn’t true, but I didn’t have to be so mean about it. It wasn’t as if Elisa had asked me to celebrate her birthday, a day that had obviously ended up being fucked up anyway. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is,” she insisted. Moonlight cast her white-blonde hair in an eerie glow. She looked almost like a ghost. “If I hadn’t gotten my ass kidnapped by Ragno in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to come and save me, and then you wouldn’t have killed him. She’s only after you because you killed her twin.”

“I would’ve killed his ass anyway.” Ragno had been sneaking around, gathering intelligence about me. Not just my family’s business but my personal shit. He’d been trying to get the Black Rabbit file, which I kept top secret from everyone, and he’d been responsible for sending the Latvian gang in to mess up our shipments and otherwise wreak havoc on our business. No, Ragno definitely needed to meet his maker, and I was more than happy to be the one to send him there.

“Well, if I hadn’t gotten you involved when Ragno kidnapped me, who knows how things might’ve turned out?” She bit down on her bottom lip, something I wanted to do, but I could hardly move, so getting frisky was out of the question.

Instead, I concentrated on the conversation at hand. “That’s not true, Elisa. Recently, I’ve made a lot of moves on my enemies. When you go around kicking hornets’ nests, you’ve gotta prepare to get stung in the ass. I’ve taken out a few of my father’s most loyal capos recently, not to mention the back and forth with your father and his men. He can say what he wants to about marrying my mother and trying to make peace, but we both know he’s out to get me.”

She took a deep breath, and I could hear a vibration in her voice as she let it go. “Yeah, well, I was supposed to be that peace offering, and I guess that didn’t quite work out the way he wanted it to. He expected me to get under your skin and make you divulge all your secrets to me so that I could turn around and inform him.”

I snickered. “You definitely did some of those things.” She’d gotten under my skin, that was for damn sure. And on it. The spot on my arm, where her face lay beneath the sheet covering me to the shoulders, began to itch as if it too longed for her touch.

“I don’t think I’ve figured out a single one of your secrets,” she said with a little smirk. “But even if I had, I sure the hell wouldn’t have told him.”

She knew more than she realized. Elisa was one of the most unassuming people I’d ever met, so even when she had gotten what she’d come looking for, she wouldn’t have recognized it. She wasn’t cut out for this sort of life. Not that she couldn’t hold her own. Damn, what I wouldn’t have given to be able to see her take on Raven. Especially the part about throwing the tire iron. Why couldn’t I have seen that part of the reenactment in my dream?

Her statements about lying low had my mind spinning. I had so much shit to do back at the warehouse, but at the moment, I wasn’t going anywhere. If I died, I wouldn’t be able to keep my family from falling into La Rosa hands.

“Do you have my phone?” I asked her, catching her off guard. Her eyes enlarged and then shrank back to normal size as she nodded and pulled the device out of her pocket. “Thanks.”

As I dialed Vin’s number, I wondered if she even had any idea where her phone was. How had she gotten us here? Did she have Drake’s number memorized?

My random thoughts were interrupted when the sound of my brother’s voice hit my ear. “Daemon, is that you, you son of a bitch?”

Despite the insult, I could tell he was worried. “It’s me.”

“Thank god, you asshole. Where the hell have you been? We thought you must’ve gotten killed, and whoever took you down stole the body—and your fucking car. What’s going on?”

I didn’t know how to answer all of his questions at once. “I got jumped by a bitch at the bakery. She sank a couple of bullets in my chest, but I’m all right. It was Ragno’s sister,” I told him. “Her name is Raven. Scary-looking bitch with a vendetta. Anyway, you guys need to keep an eye out for her. She may show up there.”

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