When I was an addict, I was powerless. I was weak and I would do anything to get a bump when I needed one. I was out-of-control fucked up most of the time, and I had no power to change it. Until, one day, I woke up alone in a strange apartment, my bra and panties missing, as flashes of the night before slowly came back to me. Gyrating on the stage, slowly stripping out of my clothes, people throwing money at me; later, stumbling around, getting higher, and, finally, the dude that actually helped me, for once in my miserable life. He dressed me and let me crash at his place. If I couldn’t even fend for myself anymore, I was practically dead. At least that’s what he had said to me the next morning, the only guy I ever trusted with all of my problems, Noah Carterson.
So I refused to be powerless anymore. Sure, I gave myself over to the program, worked all the steps and kept going to meetings, but it was through my own ability to take action that I figured anything out. I had trouble getting close to people, since I had been taken advantage of so many times when I was a disgusting, fucked-up mess, but at least I was finally living the life that I wanted to live.
At least I was until some mobsters decided they wanted to murder me.
I walked back downstairs, practically shaking with worry, and dropped back down on the couch. I didn’t know what to do; there really wasn’t anything I could do, other than wait. I had to practically physically force myself to stay seated, my jaw clenched and my hands gripping the cushion.
Worst-case scenarios kept running through my mind. If he was dead, I was probably fucked, too. Maybe they already knew where the safe house was, and they were on their way with huge men who wanted nothing more than to shoot me down. Or maybe he had decided that I wasn’t worth his time or his loyalty or his life, and he was turning me into his boss and begging for mercy. That last part didn’t seem like him, actually; I could imagine him cursing the guy out and killing me himself, but never begging.
As the thoughts swirled around my mind, I heard something scratching against the front door. I froze, terror in my chest, as the doorknob slowly turned. The door pushed open; I clenched my jaw, waiting for the guns to follow.
Instead, it was a green cardboard box, with Liam lugging it.
“Liam!” I yelled, jumping up from the couch.
“Hey—” he said, but it was cut off as I practically tackled him.
The box fell to the ground and papers spilled out of it as I wrapped my arms around his strong chest, his perfectly ripped body, and pushed myself against him. I wasn’t crying, couldn’t cry, wouldn’t let him see how weak I was, but I needed to feel him. I was desperate for him.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, wrapping his arms around me. “It’s fine. I’m sorry I’m late.”
I looked up at him. “I was worried, asshole.”
He grinned. “Miss me?”
“Only because you’re the only person I can see right now.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.”
That was the cocky man I was used to. Slowly, I disengaged from him, and it felt like I was giving up a life preserver in the middle of a stormy ocean. I looked down at our feet, at the papers all over the floor.
“What’s this?”
“That’s our ticket out of this fucking shit.”
I nudged the papers with my foot. “Looks like nothing.”
He bent over and began to shovel it all back into the box, and I helped. When we were finished, he hoisted it up again, shutting the front door and locking it.
“Doesn’t look like much, but it is.”
He walked upstairs, and I heard him toss the box into one of the empty rooms. I followed him up, leaning against the doorframe as he pulled the lid off and began to spread the pages out on the floor gingerly, like they were some sort of precious treasure. I made a face at him.
“Never pictured you as a paper pusher,” I said.
“I’m not, or not usually, at least. I do some financial stuff for the bosses, or at least I used to back before Colm took charge. I guess they saw how successful my business was and wanted someone with half a brain to do this shit for them.”
That surprised me a little bit. I didn’t picture him as the type to be good with money. Maybe good at getting it and spending it, but investing and accumulating are two very different things.
“So that’s what, bank statements?” I walked into the room and peered over his shoulder.
“Yeah. Some of them are. Some of this stuff is useless. But buried in here somewhere is exactly what we need.”
“What are you going to do, blackmail them or something?”
“Something like that,” he murmured.
He was so fucking frustrating. All day I waited for him to come back, all day I was cooped up in this shitty safe house with only the crappy books he brought me, plus the television. And now that he’s back, all he wants to do is go through his papers. I knew it was important, but at the least he could include me, maybe tell me was what going on. Instead, more fucking mysteries.