OWN HER: A Dark Mafia Romance(183)

“I don’t know. It’s pretty nice,” Dante said. “I wouldn’t mind having one.”



“Well, then let’s send it over to Cortez and let him make sure it can’t be identified,” I told him. “But we can’t keep it hanging around the way it is.”



“Definitely. I already texted him,” Dante said.



“Has he said anything back?”



“Man, you know he just went to bed probably an hour ago.” He laughed.



“Yeah, probably, but we need to handle it as soon as we can,” I urged.



“Hey, boss.” Dante looked at me in the rearview.



“Yeah.” I met his gaze.



“Relax, man. We just went through a lot of shit yesterday, and we all need to chill out right now. That includes you,” he said. “So relax.”



I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to shut work off. I was always working. If I wasn’t at HQ or any of our chapters, I was on the phone or texting someone about work. If I wasn’t doing that, I was running through plans and actions in my head. Yes, we’d been through a lot. Yes, we had a lot to handle over the next week or two from fallout, but we had to be prepared to deal with all of the changes that were about to occur.



As the president of Hell’s Overlords, it was my duty to make sure we were prepared, so I let them have their peaceful silence. I looked out the window at the beautiful trees passing us by on the sides of the road. In my head, I was preparing checklists of what we needed to do to move forward.



At the top of my list was taking Sasha to her apartment tonight so we could start sorting her things out for the move. I was going to ask her to move in with me later, once we had some time alone, and I was pretty sure she was going to say yes.





Chapter 29




Sasha



While Cole was downstairs breaking all of the bad news to other members, mothers, widows, and former old ladies, I found myself back in the second floor bathroom. It was nice to see that the shower curtain had been put back on the rod over the tub, and the linen cabinet had been restocked as well.



I stared at my ratty hair and tired eyes in the bathroom mirror. I wanted nothing more than to crash in one of the bedrooms along the hallway, but I needed to patch myself up from all the glass and clean myself up from the grass and dirt along the side of the road. It had been a long night, and my body could still feel every minute of it.



I ached from head to toe. Muscles I didn’t know I had were in sheer agony. I alternated between hot and cold water on my face to stay awake. I couldn’t imagine what Cole was going through downstairs, having to tell everyone that their friends, sons, husbands, and lovers were dead.



I stripped down and turned on the hot water for the shower, getting it as hot as it would go. Once steam started to fill the bathroom, I knew it was hot enough to get in and wash the long night away. I had to keep moving. If I stopped moving, even to lie down after my shower, I knew that there were things that happened overnight that would haunt me. I wasn’t ready to face those things. I was still too fragile.



I took my time in the shower, letting the hot water run all over my body. The heat penetrated my tender, sore muscles. I felt every bruise I’d earned rolling around in the car when it flipped off the road. I should have been mad at Cole for taking such a reckless shot, but if he hadn’t, I would surely be dead by now. I wouldn’t have made it through the night. Fang had made that clear.



Knowing that I’d almost met my fate, the hot shower felt that much better. It was the first shower I’d taken alone in a while, but I needed to take this one alone. I needed to make sure I was alright before I tried to connect with anyone, especially the man who shot the only father I’d ever known, the father who was planning on killing me.



I leaned against the tile and breathed in the steam, letting the heat cure my insides the way it was my skin and muscles. I considered standing in the tub until Cole came to check on me, but after washing and rinsing my hair, I realized that it could take him a while to finish with the people downstairs.



I cut the water and listened to it drip in the tub as I grabbed a towel to dry off and wrap myself with. The silence in the bathroom was like the silence in the night. It quickly became deafening. Unable to take it, I opened the bathroom door and wandered to one of the rooms where I could lie down for a while and relax.



I kept the towel on, because I was horrible about packing clothes, but in my defense, I hadn’t planned on coming back to HQ after leaving Cole’s apartment with Fang and his goons. I was supposed to be picking up a new assignment.