Step Bride: A Bad Boy Mob Roman(98)

It must have been true if I was in Liam’s safe house. Why did Liam have a safe house, anyway? Why did Liam have a gun, and how did he know somebody was trying to kill me?

Who was Liam Sullivan?

He hadn’t told me anything in the car. He was too busy driving fast through the narrow city streets. I had probably been in shock and didn’t press or ask him anything. I was probably still in shock. Frustrated with myself for not pressing him harder, I walked through the sparse living room and into the kitchen. Everything was drab and old, like it hadn’t been touched since the seventies. I opened the refrigerator and made a face: empty. My stomach grumbled, so I went through all of the cupboards and drawers. Everything was empty. It was like nobody lived there, and never had.

For a brief second, I felt a rush of panic, and I had to force myself to take a few deep breaths. I was in a safe house, which meant that it was probably only used in emergencies. It made sense that nothing was stocked here. He’d be back with something to eat.

I walked back out into the living room and collapsed onto the couch, trying to get my thoughts together. The only thing I knew for sure was that Liam had saved me from whoever that man had been. I wracked my panic-stricken brain, trying to remember exactly what the man had said. He claimed that the packages I saw getting dumped into the river were bodies, but I was having trouble connecting the two things. He said I called the cops, and that was why he had to kill me. That part made sense at least; when the cops showed up and more or less blew me off, he must have thought I was telling them something.

But I had no idea what they thought I knew. It was true that I saw the weird packages, but I had no clue what they were, let alone any interest in getting someone in trouble.

Another yawn rolled through me and I let it out. I had no clue what was wrong with me, but I felt sluggish and exhausted. Worse, I felt like I was forgetting something important. I looked down at myself and noticed for the first time that I was wearing oversized grey sweatpants and a thin, nearly see-through white cotton T-shirt. I must have looked like a hot mess, and I briefly wondered if Liam had noticed.

But that was insane. Who cared what I looked like? There was a man out there that wanted to kill me, and I was in hiding.

What was I forgetting?

I stretched out, and my limbs felt heavy. I closed my eyes for a second, just to rest them. Was that guy really going to kill me? The image of Liam holding his gun, smoke curling softly from its dark barrel, came back to me. The sound of the man’s pain as he hit the ground. The blood.

Everything felt so heavy.

––––––––

“Hey, wake up.”

I jolted upright with a gasp, my heart hammering in my chest. I was covered in sweat as I remembered him again, the gun pressed in my face, the way his entire body tensed. The certain knowledge that I was about to die, that a man was going to murder me in my own apartment, that my whole life was going to end and I would be dead and gone.

“Get the fuck away from me,” I said, panicking, kicking my legs out. I struggled to get away from him, my survival instincts taking over.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s me.”

I blinked, the dream slowly fading and reality taking its place. Liam sat on the coffee table in front of me, looking incredibly beautiful, but haggard and concerned. I stopped thrashing, taking deep breaths to calm myself.

“It was just a dream,” he said softly, hands out to steady me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, slowly sitting up.

My whole body throbbed, and the panic and fear from my dream lingered in my mind.

He nodded, his face a mask of worry. “You hungry?”

I nodded.

“You eat eggs?”

I nodded again, still trying to equalize myself.

“Okay. I’ll make you some.” He got up and walked into the kitchen.

I looked around the room, the confusion and disorientation slowly slipping away. It was the same sparse living room I had fallen asleep in: completely alien, and more than a little disquieting. But, apparently, it was safe.

I heard the sound of pots and pans banging and the refrigerator door opening and closing. I guessed Liam had gone to the store while he was gone. I stood and followed him into the kitchen. He cracked some eggs into a pot, cut off a knob of butter, and dropped it in with the eggs. I sat down on a chair and crossed my legs underneath me.

“I hope you don’t mind scrambled,” he said.

“That’s fine.”

He turned on the stove and placed the pot on a burner and began to gently whisk the eggs with a spatula.

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“Had some things to take care of.”

He took the pot off the heat and kept stirring it, working the eggs together with the butter. After a second of stirring, he put the eggs back on the heat, still stirring.