“I bet you also love the fact that you don’t have to pay Darren now.”

“I do. Makes life easier, but I never gave a shit about the money, and I think we both know that.”

I poked my lower lip up, tugging at it. The way he stared at it, like he wanted to catch it between his teeth, suck the rain from it, and bite it until it bled, made heat spread in my lower belly.

“You mean, you didn’t care about the money so much, you signed a contract to make me your little toy project for six months?”

“That was before.”

“Yeah, welcome to the ‘after.’ Sucks to be here, right?”

It wasn’t until we made it to the second floor of the building, standing in front of Gail’s door, that he spoke again. He looked broken, and I hated to see him like that. It made no sense at all. So many people had ruined me—him included—and yet, seeing him suffer, seeing his emerald eyes turning droopy and miserable, made me want to stab my own chest with a fork. What the hell was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I let him go the way I had Pam and Darren?

“Emery, Nolan, and Henry are popping in for a vacation,” he said.

My fist hovered over Gail’s door, and I halted. I wanted to push Bane into the hallway and slam the door in his face, but his words made me stop. I swiveled slowly, my mouth curving in disgust.

“How do you know?”

“I have eyes and ears everywhere. Especially when it concerns you.”

“This McMafia stuff is not impressing me, Roman. Sorry to disappoint.”

Plus, I was the one that lured them into town, I thought about adding, but didn’t. I only trusted one person in this operation, and that person was me.

“I’m not trying to control you; I’m trying to fucking save you,” he growled, pushing me against the door with a soft thud. He boxed me in with his arms, his forehead dropping to mine. We were both wet and shivering, our breaths heavy and charged. Our hair stuck together, and I loved that we were yin and yang. Him, blond and whole and hidden by ink. Me, black-haired and broken and clean. He locked my chin between his fingers and tilted my head up. His eyes were hard and soft, honey-edged and flinty green. Cunning, like a snake’s. But the way they looked at me, like I mattered, disarmed me. He pressed his lips to mine, and we stayed like that, in half a kiss, half a breath, for a few seconds before I pulled away and cupped my mouth.

“Don’t touch Emery, Henry, and Nolan,” I said.

“Like fuck I won’t. I’m going to end the bastards,” he snarled. My phone beeped in my hoodie’s pocket. I pulled it out. It was Pam. She was on her tenth text message to me today. We were supposed to have a meeting with Darren’s lawyer about the will. I wanted to drag it out for as long as I could before finally informing her that she was back to being dirt-poor. God bless prenups.

I thought that it was poetic justice that she didn’t get to keep the thing she’d chosen over my happiness and mental health. Money.

I sent the call to voicemail and looked up at him.

“I have a plan,” I said.

“Fill me in.”

I shook my head. “It’s mine.”

He furrowed his brows. “Who the fuck are you, Jesse Carter?”

“I’m the girl I need to be to save myself.”

He clasped my arms in his hands, pinning me to the door. I wanted so badly to forgive him, to fall right into bed with him, to be in his arms. Safe. Sound. Protected. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Bane was capable of giving me all the things the new Jesse needed. I wouldn’t have to work hard for my justice. He would bring the prey to my doorstep, like a loyal, skilled hunter.

But I wanted messy. Bloody. I wanted wonky and imperfect. I wanted to drag them into justice my way, even if it lacked his force and finesse.

I rose on my tiptoes, darting my tongue and licking the outline of his Cupid’s bow lips. He stopped breathing, his eyes hard on mine, so engrossed in the moment he couldn’t even close them to enjoy what I was doing.

“No.” He pulled away.

“No?” I raised an eyebrow.

He shook his head. “You wanna kiss me, you do it fucking right.”

His lips crushed down on mine, and before I knew it, he’d reached down, grabbing the back of my thighs and hoisting me up to wrap my legs around his waist. We were frantic, desperate. He shoved his tongue into my mouth, and I felt like he was filling me with much more than a kiss. With hope and with desire and with the ability to see the world a little brighter. He ground the bulge in his cargo pants against my clit, and I let out a muffled moan. We wrestled against Gail’s door as my hands dug into his shirt and traced his glorious six-pack while he, once again, fucked me with our clothes on. I heard Gail from the other side of the door, about to unlock it and open up, before everything went silent, and she let out a yawn.

“Oh.”

“What’s up?” She was talking to someone on speakerphone. Beck?

“Nothing. Jesse and Bane are fucking against my door.”

“Yet the dipshit still ain’t taking my calls.” Yup. Beck. “Can you slip him a note for me?”

“Hard no, Woody.” She called him Woody? How had I not noticed it before? Oh. Right. I’d been too busy trying to get Bane to touch me.

“Think they’re back together?”

“Who knows?” Gail chuckled, her slippered feet descending back to the living room. Roman groaned into my mouth, squeezing my ass tight with one hand while finding his way into the waistband of my jeans with the other. My fingers and toes curled in delight, heat gathering in my belly. He found my clit and toyed with it. Pinched it, flicked it with his thumb, and rubbed it between his two fingers like he was going to light it on fire.

“Missed you.” He stamped my mouth with another searing kiss. Overlapping sensations of complete abandon and odd empowerment zinged through me.

And love. The kind of love that made me feel immortal.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” I growled into our kiss, rubbing into his big palm with my groin. “I still hate you.”

“I know,” he said, his mouth filling mine with the fresh taste of rain and cinnamon. We were grinding against each other in a rhythm that belonged to us, no one else’s, in the kind of chemistry you couldn’t fake or stage, like two pieces of an elaborate puzzle that only had one place: right next to each other.

“But I’m here for you, Snowflake. I’ll be sitting on the sidelines cheering for you because you’re the strongest girl I know, but I’ll also be there if you need me. Needing someone wouldn’t make you any less strong, Jesse. It would just make you human.”

I planted one last kiss on his nose before I slid down the door and stood up, his hard-on between us, nearly poking out of his cargo pants, the air saturated with what we’d just done. I took a deep breath, tilting my chin up.

“You gonna leave me like this?” He cupped his junk.

“How else would I leave my enemy?” I asked.

“Spent,” he deadpanned. I shook my head and pushed the door open, hearing him taking a step back behind me.

“I can’t wait to fuck the old Jesse.” He sucked his teeth. “She seems like a fighter.”

“Stay out of my shit, Protsenko.”

But he was already going down the stairs, laughing like a maniac.

THE NEXT MORNING, I PULLED a pillow over my face and ignored the alarm clock yelling at me that I had a shift at Book-ish in an hour. Gail breezed into my room. Well, her room, really. We were sharing her queen-sized bed without any trouble, other than that first night where she’d told me she found it gross to sleep next to a person who’d been in bed with Bane Protsenko.

“It’s like secondhand smoking, but with prostitution.” She’d pretended to gag. Secretly, I was happy I could still laugh about it and still remember how to breathe.

I knew that I needed to remove myself from Gail’s apartment at some point, because Gail was too nice to kick me out, but decided to deal with the situation only after I’d dealt with Emery and his friends. One thing at a time. That was perhaps the only motto Mayra had taught me that had actually stuck.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.” Gail splashed down on the bed, lacing her black tattered Chucks. I peeked at her from under the pillows, my eyebrows pinched.

“Hi.”

“Have fun spreading STDs on my front door yesterday?”

“I think we missed a spot or two. Might revisit it tonight,” I grumbled.

“Yeah. I don’t care. I didn’t come here to hear about Bane’s dick. That shit should have its own Wikipedia by now. I’m here to tell you that your mom’s downstairs.”

That made me jump out of the bed and fling away the blanket. I charged for my Keds, tightening the laces like they’d wronged me somehow. My hair was a mess, and my breath still had that after-make-out aroma—a little dry, a lot horny. I shot Gail a look from behind her shoulder.

“How does she know I’m here? Did you have another slip of the tongue, like with Bane?” I immediately regretted the uncalled-for comment. Gail owed me nothing, and it really had been an honest mistake on her part. “Sorry,” I muttered, untangling my hair with my fingers and taking a sip of water from a bottle discarded on the floor. Gail fell onto her bed and flicked chipped black nail polish from her nails.

“I didn’t talk to her. I came back from the grocery store, and she was there, hanging out and asking questions. You really know how to channel people’s inner creepers, know that, Carter?”

I didn’t put it past my mom to have hired a PI to find where I was. I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl in Gail’s kitchen and jogged downstairs to face The Wicked Witch of the West. She was wearing sunglasses the size of Cyprus and enough Prada to open a store. Her hair was newly bleached, and she looked about as mournful as I looked like a Hula girl. I dug one hand into the pocket of my black hoodie and took a juicy bite of the apple, leaning against the entrance of Gail’s building. Last I’d directly spoken with Pam, she’d been flailing in the pool, spitting water. I doubted this was a social call.