Page 54 of Bishop

Maybe she has redeeming qualities after all.

Maybe she has too many.

While she’s in the bathroom I make her an alternate drink, leaving the mug of hot chocolate on her bedside table. I’m about to walk from her room when she pads in from the hall, a towel heaped upon her head, her modesty barely covered by a ruby satin chemise.

Thin straps hug her shoulders, the deep neckline exposing a fuck-ton of lush cleavage along with a completely unrestricted view of the injuries along her neck—the bruising, the aging scar.

“Did you decide to go through my things again?” She continues toward me, stopping a few feet away at the end of the bed. She removes the towel from her head, her hair disheveled and damp as it topples to her shoulders, the ends brushing the curves of her tits.

This moment shouldn’t resemble the start of a porno, but it does, and my brain isn’t the only organ to take notice.

She’s too attractive for her own good. Too tempting despite the shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.

“Hot chocolate,” I mutter, moving around her to stalk for the door. “I thought the least I could do is meet you halfway.”

“Is it safe to drink?”

I pause at the threshold, despising the birth of her self-preservation when it’s barely existed before. “It’ll help you sleep.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

No, it doesn’t. And for good reason.

I continue into the hall without another word.

I shower, jerking off like an old perve to the image of ruby satin fabric, dark bruises, and tangled hair. It’s not that I’m into her. Hell no. I need the fucking increase in my pulse to keep me awake, the gratification more of an exercise in punishment than pleasure.

The sooner Abri pulls her shit together and gets out of here, the better. I helped her because no one else could, but surely my shift is up.

I’ll give her one more day. Maybe two. Then she’s her brothers’ problem.

I need to get back to Virginia Beach. To Langston. I have my own businesses to manage. My own crazy shit to contend with due to Salvatore taking over from Lorenzo.

I dress in a fresh suit. Re-strap my throwing knives to my ankles and the switch blade to my wrist. Shove my gun into the holster at my back—a new gun from my bedroom closet safe. One that isn’t waterlogged thanks to Abri’s theatrics yesterday morning. Then I leave the bathroom, planning to casually pass her bedroom on the way to mine. But her closed door gives me pause.

No sound comes from the other side, and after thirty-plus hours listening to her on the phone, the silence is eerie. There’s no glow of light under her door either.

I should keep walking.

I should.

But my palm finds the door handle and slowly turns it.

I push inside, the light from the living area filtering down the hall and onto her bed to gently illuminate her sleeping under the sheet.

“Abri?” I keep my voice low.

She makes a faint noise, a whimpered acknowledgement, as I enter her room.

Her cell rests on the pillow beside her head. One hand is protectively placed over the damage to her neck. But she doesn’t wake. She’s out cold.

She drank the hot chocolate even though she had to have assumed it was spiked.

Does that mean she trusts me? Or were the sedatives what she wanted to quiet her frantic mind?

I walk to her side of the bed to peer down at her, the quiet beauty of her slumber spoiled by the violent bruising tattooed to her smooth skin.

Finch needs to suffer.

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