Ten out of ten for idiocy, Liv.
“Get in the car, Pyro.” He breaks eye contact to stare at my attacker. “I’ve got this under control.”
“Are you going to kill him?”
The bouncer whimpers.
“You’ve already made it clear that’s not something you want to witness,” Remy mutters.
I nod, numbly. Thankful, yet oddly hollow.
My attacker deserves something. Punishment. Revenge. Maybe a few broken fingers. But the thought of asking for that sits in a pool of rapidly building bile in the pit of my stomach.
I walk away, passing the cars I dawdled by on the way out of the elevator, back to the vacant spots where the Bentley idles at an odd angle between two parking spaces, as if Remy braked in a hurry.
His driver’s door remains open—the one where the woman escaped from, too.
I take her place and pull the door shut behind me, my lungs filling with exquisite floral notes of jasmine.
I shove my trembling hands under my thighs to stop the chill from taking over, but also to stop myself from fidgeting as Remy pulls the bouncer to his feet and relays something I can only hear in partial snarls and biting tones.
I’ve made a huge mess into something bigger. Something more traumatic.
A lifetime’s worth of therapy won’t help to dig my way out of this.
I scoff.
Therapy isn’t even an option with the list of illegal activities I’d need to lay bare.
Remy says something else to my attacker, then smirks, the expression sickeningly threatening. He returns his gun to the back of his waistband and stalks toward me, his temperamental composure seeming woven together with menacing danger and threatening volatility.
I hold my breath as he climbs into the car, the small space shrinking with his large frame, his presence taking up my entire world.
He turns on the ignition, shoves the car into reverse, then hits the gas hard enough to have me jolting forward as the vehicle lurches backward.
I cling to the sides of my seat as tires screech and the parking lot speed limit is ignored.
He’s angry. His hostility clogs the air. Coats my skin.
I shudder with a violent shiver and finally the car slows, pulling onto the road outside in a somewhat normal pace.
“You’re in shock.” Remy reaches for the console and turns up the heat. “Let me know if it gets too hot in here.”
I nod, and nod, and nod, the jerky movement on autopilot as the city street stretches in front of me. People continue to line up alongside the club, energetic, cheerful, and oblivious to my attack.
I’ve never felt more alone.
Remy takes a turn down a bustling road. Then another. Finally, he pulls to a stop behind traffic banked at a red light.
“You heard what Lorenzo said.” His eyes turn to mine. “Why would you risk going to my club?”
“I needed to speak to you.”
“Then speak,” he demands. “What was so important that you’d follow a stranger into an isolated parking lot?”
“In all fairness, I didn’t know he was taking me to the parking lot. He told me he was taking me to see you.”
“And with everything you’ve learned about me, you still took in that information, digested it, and thought, yeah, this shady-as-fuck piece of shit sounds legit?”