Page 22 of Keep Me

My nostrils flare and my jaw ticks as I unclasp my watch and shove it into my pocket. I shoot her a glare that says there, happy now?

She smiles back and says through her teeth, “Get ready to leave.”

I watch curiously as she floats over to our target, drink in hand. “Hey, I’m so sorry to bother you, but do you have the time? My phone died.” Oh, so she does know how to ask nicely.

“Yeah, sure.” While he digs into his back pocket, Reggie looks at me with lifted brows and nods aggressively toward the door. I’m tempted to ignore her, just for the fun of it, to get under her skin just a little bit as much as she is under mine. But I’m more interested in seeing whatever she has planned play out, so I stand up, throwing some cash down on the bar.

He pulls his phone out. “Two-thirty—Ah, fuck!” He hollers as her paloma spills onto his phone as she leans over to look at the screen.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” She grabs the phone from him and starts frantically drying it with the hem of her shirt. She continues to spew apologies as she works the phone over in her hands before setting it on the bar in front of him, the dumbass June Harbor Pirates mascot grinning at me on the back of his phone case.

She rushes toward the door, and I catch up to her. She doesn’t look at me but speaks just loud enough for me to hear. “We have about two seconds before he realizes his case is missing a phone.”

I glance down at the stolen phone in her hand and breathe out a low chuckle. “Goddamn menace.”

1. Fistfight—The Ballroom Thieves

Chapter 12

Intentions

Reggie

“Here you go.” I slide back into Roan’s car, handing him the access pass for my apartment’s garage I just got from the leasing office. I figure there’s no rush to get a new car now that I have a personal chauffeur for the foreseeable future. He didn’t like it very much when I posed it that way.

He adheres the sticker to the windshield and grumbles. “This doesn’t make me your fucking chauffeur.”

“Whatever you say,” I singsong, still riding the high of stealing the phone. I turn it over in my hand as we pull into the garage and begin winding up the stories. He parks in a spot a few down from where the explosion went off, the cement above blackened with smoke and burning metals. There’s another car parked in the spot, like nothing ever happened.

“I wonder why the cops haven’t come to talk to me yet,” I wonder aloud.

“I took care of it.”

We get out, and I have to scurry to keep pace with his long strides. “What does that mean?”

“It means I took care of it.” Like everything Roan says, it’s clipped and flat, and I find myself groaning at the non-answer. He works his jaw, the muscles clenching like he knows he’s about to say something he wasn’t planning on sharing. He relents with a sigh. “Officially, it was a freak accident. Electrical problems paired with a faulty battery.”

“And unofficially?”

Roan places his hand on his weapon cautiously as we make our way through the doors connecting the garage and the apartment. “Unofficially,” he continues after scanning the empty hallway leading to my unit, “a few ATF agents won’t have to worry about their kids’ college tuition.”

“Generous. Any new intel on who set it?” I ask, shuffling behind Roan as he slips the key into my unit’s door.

“It’s unlocked,” he whispers coldly, his hand freezing on the knob. His other arm swipes out to flatten me against the wall next to the door. His expression instantly settles into one of a soldier: stoic, emotionless, alert. My heartbeat instantly rattles in my ears, adrenaline spiking as I suck in breaths through my nose.

“Don’t move. Unless you hear shots, then run.” He presses his phone into my shaking hand. “Call the first contact under favorites and someone you can trust will come for you.”

I nod fervently, and he dips his chin to pin me with his stony gaze. His hand reaches out for my cheek but stops an inch away, curling into a fist instead. “Got it?”

“Yes,” I breathe, and he nods, his eyes darting to my parted lips before refocusing on the door and drawing his gun. My stomach twists as he opens the door, my heart loud and pounding. Suddenly, I ache to feel his palm on my cheek, cursing myself for my stupid rules and wishing he’d broken them.

He moves in, and I brace myself for the gunfire, squeezing my eyes shut while waiting for the shots to start ringing. I rest my head against the wall and inhale deeply, filling my lungs in preparation to run.

“Jesus Christ,” I hear Roan exhale. I push off the wall to listen closer, confused.

A voice I instantly recognize follows. “Regenia?”

I pop my head around the corner. “Papá?”

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