Page 55 of Dangerous Obsession

Thanks to Marigold.

Crunch. He took another huge bite.

Their reunion couldn’t come soon enough.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Gregslouchedinthefront seat of his car, pissed and pouting because he was stuck staring at a stupid store. He’d been sitting there for almost two hours, and the most exciting thing that happened was a big brown delivery van rolled up to the curb and the driver ran a box inside. So, just to mess with Cliff, he’d taken a picture and sent it to him. Other than that, the only other people he saw were four women who walked into the place at different times, then left after a while. The annoying sound of the bells on the door was loud enough he could hear them all the way across the street, every single time someone went in or out of the place.

“This is total bullshit.” He shifted and wrestled his phone out of the front pocket of his hoodie.

He swiped and tapped the screen to open up one of his games. After getting killed and having to go all the way back to the beginning, he finally made it through to the final stage. He was just about to beat the grand wizard and win the golden chalice when he heard the stupid bells again.

He paused his game, lifted his head, and gave his eyes a moment to adjust before he looked over at the boutique.

“Holy shit.” Greg shifted up in his seat for a better look.

The prettiest girl he’d ever seen in his life was standing on the sidewalk in front of the store. Her hair was a sort of soft brown color, and it was long and straight, just the way he liked it. A woman with curly, dark brown hair stood next to her, and they appeared to be talking as they pointed at the front window.

The door swung open, and three dudes walked out of the store. Two of them were jacked and tall as fucking trees. The other one was older and super, like, distinguished-looking or whatever.

They chatted with the lady and the girl, then the guys all started shaking hands.

“Shit.” Greg fumbled his phone, and it dropped at his feet.

He dragged his fingers across the floorboard until he got hold of it and opened the camera. He snapped a couple of shots of the group just before the old guy and the big dude with the long, dark hair walked over and climbed into a sweet, black Range Rover and drove off.

“Shit, that ride costs like a hundred grand.” Greg checked the photos. One was out of focus, so he deleted it. In the other one, the woman with the curly hair had her back to him and you couldn’t see her face. “Whatever.”

He opened his text stream with Cliff and, with awhoosh, sent him the photo.

When he glanced up again, the last dude was holding the door open for the woman as she disappeared inside. Greg lowered the phone.

“Bummer.” He’d wanted to get a better picture of the pretty girl, but she was already gone.

Before stepping inside the shop, the big dude stopped, turned, and his head slowly went from left to right and back again as he scanned the area.

Greg instinctively slinked farther down in the seat until he only had a sliver of a view between the steering wheel and the dash. His car was mostly hidden behind a big garbage bin, but he wasn’t taking any chances. No way was getting his ass kicked worth fifty bucks.

If Cliff’s plan was to mess with these people, he was seriously fucked in the head.

Concern for his mom burrowed its way through the layers of selfish disregard he typically had for her feelings. Was she even safe being around Cliff? What did she really know about the guy anyway?

Somehow, Greg needed to convince her to ditch the asshole, because he was seriously bad news.

***

Ding ding.Cliff muted the television, stretched forward, and grabbed his phone off the coffee table. He opened another text from Greg, tapped on the picture, enlarged it, and shot forward on the cushion.

It was a group photo of five people. He immediately recognized Houldcroft standing there in all of his pompous, self-righteous glory. On either side of him were two big dudes. One was the asshole who came to the prison—the one married to Houldcroft’s bitch daughter. The other one was a bit taller with lighter, slightly longer hair and a beard. Cliff could sense their alertness, even in the photo. As if they were both anticipating a threat.

He was certain the threat they were worried about was him, and that send a surge of power through him.

There was a girl with them that looked like a teenager, and next to her was a woman he could only see from the back. He zoomed in further so she was the only thing on the screen.

“Goldie.” The photo was fuzzy, but he’d recognize those dark curls anywhere. “You know how I feel about you wearing your hair that way.”

The guy he guessed was called Viking stood way too fucking close to her and had his arm around the back of her waist.

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