Page 78 of Dmitri

It’s best this way. Leaning on her or using her as a distraction is an insult to the spectacular woman she is. Daelyn deserves better than me.

Be better. Clean. Wash my hair. Put on clean clothes.

“Earth to Dmitri.” Knox waves his hand in my face. “You in there?”

“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Sorry.”

“You didn’t hear anything I just said, did you?”

“No.”

His expression falls. “It’s okay.” He grips my shoulder and squeezes it with sympathy in his eyes. He probably assumes I’m thinking about my dad which makes guilt flare in my gut.

“You got plans today?” he asks.

“Not really.”

“Good. You can come with me.” He waggles his eyebrows at me. “We’re going noveling, loser.”

Chapter 21

Daelyn

My heart sinks when we pull into the parking lot to the restaurant Dmitri and I had breakfast at yesterday morning.

Kaleb knows I was here with Dmitri.

Keeping my expression blank, I climb out of his car and slam the door shut. We’re dead silent as we walk in and wait for the hostess to seat us. I’m under dressed again. My surroundings sound muffled, and I feel like I’m walking on uneven marshmallows as we follow the hostess to a table in the center of the restaurant.

“Welcome to Maggie’s! I’m Rory and I’ll be your server today. Can I start you off with a drink?”

Panic has sweat blooming down my back as I look away from her.Please don’t recognize me. Please don’t say something about me coming back so soon.

Kaleb orders our drinks because my tongue’s tied. He also orders our food.

Did he tail me yesterday or just look up my location on the app?

Maybe I’m being paranoid. Only one way to find out. “What made you pick this place?” I ask with a light, cheerful tone.

“I know you’ve been wanting to try it.”

That trips me up. “When did I say that?”

“That time we passed by after the switch off with Emmanuel.”

Suddenly too stunned to speak, my mind races to connect the dots in this new game he’s playing with me.

“Remember?” He cocks his brow.

No. I don’t remember. I didn’t know about this restaurant before Dmitri took me here. But I clearly remember the time I’d been sent, on Kaleb’s behalf, with two duffel bags filled with cocaine that I had to hand over to a man named Emmanuel. Ace was with me that day. But it wasn’t on this side of town, so I couldn’t have said I wanted to come to this place to eat.

That… wait… no. I’m sure I didn’t know this place existed. Or am I crazy?

They say when you’ve been through enough abuse, the chemicals in your system change and can actually cause some kind of brain damage. You don’t remember things correctly, if at all. I think I’m suffering from something like that because nothing makes sense to me anymore.

“You look confused, babygirl. Here, let me refresh your memory.” Kaleb pulls his phone out and taps the screen a few times before sliding it across the table.

These videos have nothing to do with me allegedly saying I wanted to come to this stupid restaurant. But they make terror spike in my system again because the first one playing is of me pulling bricks of coke out for someone to check the quality of. And I’m the only person in the video that can be identified…

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