Page 72 of Vegas Daddies

“Are you okay, Alice?” Match asks.

“It’s just a lot, that’s all.”

Brander inserts a piping hot mug of lemon tea into my hands. “I bet. I can’t even begin to imagine.” He plops down next to me. “Talk to us. It’s always better to get things off your chest.”

I’m sharing a room with three outlaw motorcyclists—not a licensed therapist with a psychological degree and a complex understanding of Freud.

Somehow, though, having them in the room comforts me more than the idea of a shrink. A therapist would have a professionalism that Brander, Lifesaver, and Match lack. Sometimes, smart people scare me, and professionals have a habit of keeping themselves at arm’s length to protect themselves.

These three do not.

They don’t care about protecting themselves.

They care about me.

I scratch my head. A migraine has been developing ever since they dropped the first bomb in the hospital about Daddy.

That wasafterI realized Lifesaver is my dad’s junior high best friend.

“It’s just a lot, that’s all. It’s one thing that Daddy is on the Bratva’s hit list. Now you’re saying he went to Vlad and got my mom killed?”

“If he knew the cost,” Lifesaver says, “then he would’ve never done it. Not in a million years. Not even if there was a zombie apocalypse and he had to do it to stay human. I know Peter. I’ve known him most of my life. He’s a good guy that made a bad choice.”

“Averybad choice,” Match says.

Lifesaver pulls the next line of stitching extra tight, causing Match to curse.

“You’re welcome.” Lifesaver winks at his patient, then turns back to me. “Anyway. Listen. He was very upset, like, crying.” He demonstrates with his hands, ten wiggling fingers moving down his cheeks. “He also asked me not to say anything to you.”

Standard.

“Right,” I say.

Brander sits next to me, watching, psychoanalyzing my expression.

Maybe thereisa shrink in the room.

“What happened with you?” he asks.

I press my lips together.

Jesus Christ.

Whatdidhappen?

I straighten in my seat. Glue my eyes to the crushed Pepsi Max drawing on the wall across from me, above the collection of knives. Those things should unnerve me, but they don’t, strangely.

“I was following a red SUV down a diverted street. It disappeared, turned off, but then appeared a couple blocks down to cut me off. The BMW driver behind me was on the phone. They must’ve been communicating. Both cars were in on it.”

Brander tenses his jaw. “Did you get a look at either of them?”

“Nope. Both masked up again.”

Lifesaver tuts. “Typical.”

“And then what?” Brander asks. “They threw you in the trunk and took you…where?”

“I can’t tell you the location. They tied a handkerchief over my eyes and led me inside somewhere. I think it was a hotel.”

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