Page 41 of Addicted Lies

The rain picks up, plastering my black hair to my forehead.

“One of us should be with you at all times,” I say to Eli.

“Fuck that,” Eli growls back. “We’re around one another enough as it is.”

“That’s literally what you pay us for,” Hawke adds, rolling his eyes.

“I won’t be intimidated by a coward who hides behind poison. Get in touch with Will. Have him backtrack this guard’s every move over the last few days and note who he’s been in contact with. You.” He points to the security guard. “Clean up this body. And no one finds out about this, especially not my father.”

“Roger that!” Hawke salutes like an asshole, and I nod in acknowledgment. Eli has only officially taken over as head of the Italian mafia in the last year, and he doesn’t want his father, Crue, interfering in any of his dealings. Frankly, the guy’s a ruthless helicopter parent. Not when it comes to Eli but with regard to the business. And he’ll do anything to dip back into the game.

“We’re done here.” Eli dismisses us. I don’t move, and when Eli notices I’m hovering, he frowns. “What is it?”

I clear my throat. “Don’t you have anyone who needs to be dealt with? A cleanup, maybe?”

He looks me up and down. “It’s usually Hawke who’s trying to pick fights.”

“I’m not trying to pick a fight, per se. I’m just… trying to blow off some steam.”

Hawke chuckles. “Then why don’t you fuck someone?”

I’m the face of calm because there’s no fucking way I’m letting them sniff out the truth of my frustration. But I can’t fuck another woman. I haven’t been able to for over a year, not since a certain little chaotic mess coaxed me into the back of my car.

My phone dings with a message alert, and I pull it out of my pocket. My security system has picked up something on the front cameras. My grip tightens on the phone because there’s Billie, standing in the pouring rain and setting my front yard on fire with a blowtorch.

That little-

I pocket my phone and take my leave.

Why is it that chaos seems to ensue in every part of my life this woman touches?

Maybe she’s pissed about the tattoo shop. I manage to fight a smirk as I get into my car.

The tattoo shop had to go. So I set it alight.

And I will do the same for the next shop she thinks she can go to.

Because that is not happening. She is not letting another man finish my job. I’ll get to it when I get to it. It’s not my fault she couldn’t sit still long enough for me to finish it in the first place.

But this? This is an entirely different game altogether.

If she wants to play, then we’ll play.

But she’ll be punished for it in the process.

CHAPTER 19

Billie

“Stupid fucking blowtorch doesn’t fucking work with a little bit of rain. You stupid piece of shit.” I throw the contraption to the ground and storm over to my rental car. I open the trunk and pull out the shovel and bleach.

I push my soaked hair out of my eyes, then start digging letters into his front lawn. “If the fire won’t work, then I’ll bleach the fuck out of your grass. Thank you very much, internet.”

I’d furiously scrolled through ideas all day while fuming over the stunt he’d pulled. “Have to be a crazy woman to be this dedicated to give you a message like this, but boy, oh boy, do you deserve it, asshole,” I say to myself as I continue digging. I’d researched that shoveling the grass and then pouring bleach over it will permanently keep it from regrowing.

I sigh because I loved the idea of the blowtorch—it felt cathartic in a way and would have been poetic justice—but it just wasn’t effective due to the rain.

“You’re lucky I like the fucking cat, or it would’ve been your house I tried to burn down,” I grumble. I know I’m seeing red. I know there might be consequences. But fuck him. He doesn’t own or control me. “Stupid fucking egotistical men, throwing around their big dick energy.”

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