Page 46 of Brazen Being It

This is my place. My family. My club. My woman.

And no one—Frankie, Salentino, or any ghost from our pasts—is going to take that away.

I close my eyes and hold her close. For the first time in a long time, I believe in a future. And I’m ready to fight for it. Every day, every breath, for as long as she’ll have me.

ELEVEN

CAMBRIA

TRUST YOUR GUT

Trust your gut

There’sa chill in the air that doesn’t belong to spring. The kind that sinks into your bones and whispers that something’s coming. Something bad.

Yesenia’s walking beside me, loose-hipped and confident like always, her high ponytail swinging like it’s on a mission all alone. Her nails are sharp red with black lines, gleaming as she taps them against the metal of the shopping cart. She’s talking about some new pastry she wants to try, but I’m barely listening. The parking lot’s too quiet, too still. There’s no wind, no birds. Just the sound of our boots on asphalt.

Then I feel it. That prickling itch at the back of my neck. Being watched.

I glance over my shoulder casually, like I’m checking for traffic, and catch sight of a black SUV idling three rows down. The windows are tinted too dark for street legal. No one gets out. They’re just sitting there.

Watching.

My stomach drops.

“We’ve got company,” I murmur under my breath.

Yesenia doesn’t miss a beat, doesn’t even stop her monologue about key limes. She smiles wider, leans in like she’s about to share a dirty secret, and whispers, “Been following us since the gas station.”

Damn it.

We push the cart through the sliding doors of the grocery store, the cold blast of AC smacking us in the face. I try to keep my breathing steady, try to pretend like I’m just here for paper towels and frozen peas. But every aisle feels like a trap, every endcap like a dead end. My pulse is sprinting in my neck.

“They won’t try anything in here,” Yesenia says, grabbing a can of black beans and inspecting the label like it’s made of gold. “Too many cameras. Too many witnesses.”

I nod, but I don’t relax. If they’re smart, they’ll wait until we’re alone. And if they’re really smart, they’ll force us into that position.

We make it halfway through the produce section before she nods toward the employee-only door in the back. “Time to ghost.”

“Now?”

She dumps the cucumber she was holding back into the bin. “Now.”

We abandon the cart and slide through the door like we belong there. A kid stocking lettuce barely glances at us. We hustle past him, out through the narrow hallway that smells like bleach and onions, until we reach the back exit.

Yesenia opens it a crack, peeks out, then gives me a look.

I don’t get a chance to ask what she sees.

Because the moment we step outside, he’s there.

Frankie.

Tall, lean, with a face like a villain in an old Western. Too smooth. Too smug. His teeth are too white, his eyes too dead.

“Cambria,” he purrs. “Long time no see.”

My blood turns to ice. My lungs forget how to work. For a second, I just freeze. My hand curls into a fist without thinking. That voice—God. That voice is a blade I’ve heard before. I’ve paid the price over and over for my crimes against him. He has literally killed my mother in front of me and yet, it’s never enough for him.

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