Page 56 of Greed
He followed her in. “You are going home, aren’t you?”
Oh, she saw where this was going, and fire snapped in her vision. “It’s none of your business where I go.”
A tall man wearing a Fedora came into the lift. Griffin growled and pushed him out. “Catch the next one.”
“Griffin!” she exclaimed and then mouthed an apology to the hat man.
Griffin punched the ground button then rounded on her, eyes blazing. “I don’t have time for games, Lilo.”
And here comes the real Griffin, she thought bitterly, hating that she’d been right.
The doors closed, shutting them in together, but she was damned if she acquiesced to such bossy orchestrations. She stuck out her chin and stared at the doors.
“Just tell me you’re going home and I’ll leave you alone.”
“I’m going home.” At some point.
He exhaled. “Good.”
The doors opened, and she strode out knowing full well his intense eyes were glued to her back, watching the entire way it took her to cross the lobby and exit the glass rotating doors into the night. She deliberately turned right, letting him think she was going to catch a cab from the bay. When she rounded the corner, she doubled back and made her way to the subway.
Until she’d bumped into Griffin at the elevator, she’d been on edge, but seeing him try yet again to sway her actions gave her the motivation to stick to her principles and continue her journey.
Half an hour later, she exited the South-Side subway station.
But by the time she walked deep into the district, her nerve began to falter.
It was an older area of town and the desperation of residents dripped from the crumbling and stained brownstone. Walls with broken windows loomed on all sides, and as she hurried through the darkened streets, loaded stares pummeled her—mostly from men wondering how long the lone woman would remain untouched. She shivered and hugged her coat tight. They weren’t thinking that. It was her own paranoia trying to make her retreat.
A sense of dread settled in suffocating waves as she neared her destination. When she approached a line of homeless people huddled in the alcove of an old church, a baby’s cry pierced the air, bringing her attention to a crouched woman wearing only a saggy sweater and dress. Her boots were old with holes in the toes. Hugged under her arm was a small bundle.
Lilo stopped. It was so cold out there, and people lived in squalor. That baby wouldn’t survive the night.
With her current plight forgotten, Lilo walked up to the woman. She had long, stringy light brown hair that stuck to her shoulders from the dampening night. The mother noticed Lilo and hugged her baby tighter.
“What do you want?” said a grizzly man to the right.
“I just want to give you something,” Lilo said to the woman.
Wary eyes watched her as she slipped out of her coat and held it out. “You need this more than me.”
“I got no money, Missus,” said the woman.
“I don’t want any money. I have another coat at home. Please take it.” God, please take it. Lilo couldn’t live with a baby death on her conscience.
The woman reached out, but the man snatched it.
“No!” Lilo growled and used her bag to hit him. “This is not for you. Don’t you dare take this away from the woman and her baby.”
The man hissed at Lilo. “I’m the boss around here.”
“I don’t think so, buddy.” Lilo reached under her long skirt and retrieved her pistol. She pointed it at the man. “Do I need to repeat myself?”
He slowly handed the woman the coat.
With a conflicted glance at Lilo, she dressed herself in the warm coat.
“Take this too.” Lilo unwound the scarf from her neck. “For the baby.”
