Page 36 of Good Girl
“Where is she?” he demands. Tall and strong, he easily lifts her.
Miranda is going redder than her pubic hair, so I brush a palm down his arm. “Let her go.”
“No.” He growls over his shoulder right in my face like a fucking beast.
“She can’t answer you if she can’t breathe.”
Looking back at Miranda–whose eyeballs are becoming bloodshot–he drops his hold on her, and she collapses to the floor, inhaling with raspy, choked sobs. “You could have killedme,” she croaks, pulling her body across the floor to put space between us.
“How did you get in here?” I ask, stalking her.
Her eyes ping-pong between Tristan and me, swallowing excessively as she drags herself to her feet and slips into a cream-colored coat. “I took a key.”
“What?” Tristan thunders.
“I wanted to surprise you for Christmas. I didn’t know you had a new girl.” She swats at the tears on her face, a string of snot dripping from her nose to her top lip.
“You can’t just take a fucking key. Are you crazy?” Anger seeps from my pores, kicking her shoe toward her when she struggles to locate it.
After sliding it on, she stiffens her spine and flicks her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t understand.” There’s a weird, tight smile on her lips. “You don’t need any other girls, Tristan. I can be whatever you need.” She says, gulping and reaching a hand toward him.
He steps back, disgust contorting his handsome face as he sneers. “I told you, I don’t want you like that, but you won’t take the hint.” She recoils, yet he continues. “I’m going to ask you this one more time, and if you don’t answer me, you’re going out the fucking window headfirst.”
Fear sparks in her eyes as she looks to me for help. Good luck.
Taking a predatory step toward her, Tristan punctuates each word when he asks, “Where. The. Fuck. Is. Poppy?”
When she stutters, he roars, “Where?” He’s right in her face, the force of his question making her hair shift and spittle spray her lips.
“If Poppy is the contracted girl you had tied to the chair when I arrived, she left.” She squares her jaw then gingerly moves past Tristan.
Before she can get to the front door, Tristan announces, “She’s not a fucking contracted anything, she’s our girl. And if you ever come into this building, let alone this apartment, you won’t ever leave it. I’ll tie you to that fucking chair until you rot, stinking and decaying. It’ll become your grave.”
On trembling legs, she hurries to exit the apartment, throwing the house key on the table. It clanks and skids before coming to a stop. “A bit much?” I ask, raising a brow.
“We need to find her, Vance.” Tristan’s pulse jumps in his throat, fists clenched against his thighs
“There aren’t many places she can be, we weren’t gone long, and she doesn’t know many people here.”
“The hotel–where you met her.” Tristan rushes past me.
“You really think she would come back here?” Tristan asks after we have no luck at the hotel.
Approaching the door of Josh’s apartment, I lift a shoulder. “He left, so she can be alone here until he returns. It makes sense. You said she didn’t take any of the things you bought her, so she’s going to need clothes.” I take a deep breath, because if she’s not here, I’m out of ideas, and she’s not answering our calls.
I rap my knuckles on the wood, and when no one answers after about thirty seconds, Tristan plasters himself against it, smashing his ear against the wood, listening. “I hear movement in there.”
When I knock again, he frowns at me. The sound must be really fucking loud with his ear still pressed there.
“Someone’s coming,” he announces, pushing himself back.
The door swings open, and relief washes through me. Tristan doesn’t even give Poppy a chance to speak before he lets himself inside, snatching her up and pinning her to his chest.
“Where did you go?” His words sound like a plea, clutching onto her as she wriggles to get free from him. Her skin is blotchy, and her eyes are red-rimmed as though she’s been crying.
Looking like someone just stole from his sweet jar, Tristan reluctantly releases her, running a hand down his face. Wearing a tee and shorts, she saunters down the hallway and into a room before returning with one of my T-shirts, throwing it at me.
“I was going to wash them and put them in the mail,” she tells me, not meeting my eyes.
