Page 80 of Don't Game Me
She needed something loud. A cup on his dresser held coins. All right. Bit dramatic, but she needed him up. She tossed them into the dresser, which sounded like a volley of gunfire, and fast walked toward the apartment door.
“What the hell?” She heard his footsteps in the bedroom. The light came on. “Becca?”
She’d almost made it to the front door by the time he came out, although she’d walked slower than if she’d been making a real escape. Hell, if this had been real, she could’ve played death metal on his stereo while screaming all the way to the front door and he’d still be asleep.
“Becca!” Jake shouted.
He reached her just before the elevator closed. The elevator reeked of a cheap deodorizer. The smell clung inside her nostrils, almost burning.
He held out his hand to trigger the doors to open again. “Where are you going? I thought we agreed you’d stay.”
“Oh, Jake. Me here puts you at risk.” She pushed the elevator down button again. God, he was something to look at. He’d managed to pull on his discarded jeans, and not an ounce of fat covered his bare, muscular torso. A shadow covered his jaw, and his eyes glowed in the artificial light. Her body hummed with renewed need for him.
“Stay. You don’t need to go. The way you’re looking at me says you want to stay. Why are you doing this?” He stepped inside and reached for her, those long fingers gently touching her shoulders to rotate her to face him. The door closed, and the elevator started down. “Don’t you want to stay with me?”
The raw pain in his eyes, the subtle insecurity, made her chest hurt.
“I fucked it up, didn’t I?” He sighed and dropped his hands away from her. “I have a glitch or something that makes me unable to make relationships work. Probably for the best if you go, then. I’ll end up hurting you.”
She reached out to touch his arm. “There’s no bad glitch. This isn’t about you. It’s about shit timing. There’s nothing wrong with you. The fact you’re strong and could hurt someone doesn’t mean you will. I believe in my heart you’d never hurt me physically. Verbally, emotionally… Well, that’s different. In every relationship, someone gets their feelers bent from time to time. That’s to be expected. It’s the kind of crap people work through if the relationship is worth it.”
His head went back just enough to show shock. Tension rolled between them. Wild and deep…emotional with need. “Did you actually use the word feelers?”
She compressed her lips against a smile. “Dork alert, right?”
A smile turned at his lips upward.
Her eyes fixated on the digital floor numbers, anxiety growing as the numbers decreased.
The elevator dinged. Lobby.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, Jake. I’m sorry. I love you.” Her heart pounded as she stepped out of the elevator. She prayed whatever happened didn’t involve a bullet in her head or Jake’s.
“Oww.” Jake spun, coming face to face with Lisi, who must’ve been waiting beside the elevator doors. He rubbed his arm.
Lisi stepped away, tucked a syringe into her jacket pocket, and exchanged it for a gun with a suppressor.
Jake swayed and threw out a hand to catch his balance against the wall. His words came out slurred. “Whaaa wass tha?”
Lisi didn’t reply as she fired her gun. At Becca.
The force of the bullet hitting Becca’s stomach knocked her backward as if someone had whacked her with a baseball bat. Her head buzzed while her body tried to catalog the pressure in her stomach. She pressed her hand against her numb midsection, coming away with red on her hands.
“Becca…” Jake stumbled toward her but fell to his knees.
“Why? What are you doing?” Becca asked Lisi.
Her vacant, emotionless dark eyes settled on Becca. “Tomorrow’s headline news will be that a drunk Jake Allen shot his business partner’s sister in a lover’s spat. End of NJ Legacy.”
“Jake doesn’t drink.” It hurt to breathe. Pushing to a sit, vertigo spun her mind. Jake framed for murder would break him and Noah, and her entire family. She had to give the woman props that it was a decent plan to destroy them. “Are you? No. You can’t be Symphis. You’re a woman.”
Lisi froze above Becca. “Why the hell can’t anyone believe a woman could be behind the most masterful underground operation in the world? Because it’s video games and involves computer tech? Apparently, no female is good for anything in that realm other than for being a target. I would think you, of all people, would get this. God, I hate the misogynistic bullshit, and I’m surprised you don’t too.”
“You’re Symphis?”
Lisi jabbed her arm with a syringe. It burned. Her head became woozy right away. Why would she be drugging her, if she thought she’d just killed her?
“Of course, I am, you twit. Who else could erase you from the system? I don’t envy you dying with a stomach shot. Thought the drug might take the edge off. You probably have fifteen minutes. Too bad your lover boy over there is too out of his mind to help or even recognize you. He won’t remember shit, which is perfect for the courtroom. I’ll be in the back watching him get life for killing you.”
