He jerked away from her. “I’m going to go and clean up.”

You’ve fucked up.

Air met her body. She frowned. “I don’t expect anything from you. I’m not waiting for a confession of love. I knew you couldn’t love me, Shane.”

She started to panic. Getting to her feet, she tripped up, landing in a heap on the floor.

“Fuck,” he said, cursing.

Sasha tried to reach out to get to her feet. Air met her arms again. Growling in frustration, she had no choice but to accept his help on the bed.

“You don’t have to help me.”

“Yeah, I do.”

With her ass on the bed, she pushed him away. “I don’t need your help.”

“Look, I’m sorry for being a dick.”

“You can take me back home.”

“I’m not taking you back to that dick.” She heard him sigh. “Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I don’t want anything. I told you not to freak out on me. I’m not asking for anything.”

“I’m not used to being like this.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell you anything like that again.” She folded her arms over her breasts.

“You’re not going back home. You’re staying with me, and I’m going to clean you up.”

She squealed as he picked her up and carried her through to the bathroom. “You can’t do this to me.”

“Actually, I can, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” He placed her down on her feet, keeping her steady with a hand under her elbow. “We’re going to take a long wash, and then we’re going to deal with everything else.

Sasha nodded.“Fine.”

Her body was starting to ache, and even though he’d pissed her off, she didn’t want to leave him.

What did that say about her?

She didn’t know and chose not to think about it.

****

“They’ve fucking taken her, and now Penny is freaking out,” Kenneth said, pacing his office. Frederick sat behind the desk as if he had every right to be there with his fingers touching in front of him. The action reminded Kenneth of a cartoon evil villain, contemplating his next move.

“And you’re sure Chaos Bleeds has something to do with this?”

“Yes. Everyone I spoke to told me she’d gone with one of the men.” He couldn’t control her if she believed she could do shit on her own. Not only couldn’t he control her, but he also couldn’t make sure she found some freak accident that finally put her in the ground. Kenneth was so fucking angry. How dare one of those evil fuckers think they could ruin his future?

He needed more money before he finally went into retirement. He’d fallen for Sasha’s mother, Penny, the first moment he saw her. Finding out she had a daughter had annoyed him, but he also knew there was no way of getting rid of Sasha yet. When they started arguing and he’d thrown her downstairs, he’d been panicked. The last thing he wanted to do was be sent to prison for murder. If Sasha was to meet with an “accident” that took her life then he didn’t have to worry about it. Frederick could fix that and take care of her irritating mother.

“The Chaos Bleeds crew is doing me favors, Kenneth. I can’t stop them from taking what they want.”

“I do you more favors. You practically own this town because of what I did.” Running fingers through his hair, Kenneth was so fucking angry. All of his careful planning was about to be smashed to smithereens. Sasha’s blindness had been a problem, distracting Penny. In the beginning he had seen Sasha as someone to control. Then that got tiresome, and now he just wanted Sasha out of the picture altogether with no way of it coming back on him. He wanted Penny all to himself

“I’m grateful to you for your favors, but I want to remind you, Kenneth, I can fucking squash you like the bug you are. Now, I will ask Devil to give me back the girl and you can take her from me, but I can’t promise you they won’t come back and get her themselves,” he said.