“Julio wants you out front,” a heavily accented voice announces through the wood. “Now.”

“Yeah.” He paces a moment longer and then nods his head, finally looking at me. “Well, then. I guess it’s time to convince a Mexican mob boss that you’re a hooker now, huh?”

And there we have it. He’s not confused. Not confused at all. He’s never lied to me. Not once. He’s never fed me a flowery line about how he’s going to take care of me and treat me right; that I’m going to be his only girl, or that he feels anything remotely even halfway to affection for me. And I know from my past dealings with him what that means. If he doesn’t want to lie, he just won’t say anything at all, just like when I asked him about his seedy employment history. Don’t respond, don’t say anything about it and it goes away.

Zeth Mayfair doesn’t see me as someone to fall in love with. Right now he needs to see me as a hooker in order to get us out of this jam, and he needs everyone else to see me that way, too.

Well, you know what, buddy? I say to myself, smiling grimly over the use of that nickname. You want a fucking hooker? I’ll give you a fucking hooker.

As we walk down the corridors to meet with Julio, I’m actually not all that worried about the fat, Mexican fucker. I’m not thinking about what’ll happen to us if Sloane messes this up. I’m not thinking about what will happen when Alexis spots her sister here, in this dark, dreadful place, and gives us both away.

I’m only thinking one thing:

She came to find me.

She was attacked. She defended herself. Saved Lacey. Drove for two days, and then did something completely baffling—she ran toward me. She should have run in the opposite direction, but she didn’t. She ran straight for me like I’m her goddamn savior. Like I’m capable of fixing everything. Like I’m capable of protecting her. Like I’m whole enough to help fill in the broken, fractured pieces of her, too. And then she went and held me in her arms like that. Fuck. And just for a terrifying, awful second there…

I shake my head, trying not to think it. But it’s an undeniable and dangerous thought, and won’t be ignored.

Just for a second there…it felt like she might be capable of gluing me back together, too.