Six

Chapter Six

Kodee

THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE apartment was tense while we waited for

Dillon to get back with the clothes. I stood at the kitchen counter, watching the scene before me. Ryan was particularly unhappy, pacing around the place with his lips in a thin line, and shaking his head every time he caught sight of Rue, who was huddled back up on the couch, her bare legs tucked under her body, her arms wrapped across her breasts.

I felt sorry for the girl. It was clear she wanted to be here about as much as we wanted her here. She was clearly alone in the world, where at least

we had each other.

Taking care of waifs and strays wasn’t the kind of trouble we needed in our life, however. Our motto had always been to keep our heads down and stay out of trouble, and yet Dillon had managed to screw that up. I was disappointed in him. I’d hoped he’d finally put his fighting, gambling, and fucking around ways behind him, but it seemed I was wrong.

“Don’t we get to know why you’re here?” Ryan snapped finally. “Surely we’re allowed to know that since you’re now living in our apartment.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. It’ll only get you in trouble.” “Seems to me like we’re already in trouble.”

Her blue eyes filled with tears.

“Just leave it, Ryan,” I said. “This isn’t her fault.”

He stopped pacing and turned to me. “No, it’s Dillon’s. I always warned you that he was going to end up dumping a huge pile of shit on our doorstep, and isn’t that exactly what he’s done.”

“Dillon is good at his job,” I said. “We need him.”

Ryan snorted. “You mean he’s good in bed. Isn’t that really what you need him for?”

The girl’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Watch what you say, Ryan.” There was warning in my tone. We didn’t know what was going to happen to this girl once she left, and the last thing we needed was her going around telling people what kind of setup we had

going on. In our world, there was still plenty of prejudice around. I was less worried about losing the business than I was about losing our lives. The type of men like the Capello brothers took our sexuality as a personal

affront. It would make them furious that they’d ever had anything to do

with us, even though what we did behind closed doors didn’t affect them in any way whatsoever. It was easier and safer just to keep things a secret.

We were full of secrets, all of us. Secretive about our pasts, about our presents, about who we were, and who we loved. But then everyone had their secrets, didn’t they? It wasn’t only us.

“How long do you think Dillon’s going to be with the new clothes?” Ryan asked, clearly realizing he’d been tiptoeing a thin line.

“I don’t know. I guess that’ll depend if he stops off to fuck the store

assistant while he’s there.” My tone was laced with sarcasm, but honestly, I wouldn’t put it past Dillon to do exactly that.

Ryan pressed up close to me behind the counter. I didn’t miss the way he wedged the bulge of his cock up against my ass. Even though this girl hadn’t done anything, Ryan still seemed to feel the need to remind me that he was mine.

“I don’t like that she’s wearing your shirt,” he said, keeping his voice low, his lips close to the back of my ear.

I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Would you prefer that she sits there naked?”

“Don’t be an ass, Kodee.”

I sighed. Ryan was going to be insufferable while she was here. I

wondered how long it would be for. Days? Weeks? I couldn’t imagine what this place would be like if she was still here weeks from now. But what

would happen to her when she left—or at least got taken away again? Would she be handed over to the same people she was being hidden from now? I struggled to imagine the Capello brothers setting her free. And like she said, she had nowhere to go. Would she just live on the streets? That

could be a worse situation than being a sold woman. She’d probably end up in a life of prostitution anyway. At least, right now, she had a roof over her head.

“Hey,” I called out to her, and Ryan stepped away from me. “Are you hungry? It’s approaching dinnertime.”

She looked up from her huddled position on the couch and gave me a tentative smile. “Sure.”

Her hair had dried in a silken sheet, much better than the rats’ tails she’d arrived here in. The blue of my shirt brought out the color of her eyes, and her skin was smooth and pale. She clearly hadn’t seen much of the outside world—no sun damage on that one.

“What kind of things do you like to eat?” She shrugged. “I eat whatever I’m given.”

I pulled open the door to our refrigerator and peered inside. Ryan had propped himself up against the breakfast counter, his arms folded over his chest defensively. If he was going to act like this the entire time she was here, it was going to get annoying pretty quickly.

“How about I rustle up a stir fry?”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Dillon to get back?” Ryan said.

“I’ll put him a portion aside, though considering the mess he’s gotten us in, I’m not sure he deserves a meal cooked for him.” My gaze darted to

Rue. “Sorry,” I apologized, realizing she was the mess I’d referred to.

She shrugged again. I had the feeling she was used to being referred to in a derogatory manner. It wasn’t right that she was here, stuck with us as much as we were stuck with her. I didn’t imagine she was overly happy

about the situation either. I wished there was some way we could help her, but anything we did would go against the wishes of the Capello brothers,

and there were some people in this city you didn’t want to mess with. They could put us out of business within a day, or worse, they could see us behind bars, or even dead. Fucking Dillon. This was exactly the reason

we’d told him not to get involved with the Capellos. They had all our balls trapped between a rock and a hard place now, and the Capellos didn’t care one bit if they crushed us.

Focusing my anger onto the task at hand, I pulled ingredients out of the refrigerator. Shrimps, sliced chicken, eggs, an assortment of vegetables, soy and fish sauce, and rice wine vinegar. I had some packets of noodles in the pantry. I picked the sharpest knife and julienned the vegetables with the

skill of a chef.

I was the cook among the three of us. I knew what I liked to eat, and that both Dillon and Ryan were likely to mess it up. Dillon had zero

cooking skills, and Ryan had a tendency to lean toward meat and bread— hotdogs, burgers, burritos. Basically, if you could wrap meat in bread, he’d eat it.

“Anything I can do to help?” Ryan asked.

I shot him a smile. I didn’t like things being tense between us. “Stand there and look pretty.”

He cocked his head. “That, I can do.”

I set about turning on the heat under the wok, adding oil to get it

steaming hot, and then threw in sliced onions and peppers and mushrooms.

I sensed two sets of eyes watching my every movement. I moved easily

around the kitchen. The oil in the pan hissed and spat as I added ingredients to the stir fry, and then shaking in a variety of the different sauces. I didn’t need to measure that shit. I was happy to go with whatever felt right.

When it was ready, I dished the food into four bowls. It felt strange to have an extra mouth at the table. We never had people over. It was the three of us against the world, and because of the nature of our business, we didn’t want anyone from the outside coming here and accidentally stumbling

across something we’d rather they didn’t see. Even Dillon knew not to bring any of his hook-ups back to the apartment, and make sure he went back to their place instead, though recently that had been happening less often.

“Come on, it’s okay,” I said to the girl. “You can come and eat with us, unless you’d rather eat over there by yourself.”

Shyly, she shook her head and rose from the couch. She made her way over to the table and selected the seat opposite Ryan. I guessed that was better than one beside him. He hadn’t exactly made any effort to hide the fact that he wasn’t happy to have her here. None of us were, and I

experienced a pang of guilt and sorrow on her behalf. What must it feel like to be completely unwanted?

I knew what it was like to feel lonely, but not unwanted. I’d had a different life before all of this—so utterly different it didn’t even feel like my own anymore. But loss can change a person, and it had changed me irrevocably. I’d been strait-laced, a grade-A student, with plans to have a

career and raise a family, but one day all of that changed. It was crazy to me how you could wake up one morning thinking everything was just as it had always been, and then one moment can throw your life into a spin.

I cast my gaze to the young woman tentatively eating the food I’d cooked, and something inside my chest tightened. I’d put everything in

place to ensure I wasn’t the person I’d been back then, and I didn’t want to ever go back to that place again.

The apartment door opened, and Dillon strode in, his arms filled with bags.

“Ah, something smells good. I see I’m in time for dinner.”

Dillon dropped the bags near the door, plonked himself down in the spare chair, and pulled a bowl of noodles toward him.

We all paused midway in our eating. Dillon grinned around at us all as though it was completely normal for us to be sitting at the table with a

strange girl among us.

“How did it go?” I asked, sitting back in my seat.

“Good.” He forked up a mouthful of noodles. “I think I got everything.” He looked to Rue. “Hope you like them.” His gaze flicked down the front of her shirt and traveled down to her bare thighs. “Though Kodee’s shirt looks damned good on you, too.”

Her cheeks bloomed pink. “Thanks.”

Dillon had a way of charming people straight into bed. This situation was complicated, though, and I didn’t think it was going to help matters if he ended up sleeping with her.

“You didn’t get distracted, then?” I asked. “Nope. Not me. I was good as gold.”

Ryan snorted at the idea but didn’t say anything.

It was surreal that we were just supposed to get on with our lives, even with a strange girl in our midst. How could we work while she was here? I didn’t want her reporting everything back to the Capellos. But we had no idea how long she’d be here.