Greyson It was an easy mark.
I slip inside the darkened home, wake him up with the tip of my SIG right on his temple while he startles up in bed. He shook like a flag in the wind as he opened the safe, gave me the money.
Heâll probably never again sleep.
Welcome to the club, old man . . .
But Iâm not thinking about that anymore. His name is scratched, the fights were good tonight. Riptide owned the ringâand thatâs fine by me. Riptide is money, and the Underground is all about money.
But Iâm not thinking about that either.
Iâm thinking about her. Wondering if sheâs sleeping. Or even half as tortured as I am. Itâs six a.m. at the hospital, and Iâve been sitting here, hating what I already know.
Hating that I already know what sheâs going to tell me later on today when I go to see her.
That I donât deserve her, am a liar, a con, and not the man she wants and itâs fucking. Eating. Me. Alive.
Canât sit still. Canât stop going over shit in my head.
Iâve sat all night at the hospital watching my father struggle to breathe.
I feel choked myself, the air clogged in my lungs. I knew what my life was, what I wanted. It was all clear.
Nothing is clear anymore except that I canât imagine continuing a day without her. If she wonât have me, I already know I will be obsessed. I will stalk her. I wonât be able to let go of her. I will need to be sure that sheâs safe, that sheâs herself, that sheâs laughing. Iâll have to see someone else touch her. The man she wantedâthe man I couldnât be. My heart thrashes in my chest. A firestorm rages in my body at the thought of anyone touching her but me.
But I wonât be the Hades that drags my Persephone into hell with him.
Sheâs not Persephone. Sheâs Melanie Meyers Dean, and I love her.
I exhale and put my face in my hands, shuddering as I try to get a grip on myself.
Iâm sick and sheâs the only cure.
Iâm sick for her, as sick as my father.
I glance up and heâs hardly moving in bed, the sound of his breath low and even. Yeah, it hurts. I hated him all my life. He took everything good from me. And it still hurts that heâs weak and mortal, and still, the motherfucker clinging fiercely to where my mother is.
Rage, impotence, it all swells in my chest. Iâve just worked my last mark with the help of Tinaâs information. I carefully worked around my numbers so that only one mark remains . . . number five.
âThe list?â Eric anxiously asks me after conferring with the doctors and realizing my father only has hours left. Hours.
âIâm going to get the payment,â I lie, pushing the chair back and rising.
But I wonât. Iâm going to get back my girl, and then Iâm going to come back here and tell my father that he failed. That he failed in making me like him. In making me completely selfish and evil.
Iâm going to get back my girl and Iâm going to fetch some of my cash and buy back my girlâs paper. He can put any price he wants on it. He can put my own life on it. Or the price of the Underground. But heâs going to tell me where my mother is, and heâs going to watch me scratch off Melanieâs name while I hand him the cash she owes.
He will think me weak. He will die thinking me weak.
I donât give a shit anymore.
Iâm fighting for what I care for and Iâm going to fight for it if I spend the rest of my days in the shadows, making sure my girlâs all right.