It’s been three years since Romano gave me this job. The knife slams down on the cutting board as the thought hits me. I grab the carved meat and put it in the tub with the rest of the chunks.

I’m the butcher of a shop that rides the line of his territory. When Romano hired me to work here at Paul’s Butcher Shop, I thought it meant something different. I thought it meant he was hiring me to be a part of his crew.

Now I know better; he just wanted to watch me. Train me, or maybe mentor me if he ever needed someone like me. The line of customers coming in for their packages distracts me and I glance up for a moment. Eddie, Paul’s son, rings them up one by one. I stay in the back with a few other guys, processing all the orders and occasionally we have to stay here later, after closing hours.

Like when Romano has a special order.

Picking up the butcher knife, I slam it down with my teeth gritting together. This isn’t his turf, but I’m not ready to start a war or gather an army against him. There’s no one here to recruit, just the addicts who camp out behind the line of the highway that separates his area from Crescent Hills.

Most of the meat here is shipped off to God knows where. This place sees plenty of money come in and go out, but the numbers don’t actually add up. We’re just doing his bidding.

Still, I cut the fucking carcass up like I’m told, and stay on the right side of a would-be enemy while I have to.

I vaguely wonder how long that’ll be. And when the time comes, which side I’ll be on.

The bells hanging over the front door bells, two cheap bells that ding and then ding again as the door is open and closed quickly.

My gaze rises and goes back down, only to rise again with an unsettled feeling flashing through me, to take another look.

Chloe’s not dressed to be out in public. She’s in pajama pants and a baggy t-shirt with sneakers that aren’t even laced like she couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. Her hair’s down and windblown.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” I mutter beneath my breath and drop the knife on the cutting board. Before I can even wipe my hands off, she’s brushing past Eddie, ignoring him completely. She doesn’t hesitate to go around the counter and make her way back here. “Sebastian,” she gasps my name with a mix of relief and desperation.

My heart pounds harder as every man and woman in this place watches us. I can feel all their eyes on me as I keep my shoulders straight and head to the sink to wash my hands. I’m trying not to let her or anyone else see what I’m feeling deep down in my gut. This isn’t a good look.

“I need you,” Chloe speaks before the swinging door that separates the kitchen from the front of this small shop even closes.

The adrenaline pumps harder in my veins.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I ask her although my gaze is focused on Eddie. I try to swallow but can’t, so instead, I watch the water run down the drain before turning off the faucet and drying off my hands. She doesn’t answer me, but she steps closer to me at the sink.

“What are you doing here?” I ask her in a harsh tone with no room for her to question how I feel about this shit. No one comes here. No one who knows any better. She should know better.

Her baby blues flash with something—shock, or anger—I’m not sure which. Her loose t-shirt nearly slips down her shoulder as she takes a step back. The place is silent save the exhaust fans as she takes a moment to look me up and down.

“I need you,” she tells me honestly, with a sincerity that everyone could hear, even if only spoken in a whisper. She brushes her wavy hair behind her ear and moves her gaze to the vinyl floor of the kitchen, blinking away the emotions ravaging her. The muscles of her throat tighten as she wraps her arms around herself. “Do you have a minute?” she asks as if she didn’t just run back here and disrupt everything while having no consideration for what she’s doing. The type of danger she’s putting herself into.

With a deep crease in the center of her forehead and a pained expression in her eyes, she tells me again, “I need you.” It’s the third time she’s said it since she got here, but she’s never said those words to me until today. Fuck, I can’t describe what it does to me. Her left foot kicks the floor as she slowly seems to notice everyone else as if they didn’t even exist before.

I watch her gaze as it moves to Eddie, who’s looking at me curiously and I give him an icy stare until he looks away.

I know he tells Romano everything that happens and having her come in making a scene like this is something that would get his attention. Talking to me about something as if I can save her… that would get his attention too. Romano needs to know everything, or so he tells us. But I don’t plan on telling him shit.

Especially because it’s her. And the way she’s going about this is going to cause problems.

That anxiety comes rushing back, not just from what everyone else is wondering, but also from what Chloe has to say.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I ask her again and toss the hand towel onto the steel counter.

“Angie keeps asking me that too,” she mutters beneath her breath. Swallowing thickly, she looks over her shoulder before gripping my forearm and whispering, “I need to talk to you.”

Her pale blue eyes plead with me, sinking deep inside of me like she always does. And for the first time in so long, I wish she wouldn’t.

“Did something happen?” I ask her innocently, every hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I can hear people moving again, going back to their business, but they’re quiet and slow to move. They’re listening to everything.

“Did you see the news?” she asks me, and I stare back at her straight-faced as I shake my head no. I already know what’s coming before she keeps going. It’s only now that I regret going to see her; I invited her to think she could rely on me. She doesn’t know what she’s doing though, and all the shit I’m in right now.

“Tamra Stetson is dead,” she tells me in the barest of whispers as if she’s speaking a sin in the holiest of churches.

She has no idea what she’s doing. She doesn’t know how everyone is watching her. Watching us.

This city will talk, and word spreads like wildfire. That could be dangerous, but I already knew I was fucked. I just can’t risk her going down for this.

“Why don’t we go out back?” The question is really a demand as I grab her elbow. Her gasp is short-lived as she walks quickly beside me and my grip on her tightens. Using my forearm, I shove open the back door and pull her out back. The heat and the sun are blinding for a split second.

There may be no one out here, but there are plenty of people watching. Listening. It’d be naive of me to think that Eddie is the only person keeping tabs on me for Romano. Waiting to hear something they can use against anyone who has anything they could want.

Like her.

Chloe hisses between her teeth as the door closes with a loud clack. “Did you have to be such a dick?” she asks me with a fierceness I fucking love.

She rips her arm away and the action makes her shirt slip off her shoulder, showing me more of her soft skin and the dip in her collar.

The second she sees me looking there, she pulls it back into place.

“You should know better than to come here,” I warn her, keeping my voice low, making sure she hears the threat. She’s reckless, beautifully so, but it’s dangerous. Right now, I can’t have it.

“I need you, and--”

“It can wait,” I cut her off, feeling my heart slam harder. Every time she says those words it does something to me. It rips me apart knowing how badly I want those words to be true and how wrong she is.

“But Tamra--”

“No one gives a fuck about Tamra.” My answer is brutal, and I bite it out quickly, defensively even. Enough that I notice the change in my tone, but she doesn’t.

“You don’t understand, I wrote this list.” She barely gets the words out before shoving half a sheet of paper against my chest. It’s ragged like it was ripped from a spiral notebook and crumpled up before being smoothed out. It looks old as fuck and takes me a moment to recognize what it is.

Seeing the column of names on that piece of paper sends ice through my blood.

“Each in order,” she says, and I hear her swallow before she looks back up at me. “It’s every name in order.”

“I didn’t put last names, but look at them, look at the list.” She doesn’t have to explain it for me to know. “It’s happening right in order,” she continues and struggles to breathe as if every word is suffocating her.

All the recent deaths have taken place according to this list. First Amber, then Barry, and now Tamra. Everyone knows about Jeff Adler. He’d been with Chloe’s mother that night in the bar bathroom. He told the cops he’d heard her screaming but didn’t feel like dealing with her. He’s a piece of shit, always has been.

“Why would you even write this?” I can feel my anger and the tension in my body. The heat that’s running in my blood, but the sight of her changes it as her hands wrap around my hand holding the note.

“Tell me it’s a coincidence,” she begs me with a choked voice. The tears in her eyes linger and she only stares at the paper, rather than returning my gaze that I know she can feel. She struggles to breathe again and then covers her mouth.

When she lifts her eyes to mine, everything in her begs me to answer her with what she wants to hear. “Tell me this is all a coincidence, please. I keep dreaming about them. My mother and…” She trails off, but her regret and remorse are palpable. She shakes her head when I don’t answer, as I stand there stunned by the raw emotion and innocence.

“I’m just going crazy, aren’t I?” she asks me, and I let the tension between us wane. I give her a moment to calm down as she lets out a hard breath of air. “I’m just having these nightmares and--”

“Was there another name?” I ask her, cutting her off, and rub my thumb against where I can feel the indentations from a pencil. Where it’s obvious she put her own name down before erasing it. I know it was there, just beneath Andrea. I know it.

She chooses to go the route she always does with me, she lies, shaking her head and sending her hair swishing around her shoulders.

She grabs the piece of paper, trying to calm herself down and collect her composure.

“I wrote down the names of all the people who I thought deserved to die. I wanted them to die when they said they did nothing to help my mother when they admitted it with no remorse. I wrote it years ago, but just remembered it this morning when I turned on the TV. I was getting breakfast... and…. and suddenly I remembered. And when I saw it...”

The sound of a car backfiring in the distance makes her jump, but then her eyes close as she shakes her head as if admonishing herself. Her eyes open slowly and the pale blues stare at nothing.

“What if someone found this?” she asks although I don’t know if she actually wants me to answer.

“It’s in your hands,” I tell her with strained frustration.

The huff she lets out is short and full of bitterness. Shoving the paper into her purse, she keeps going, keeps letting her emotions get the better of her.

“I’ve literally gone crazy.” She wipes at her eyes although she doesn’t dare cry. “I just don’t understand. It’s three in a row, like a fucking checklist.” The anger comes out before she breathes in deep and says softly, “That’s not a coincidence.”

Spearing her fingers in her hair, she grips onto the roots at her temple. Her shoulders are hunched, and she looks worse now than she did years ago. “It’s not a coincidence,” she says quietly and her voice is shaky.

It looks bad. It looks really fucking bad. I can see why she’d be freaked out, but this isn’t the way she should have handled it.

I can hear her breathe in sharply as I lay a hand on her shoulder, but I make sure to keep my touch gentle, and she slowly melts. Every bit of her is breaking down.

She licks her lower lip and struggles to look me in the eye as she tells me, “Ever since they found him…” She trails off and rolls her eyes although sadness and guilt even, mar her expression.

“Calm down,” I tell her as she takes in a breath. “You’re all right.” I try to pull her in close to me, to be close to her like I was a few nights ago, but she pulls away enough that my hands fall from her.

She looks me in the eyes as she confesses, “Ever since that night, I’ve had these nightmares… My mom…” She takes in a shaky breath.

“You need to sleep and eat and let it all go, Chloe.” I hold her gaze as I take a step closer to her, willing her to let it go. “People die.”

“They’re being killed,” she replies forcefully, although her bottom lip wobbles. Her eyes dart from me to the door as she takes a half step back. “I dreamed of her last night,” she whispers darkly. “With Tamra. And the others before.”

Letting out a breath, I straighten my back and run a hand through my hair. Behind the butcher’s is a mechanic shop and I stare at a patch of rust on an old beat-up hood as a wind gust blows by and the heat lets up for a moment.

“You didn’t do this,” I tell her without looking at her.

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” she says in a sad voice that forces me to look at her. Her doe eyes reach mine. “Truly crazy, Sebastian.”

“You’re scared and searching for meaning where there is none,” I tell her, hoping she’ll just drop it already.

“I don’t know what to think, but it’s not--”

“A coincidence?” I cut her off, staring into her eyes and forcing her to let it go. “It is. That’s all this is.”

Her head wavers with the smallest of shakes and she looks at me bewildered. “But even you said the cops would think--”

“Jesus,” I cut her off again and run a hand down my face. “Is that what got to you?” I ask her, tilting my head and staring at her like she should know better. I can feel my brow furrow as she struggles to come up with an answer.

“Chloe, you can’t be doing this. You need to sleep-”

“I did!” she protests.

“More than one night,” I add. “And you need to eat. You need to take care of yourself and stop worrying about those assholes.”

She lifts her hand up to her shoulder and lets her thumb drag along the collar of her shirt as she looks out onto the mechanic’s shop. “It’s just a coincidence?” she asks me, although it sounds more like a hopeful statement. I wait until her eyes are on me to tell her, “Yeah, you’re just tired, Chlo.”

She holds my gaze for a second and I swear if it had been a second longer, I would have had to look away.

“I’m sorry,” she says with another shake of her head. Biting down on her bottom lip she looks away from me and says, “I didn’t mean to come here and…”

“You definitely shouldn’t have come here,” I tell her with a seriousness that makes her flinch.

“I…” she starts to respond and then corrects herself, “I said I was sorry.” The instant the words slip from her, I can feel her walls start to go up. For a moment I had her, but I’ll be damned, I don’t want to lose it. Not again.

“Come have lunch with me.” I don’t offer her an out or a chance to turn me down. Feeling the heat get to me from the direct sun, I wipe my hand down the back of my neck. “You need to eat anyway.”

“I don’t know that I should,” she tells me although her words come out as if she’s asking a question.

A huff of disbelief leaves me. “So, you think it’s okay to come here and talk to me about people being murdered?” I wait for her eyes to meet mine before I continue. “But going out to lunch is where you draw the line?” I let my expression show a bit of disappointment, even a little sadness. She’s always been a sucker for that.

“I’m sorry.” Her expression shifts to one of sympathy as she says, “I didn’t mean--”

“I know what you meant,” I tell her and splay my hand on the small of her back, giving the shop one more look before guiding Chloe around the building to the front parking lot. “You need to eat.”