I don’t know how long I’ve sat here, wondering why he let me go. I know I should be dead after what I did. He’s a criminal, and he could have done whatever he wanted with me. Before or after I shot that gun. He’s strong enough to, and he has the means to do it. I’ve learned that much.

The sun’s gone down, leaving my small living room bathed in shadows. My eyes burn, and my left ankle is numb from sitting on it for so long.

There’s a bus that runs from the next block over all the way to Jersey City. I’ve been thinking about that too. And whether or not I would be able to use my credit cards, or if he’d be able to track me. I don’t have enough cash to live without cards. I barely have any cash, in fact. There’s a lot of debt in my name if I were to run and somehow try to come up with a fake ID.

I guess I can add three hundred thousand more to that debt. My stomach sinks at the thought, somehow finding its way to my throat even though it’s in the opposite direction.

I’ve been waiting for some miraculous plan to smack me in the face. An easy way out, or even a difficult one. Something tells me Jase Cross will find me though. He’ll find me wherever I run.

I can hear my back crack as I slowly rise from the sofa. My body is so stiff and sore, an obvious reminder of what happened. I need to give in to sleep and rest, but I can’t bring myself to do it. To go lie in my bed when I’m so fucked.

Three hundred thousand dollars. What did you get yourself into, Jenny?

I have nothing. No money saved, only debt from school and from bailing Jenny out countless times. No answers to what happened.

He has answers. The nagging voice reminds me of that fact as I walk around my coffee table, leaving the book where it sits, and heading to the kitchen.

He wants to use me and pressure me into this when I don’t deserve this shit. And he’s the one with all the power. The one with all the answers.

Answers that belong to me. If he wants that debt to be paid, he’d better hold up his end of the deal. He’d better give me answers.

Grabbing a glass from the dishwasher and one of the many open bottles of red wine from my fridge left by all my unwelcomed guests, I decide on a drink. A drink to numb it all.

It’s what I relied on last night too, after hours of searching my sister’s old room for anything at all. Drugs she could have bought, cash she stored somewhere. I have no fucking idea how she owes so much, but her room was barren.

When Jase Cross dropped me off and told me he’d be seeing me soon, that was the first thing I did. Then I searched everywhere else. I searched and dug until my body gave out. And then I drank, somehow finding a moment of sleep, only to wake up with a pounding headache and that sick feeling still in my gut.

The way he said he’d be seeing me soon, before unlocking the car doors and walking me to my front door, the way he said it was like a promise. Like a promise a long-lost lover makes.

Not at all like the threat it really is.

The cork pops when it comes out, that lovely sound filling the air, followed by the sweet smell of Cabernet.

One glass quiets the constant flood of questions and regrets.

Two glasses numb the fears and makes me feel... alive. Free? I don’t know.

Three glasses and I usually give in and pass out and everything’s better then. Until I wake up and have to face another day with nothing to take this emptiness inside of me away.

He has answers.

Jase fucking Cross.

Ever since he let me go, my wrists and throat have felt scarred with his touch, and his voice has lingered in the back of my thoughts.

I hate that he makes me feel so much. There’s a spark between us I can’t deny. He doesn’t hide it, and that only makes this all hotter. It’s in the way he talks to me, his candor and tone. The way his gaze seems to see through me while also seeing all of me, every bare piece of me. There is nothing that isn’t raw in the tension that ties us together. Raw and thrilling… and terrifying.

I shouldn’t find the arrogant prick so hot. He’s a criminal and an asshole.

It doesn’t matter if I want to fuck him. I still hate him. I hate what he does to earn a living and what he stands for. I hate that in her last months, he may have seen my sister more than I did.

Hate doesn’t do what I feel toward him justice.

He has to know there’s no way I can pay him three hundred thousand dollars.

He has to know and that’s why he’s given me this “out” – it’s coercion at best. I could take him to court, but I already went to the cops. And going to them got me nothing. Not a damn thing but Jase fucking Cross knocking at my door.

“I don’t trust him,” I whisper to no one, letting my fingertip drag along the edge of the wine glass before tipping it back, gulping down the chilled liquid. “I don’t trust anyone anymore.”

I almost called the cops. The very second I shut the front door after saying goodbye as if he was an old friend, not a bad man wrapped in a good suit, and pushed my back against it. I almost did it and then I remembered doing the same damn thing yesterday, and the day before and the day before that. No one can help me.

Jase has answers. The voice doesn’t shut up. I slam the glass down hard on the counter. Too hard for being this sober. Barely caring that the glass isn’t broken, I grab the bottle and pour the rest of it into the glass. It’s more than enough to help me pass out and to leave me with a hangover in the morning.

With both of my hands on the counter, I lean forward, stretching and going over every possibility.

If I stay, he’s either going to try to fuck me or kill me. And I must be insane, because I think it’s all worth it if I get answers.

I’m willing to risk it just to feel something else – something other than this debilitating pain. “I’ve lost my fucking mind.”

Just as the words leave me, I hear a ping from the living room and turn my head to stare down the narrow walkway of my kitchen.

My gaze moves from the threshold, to the fridge and I purse my lips before making my way to where the other bottles are hiding from me.

My bare feet pad on the floor and it’s the only sound I hear as I grab the next partially drunk bottle from the fridge, the glass from the counter, and move back to where my ass has made an indent in the sofa.

Pulling the blanket over my lap, I sit cross-legged and read the text. I’m trying to prepare myself for any number of things. The trepidation, the anxiety, both are ever constant, but dampened with yet another sip of the sweet wine.

It’s only Laura, though. Seeing her name brings a small bit of relief until I read what she wrote.

Where the hell are you?

Home. What’s wrong?

I went there yesterday. What happened to your door?

That sick feeling creeps up from the pit of my stomach and rises higher and higher until I’m forced to swallow it down with another gulp. This wine is colder, and it gives me a chill when I drink it.

Lie.

Just lie.

I know I should. I need to. I won’t bring her into this bullshit. It’s my problem, not hers.

You know I’m Italian, I answer her. Hoping the bit of humor mocking my hot-tempered heritage will lighten her mood.

You broke your door?

Italian and Irish, can’t help it. Even I smirk at my answer. My mom used to tell us we’re mutts, a mix of Italian and Irish, so people should know we’ll hit them first if they’re coming for us, and we won’t stop hitting until we hit the floor. She was a firecracker, my mom.

The memory of her, of us, stirs up a sadness I keep at bay by filling my glass again. Three glasses, in what, twenty minutes? Even I can admit that’s too much.

What happened? Laura asks.

Staring at the full glass, but not taking a sip, I settle with a half-truth. My boss told me I have to take time off.

Is it paid?

I get a little choked up thinking about how everyone chipped in to donate their PTO and debate on telling her the details, but hell, I can’t deal with all this shit right now. I’ve never felt so overwhelmed in every way in my entire life. So I keep it simple.

Yeah. It’s paid.

I miss you, she writes back. Thankfully, not continuing a subject that’s going to push me over the edge.

I’m teetering on the wrong side of tipsy, exhausted, mourning, angry and in denial of fear and loneliness. And being coerced into … probably sex, by a man I thought was going to kill me.

Fuck any kind of therapeutic conversation right now. Whether it’s with Laura or anyone else. I don’t have the emotional energy for it.

I miss you too.

We should go drunk shopping next weekend. Laura’s suggestion sounds like a good way to have a minor public breakdown and max out my credit card. Which is fine if I do decide to leave town on the bus to Jersey City.

We can start at the mall, hit the restaurant bars in between the department stores? she suggests. The best times I’ve had with Laura were on the edge of a barstool holding a bag in one hand and a drink in the other, all while laughing about old times.

Hell yes, I answer her, because that’s how I always answer her. Whether I’m going or not, I’ll let her think I am so she feels better.

I promised I’d make you go out, so boom. Look at me keeping my commitment. I can practically hear the laughter in her voice from that text.

Who would have thought drunk shopping was a commitment you could keep, I joke back.

Seriously though, we haven’t talked. How are you? Do you need me to come over? Laura’s message makes me pause. But I can’t hesitate for too long. She’s sent me that message before, do you need me to come over, when in reality she was five minutes away and already headed here. She’s notorious for just dropping in on people like that and thinks it’s cute. In all honesty, I’m glad she’s done it in the past, but I can’t tonight. I will break down and tell her everything.

Don’t come, I’m fine. I think I needed the time off, I admit to Laura after writing several messages and deleting them all.

If she came over… it would be disastrous.

Life moves too fast. It’s whirling around me, demanding, taking, and I don’t even have time to do an inventory of what’s left of me. I don’t know how to be okay, and I want someone to hurt for what happened to Jenny. I want someone who deserves it to be in this pain.

Someone other than me. It’s so easy to blame myself. I deserve some of it. I can admit it.

I don’t tell Laura any of that though. A small part of me knows she already knows I blame myself. No matter how many times she’s told me you can’t help someone who won’t help themselves. It doesn’t change the fact that Jenny was my sister. It doesn’t change the fact that I keep thinking if only I’d been with her, or if I’d followed her, if I’d pushed her more, maybe she’d still be with me.

I don’t even realize I’m crying until I feel the tears on my cheeks.

Angrily, I wipe them away and toss my phone across the coffee table. It makes the glass clatter against the table as I cover my face with my hand and force myself to calm down.

I just need to know what happened. I need to know.

Jase Cross will get me answers.

The very thought has my eyes opening, and the need to mourn subsiding.

My gaze wanders to the foyer. To the small table that sits right where it should, but was pushed to the side only hours ago. To the wall he pushed me against. The scene plays out in my head, complete with the bang of a gun and his husky voice whispering against the shell of my ear.

As I remember his words, shivers run down my shoulders. I’ll blame some of them on the wine.

He may not have hurt her, but he knows who did, or he knows someone who can find out. He knows something about the side of my sister I never fully knew.

I want it. I need it. I need to know.

As my phone pings with another text, there’s a knock at my door.

Fucking Laura. I love her, but I cannot deal with life right now. I don’t bother picking up the phone to see what she wrote this time.

Instead I’m focused on one glaring thought that won’t leave me alone as I stand up. I know nothing about the world my sister inhabited. I know nothing about the life she led.

All I know is this, my work, my small circle, and the daily patterns that haven’t changed in years.

But Jase Cross knows it all.

Making my way to the door, I come up with every excuse I can to make her go away; looking down past my baggy pajama shirt all the way to the stains on my old sweatpants, my very appearance is excuse enough. I need to pass the hell out and be alone.

I’m already telling her to go home when I open the door, wide and easily, not even considering for a second that it isn’t her.

“You aren’t touching my wine-” I start to joke with her, but then my jaw drops open and my heart stutters. My body heats with both fear and desire, making my grip on the doorknob slip as Jase stares down at me.

He’s taller than I remember; how is that even possible? His shoulders are wide and dominating as he stands in my doorway. A ribbed black Henley under a thick wool coat and dark jeans are all he wears this time. For some reason, comparing the two sides of him, this casual man with an edge of seduction and the buttoned-up powerful man of control… it stirs a heat in my core.

“What do you want?” My words are rushed and I try desperately to hold on to what little sense I have.

“You look surprised.” His voice is smooth like velvet, caressing every one of my senses.

“What are you doing here?” I question him, feeling panic rise inside of me.

With a sexy smirk kicking up his lips, he runs the pad of his thumb down the sharp line of his jaw before telling me, “I’m here with your contract.”