Bound by Vengeance (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles #5)(57)

“My apartment,” Growl said simply.

I froze on my way toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. “This is yours?” This apartment looked completely unused. And in six the weeks that I’d been with him, he’d never mentioned it to me. I startled. Had it really been six weeks? God. And at the same time six weeks seemed way too short a time span for everything that had happened.

Six weeks. Without my sister. She was fine, Growl had assured me. And my mother, I hadn’t seen her in so long.

“I got it a few years back,” Growl said, tearing me from my thoughts. He fetched a coke from the fridge and drank it. “Falcone gave it to me as payment for a job well done, but I don’t use it.” He handed me another coke but I only used it to let the cold help me focus.

“If you have this,” I motioned around myself. “Then why are you living in that awful house? This place doesn’t look like you’ve ever set foot in it. There’s nothing that belongs to you.”

Growl gave me a strange look. “Because this isn’t who I am. The furniture was there when I got it and I never changed anything,” he said in his usual low rumble. “This is too…” His eyes searched the room. “Too noble for someone like me. It’s just not me.”

I stopped at the window and let my gaze wander over the Las Vegas strip spreading out below us. In the distance I could see the endless red desert. I preferred to live in a house, had always loved my old home and the garden, but everything was better than the shack Growl called home. “For someone like you?” I repeated his words.

Growl approached me slowly and followed my gaze. “And Coco and Bandit wouldn’t feel comfortable so high up. They’d miss their garden. Around here there’s no where I could walk them.”

I gave him a look but he avoided my eyes. There was something strangely vulnerable and out of place in Growl. Why did he feel so uncomfortable in a luxurious apartment? “It’s not like the area where we live is great for dog walks.”

Growl gave me a strange smile. “Bandit and Coco are used to places like that. They know how to handle drunkards and junkies, whores and the homeless. The people around here with their fake smiles, that’s something they can’t handle. People like that sent them into dog fights.”

“You know, there are places where normal decent people live. You compare one extreme with the other.”

“Normal,” Growl said quietly, testing the word. “I’ve never had normal.” He turned to me. “Can you imagine me among normal decent people?”

I didn’t say anything. Growl with his scary tattoos and scarred throat always drew attention to himself, and that was only his scary appearance.

He must have read my thoughts from my face. He nodded. “Normal people wouldn’t want me in their neighborhood, they’d be scared of me. And the people around here, they don’t want me either because they, too, fear me.”

“Everyone fears you,” I said matter-of-factly. “Even the criminals and junkies in your area. If you want to live where no one fears you, you’ll have to move into wilderness.” It was meant as a joke, to lighten up the mood, but Growl nodded thoughtfully.

“Animals don’t fear me, only humans do. I’m a man-made monster, perhaps that’s why.” He took in our surroundings again. “Monsters aren’t meant for a palace like this.”

He thought he didn’t deserve to live in a nice place. Maybe along the way he’d started to believe what everyone said, that he was below everyone else, that he wasn’t worth anything. For some reason I felt for him, even though he didn’t deserve my compassion.

“You belong here,” Growl said quietly. “A princess in her tower.”

My lips parted in surprise. It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like that but it caught me by surprise every time.

“So why are we here?” I asked him.

“You hate the house,” he said simply.

“And?”

“We can live here for a while. It’ll make you feel better until I figure out the best day for our plan.”

I was stunned into silence. Growl was really considering moving into this place because he wanted to see me happy. “Are you sure?” I wanted nothing more than to live here, in this bright place, away from the misery.

He nodded, but I could detect a hint of uncertainty.

“What about Bandit and Coco? You said it yourself, they need a yard. Will they get used to this?”

Growl brushed a strand of hair from my shoulder. “I’m away on business most of the time. I can take them with me. I’m often out in nature where they can run. And I won’t sell the house, so we can return there if we don’t want to stay here.”

I doubted that I’d ever want to return to Growl’s house. It wasn’t even because it was small and in a bad neighborhood. The place was filled with too much desolation; it seemed burnt into the walls and floors. There was no escaping it.

“I’d love to live here,” I admitted eventually. And I really did.

“We might not be living here for very long though. After we’re done with Falcone, we have to leave Las Vegas.”

I knew that, and after everything that had happened to me here, I wasn’t sad to leave my home town. I wanted a new start. With Growl? A sharp voice inquired in my head. And part of me, wanted to say yes.