Pretty Dirty (Dirty Bad Things Book 2)(28)

I explore his place, looking where I haven’t yet, my jaw dropping more and more at the size and glamor of the place. He’s right — he might work for some really terrible people, but it seems to pay insanely well.

In his study, there are pictures on the wall. Some are of him and an older man who must be his dad. Others are him and two other guys, in Marine fatigues in the desert. Next to the pictures is a law degree from Stanford.

I’m snooping, but I can't help it. I want to know everything about him, and not in some creepy psycho way, but just because I’m falling for him so hard, I just want to know what layer comes next. I open drawers, glancing over files and small trinkets here and there — a collection of fishing lures in drawer in the hallway closet, poker chips from casinos that don’t exist anymore in one of the kitchen drawers.

I finally find myself in a spare room that might be a guest room if there was a bed in here. There’s a chest of drawers, and as I’m poking through old sweaters of his, my fingers suddenly brush something glass.

A picture frame.

I pause, pulling it free from beneath the sweaters and blankets, and when I see it, suddenly everything slows down.

Oh my God.

The picture is of a woman…and a small child with dark hair and dark eyes.

The room spins around me. My chest feels tight, and I’m dropping the picture back into the drawer and staggering out of the room in a daze. My head spins, and it feels like there’s a weight pressing down on me that I can’t shrug off.

He has a family. Or had, or….fuck, I don’t even know. All I know is, I can’t breathe and I need air.

I slip off the clothes of his that only moments before made me melt, and instead yank on a pair of jeans and a shirt that we bought yesterday. There’s a set of keys on a hook in the kitchen with a “PH1” tag on them — Penthouse 1, Gray’s unit number — which must be spares. I snag them in a blur as I stagger out of his place and hammer the button for the elevator.

I have no right to be snooping like I was, but the picture I’ve found is burning a hole in my heart. I want to ask why he has it, or who they are, or why the little boy in the picture looks just like him. I want to know why it’s hidden in a drawer, and I want to ask myself why finding it feels like someone’s stabbing me in the chest.

My nerves are jangling being outside of his place like this, and my eyes flicker up and down the hallway as I push the button for the elevator. Running off like this, without Gray around, is stupid, what with the whole thing with Joey. And I know how crazy and paranoid it is for me to be looking for him, like he might jump out of a shadow, but I can’t help it. I can’t help that I’m freaking out, because the fact that I’m completely falling for Gray is making me freak out.

Who’s the kid in the picture, Gray?

Or, fuck, who’s the woman? Someone he had a kid with? I’m both furious with him for not telling me, but also furious at myself for thinking that he should have. It’s none of my damn business, and I’m sure it was buried in a drawer for reason. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still burn.

Badly.

The elevator descends, and when it stops at the ground floor, the chime dings. The doors open. I’m still completely drowning in my thoughts as I step out, but when I hear the sound of the gun hammer being clicked back, the whole world cracks around me. My head snaps up, and the scream chokes in my throat as I look down the barrel of the gun right to Joey Luco’s sneering, furious face.

Oh, God…

“Come here,” he hisses, lunging into the elevator, grabbing me by the wrist and yanking me close as he jams the door close button.

“You little fucking ungrateful bitch,” he spits out. He glances down at the spare keys in my hand with the “PH1” tag on them, and suddenly, I can see a light going on in his eyes.

“You're staying here? Jesus H Christ, bitch, whose place is that?”

“No one’s! Joey, please—”

“Don’t you fucking Joey please me, you little slut,” he roars, slamming me up against the wall of the elevator and shoving the gun in my face. I cry out, shuddering as the cold metal presses into my neck. He turns and jams the “penthouse” level button, and the elevator stars to rise.

“You know your new guy likes to hit people when their guard ain’t up. Like a little bitch.”

He leans in close, and his grin turns downright wicked.

“But you know what? I can do that too.”

The punch comes hard, right in the stomach. I gasp hoarsely, the wind knocked out of me and my whole body doubling over in pain. The doors open, and Joey yanks the keys out of my hand as he drags me by the wrist from the elevator. He eyes Gray’s door and jams the keys into the lock.

“Why don’t we wait here for your little sucker-punch bitch of a man, huh? How about we wait here, and when he shows up, I put a bullet in him. Not to kill him, but so that he bleeds out while he watches me take my fucking time with you.”

When he goes to open the door, I try and lunge away from him, but his hand yanks me back hard. I scream, but he covers my mouth as he drags me into Gray’s place and slams the door shut.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

He punches me again, knocking me to the ground as I cry out weakly. Gray’s landline phone starts to ring, and I know it’s probably a sales call or someone looking for him. But as the pain aches through me, I fantasize that it’s him, calling to check in on me.