Hold Him Like Gravity (Lombardi Family #4)

Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

Kick

The man had handed me two stacks of money like it was nothing. They were fresh from the bank. Still had the little paper band around them. The kind with the brown edges. Which meant each stack was worth five grand .

He’d given me ten grand to take a few days off.

No. I mean, he probably felt guilty about my face getting messed up. That was why he’d given me money.

I’d considered finding somewhere to stash it when I went to my locker to get my bag and sweater. But I didn’t like the idea of someone else randomly finding it and taking it.

So the stacks were currently sitting heavy at the bottom of my bag, full of possibilities that I wasn’t sure I could make happen.

Not after what I’d seen back in that office.

Before the one guy pulled the other off of me and got them out of there.

The memory had my heart constricting in my chest, painful enough for me to want to press a hand there and try to rub the sensation away.

But with Rico and his keen, gorgeous eyes right there beside me as we walked down the hall to my apartment, I fought the urge, reaching instead to fish for my keys.

“The fuck is that?” Rico asked as we got in front of my door.

And, sure enough, Evander was shrieking out on the fire escape.

I’d entertained the idea of just leaving the window cracked for him to come and go as he pleased. But, well, the area had more than its fair share of rats. I didn’t know if they were capable or willing to climb the fire escape like Evander did, but I wasn’t taking that chance.

“That, believe it or not,” is a cat,” I told Rico as I turned the knob.

“Is he fucking dying?” he asked as I flicked on the light and rushed across the apartment to push open the window.

“You’d think,” I said as Evander shot me an annoyed glance, likely because I was later than usual, before making his way up onto the counter. “But, no, he’s just an asshole.”

“An asshole you feed,” Rico said, shooting me a smirk as I rushed to grab the can of food before the cat started to knock things onto the floor.

“He’s not even mine. I mean, I don’t know if he has another home. But he comes here at night to eat and sleep. Then I let him out in the morning to go, I don’t know, hunt.”

“He got a name?” Rico asked, moving closer.

“Evander.”

“Like Holyfield?” Rico asked, giving me something that seemed rare for him, an actual smile. “‘Cause of the bite in his ear?”

“Yeah,” I said, letting out a little laugh, oddly happy to have someone to share that little joke with, since this new life of mine was the most solitary I’d ever been. Which was saying something. “Oh, I wouldn’t,” I said as Rico reached out toward the cat. “He doesn’t like being… oh,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the cat as he immediately started to purr for Rico. “You little dick,” I said.

“He doesn’t let you pet him?”

“Only if he initiates,” I said. “And only in very specific locations.”

But the darn cat looked ready to roll over and give his belly like a dog for Rico.

“I’m the one who buys you that expensive food you like, you know,” I told Evander who spared me one short glance before giving lovey-dovey eyes to Rico. “Why don’t you go and shriek on his fire escape then?” I asked as I went to get the milk for the other side of the bowl.

“I don’t have one,” Rico said. “You just move in?” he asked, eyes taking in my bare walls and my very minimal furnishings. I didn’t even have end tables. I had my mismatched lamps sitting on cardboard delivery boxes I’d taped shut after getting my goods out of them.

“A couple months ago,” I told him. “Pretty soon after I started working at the meat shop,” I told him. “Ah… want some coffee?” I asked, having nothing else to offer him.

“Sure,” he said, surprising me. I figured he would walk me to my door, then rush off. He clearly had friends or family waiting for him back at the shop. “You said you worked in the Bronx before this?” he asked, still petting Evander as I put the fresh grounds into the filter.

“Yeah. I grew up in the Bronx,” I said.

“What had you moving here?” he asked.

It was a casual question. It seemed like most people who lived in the city tended to pick their area and stay loyal to it. Not only the boroughs, but even the little micro neighborhoods. It was weird to make such a ‘big’ move for a lifelong city-dweller.

“I just wanted something new,” I said, only giving him part of the truth. “And Brooklyn was a lot more affordable than Manhattan,” I added. “Did you grow up here?”

“Yep,” he said as I got down mugs for the both of us.

“Were those your friends back at the shop?” I asked.

He gave me this long, probing look that I didn’t understand before answering. “Family,” he said.

“That’s nice.”

“You don’t have family?”

“I don’t have anyone,” I said before I could think better of the phrasing. It wasn’t his business. Even if it was the truth. I was all I had.

“Well, I have Evander,” I said, shooting small eyes at the cat. “Even if he would clearly leave me for you, given the chance.”

“That’d be a downgrade, man,” he told the cat.

It was a throwaway comment, but try telling that to my system that had been fantasizing about this guy for months now.

“Thanks,” he said when I passed him a cup of coffee.

“So, how long do you want me to stay home?” I asked.

He’d given me enough money to stay away from work for months. With nothing to do but fret about what I’d seen in the office at the meat shop.

“That bruise is getting darker by the minute,” he said. “Take off as long as it takes for it to go away.”

“They sell makeup, you know,” I said. At his blank look, I waved at my cheek, “I can cover it.”

“Let it heal. Lip too. Then come back.”

“My job will still be there?” I asked, dubious. That just wasn’t how business worked.

“Your job ain’t going anywhere. Doesn’t matter how long it takes to heal. Look,” he said when I still wasn’t convinced, “know you don’t know me. But when I give my word, I keep it. Come back in a week, three weeks, whenever. But come back all healed up,” he said, gesturing toward his face.

So maybe it was, I don’t know, an aesthetics thing.

Objectively, everyone working at the meat shop was pretty good-looking in their own ways. And, being the only woman there, maybe that standard went double for me. I had to, quite literally, put my best face forward.

“Okay,” I said, nodding. Even if the idea of having, potentially, a few weeks with nothing to do kind of filled me with dread.

Well, not nothing to do.

Because, now, it seemed like I needed to drag my ass all the way back to the Bronx to sort some shit out.

As we sipped our coffee, he asked me some questions about the robbery, but seemed to be going easy on me, not pressing me for more details.

“It’s okay,” I said when I caught him checking his phone a few moments later. “You can head back. I’m fine. Thanks for walking me home.”

Rico finished his coffee, gave an eager Evander one more scratch, then made his way to the door.

“Just show up whenever you’re better,” he said as he stepped into the hallway.

“I will,” I said.

And as I closed the door, I was kind of having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that he was so casually walking away from ten grand of his own money. After losing a grand or so out of the cash drawer as well.

The man had to be rolling in it to act like it was nothing.

He didn’t dress like a wealthy man. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him in anything more formal than dark wash jeans and a black t-shirt or button-up.

Though, yeah, that watch he had on his wrist? If that was real, it probably cost upward of fifteen or twenty grand.

If he was willing to spend that much on an accessory, then the ten grand was probably nothing to him.

Maybe I could sink some of it into my apartment. Get actual end tables. Paint the walls. Find some decor and hang it up. Make this place feel more like home.

A part of me, when I landed here, had been worried that putting down roots only to get them ripped out again was going to be depressing.

But it was starting to be just as depressing to stare at my bare apartment.

The rational part of me wanted to save as much of that money as possible to use as a ‘get out of Dodge’ plan. In case this shit went even more sideways.

My mind flashed back to being on the floor in that office. To the man looming over me, trying to pull my pants off. To the other man grabbing him, making his shirt ride up, showing me a tattoo on the inside of his forearm.

A familiar tattoo.

I guess I knew the first thing I would be doing on my break from work.

Tracking down the bastard who had that tattoo.