Miss Night

Chapter Eight

Gio excused himself from the hospital room and I was hot on his heels, my fists curled by my sides.

"Don't you dare do what I think you're going to do."

He turned, arching a dark brow, his phone already in his hands. "And what exactly am I about to do, Miss Night?"

My throat felt thick at the discerning look in his eyes. I tried not to shrink under them, but it was impossible when he seemed to know exactly what I was thinking or the deja vu I was feeling. I did not want to owe yet another powerful man for the same god damn thing.

"I know what 'making arrangements' means to you," I ground out, "the apartment made at least a little sense. But this? You have no reason to do this. None."

Gio's face didn't falter as he watched me, that calm expression still calculating who knows what. I, however, could feel my pulse on the top of my skin and the blood burning in my veins. Cold prickled on my neck and over my wrists. Not again. Please, not again.

"What about this does not make sense?" He asked finally, crossing his arms over his chest. Nurses walked past us, most of them stopping to turn and look at us. "It doesn't make sense to help out my employees? We do offer health insurance to—"

"Stop bullshitting me right now," I demanded before I could think better of yelling at him. "What do you want from me? I already work for you, I live two floors below you, what else can you possibly want from me?"

He squinted at me, and immediately I regretted losing my temper. I could hardly imagine what Marafi would do if I ever spoke to him this way, but Gio merely looked at me, still with his arms crossed over his broad chest. I tried not to look at those shoulders, at the tattoos that peeked out from his collar and his sleeves.

"Why do you think I want something from you?"

Answering my question with one of his own. Typical. He did, however, seem genuinely confused at my reaction. As though it was absurd to consider that he expected something in return for putting me up in one of the nicest apartments I've ever seen and then now? Now he wanted to pay for my sister's implant?

He wants something from me. I just didn't know what it was, but until I figured it out I wouldn't let me guard down. Not when I had a mission to accomplish, a sister to protect, and my freedom to gain. But here he was threatening all of that because he thought he was helping me.

"Why else would you be doing this?" I asked. There could be no other reason, none at least that I could think of. "What else could you possibly have to gain from this?"

He shrugged. "Maybe I know how it feels to be helpless, and maybe I don't like seeing it on other people."

"I'm not helpless," I gritted my teeth. "Never have been. Never will be."

Even if sometimes it felt as though I was. Even if sometimes I definitely was. Marafi's face flashed in my mind.

I wasn't the same helpless kid I was when I first met Marafi, when I first incurred my debt. What scared me, what truly scared me, was that even if Gio expected something from me or expected me to owe him... then I could do it all over again. For Audrey. I would do it again.