Josie is a sales associate by day and a lollipop-sucking hacker by night. She likes to stay in and feel the keys underneath her fingertips. When she decides to grace her friends at a club, she stumbles across a man who seems to send every part of he...
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"The kid is coming down. Take her back to the jet and send her home." I call my driver as soon as Josie walks out of the room. She wants to leave, and then so be. I got what I needed from her, and there is no use for her now, but just a warm fucking hole for me to fuck. Been there, done that.
I hear the front door open and close. Good riddance.
"Boss," Tony meets at the bottom of the staircase. "Josie just left without you."
"I'm sending her back home. She isn't needed anymore."
"Are you sure? I still haven't gotten any leads on who was stalking her. I thought—"
"She'll be fine." As the words leave my mouth even, I don't believe it. Yet, I need to put enough distance between the two of us. Josie has me doing things I thought I would never do for a woman. "Send her the money for getting the job done last night." We made a deal that she would be with me for six months, but I couldn't even think straight around her for six seconds—she had to go.
As Tony nods and retreats, my sense of unease doesn't fade. The buzz of my phone jolts me from my thoughts—it's a notification from the driver:
Ruie: Boss, she doesn't want to fly alone.
Fuck, how could I forget?
Me: Get her ass on the jet. I don't care if you have to constrain her. I don't want her in Florida.
Ruie: Are you sure? We're thirty minutes from the airport. I can give her a happy pill.
Me: No fucking drugs! Just put her on the fucking jet.
Ruie: Copy.
Hopefully, Josie will hate me for doing this and never look back. I don't want her to come looking for me. She doesn't belong in my world. She's too fucking young and naïve. I'll destroy her—I saw it last night. No matter how shitty I was to her, she was still seeking my approval; she still wanted me.
I don't need a woman like that, and she doesn't need an asshole like me for a man.
I turn off the phone and shove it in my pocket, but the unease knots tighter in my stomach, twisting like a double helix. It's a lousy move, sending her away like some problematic file you just delete from your hard drive. Except Josie isn't just data. She's real, flesh and blood, and damn those expressive eyes that seem to see right through me.
Dragging a hand down my face, I contemplate pouring myself a drink — or hell, the whole bottle. But no amount of scotch can drown out the gnawing thought that I might be making a colossal mistake. She's gotten under my skin, hacked into parts of me I didn't even know were vulnerable.
Before my thoughts can consume me, Tony walks back in.
"The money is sent, and the car is ready."
I nod, following Tony out the door. Today, I have a meeting with Gio Marchetti. He is not my favorite crime family to do business with, but I hear he has a state-of-the-art warehouse in NYC, and he can move products in and out of the country undetected.
