Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Ophelia clucks her tongue. “If Evander Kazan’s petty enough to punish us for whatever goes down between you two, then fuck him, we didn’t need him anyway.”
“I don’t know how you can be so flippant about all this.”
“I grew up around these guys. I guess it’s just not a huge deal. Although, please, I am literally begging you, lock the door next time.”
I put my face in my hands. I’m about to start laughing, or maybe start crying, because I am the most braindead girl in the entire world, when my phone buzzes in the big pocket of my uniform. I take it out and it’s my landlady, Hermia, calling.
“Gotta take this,” I say, and Ophelia waves me on. I stand and walk a few feet away. “Hello? Hermia?”
“Honey, Camille, you’re safe.” She sounds breathless and afraid, and my feet go cold like I’m standing in ice.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Is everyone okay?”
“Sweetie, there was a man. I didn’t know what he was doing until—” She clears her throat. “You need to come back here. Your apartment is a mess, and I’m afraid he’s looking for you.”
My fingers go numb and the phone slips from my grip and clatters to the ground.
It’s him.
He found me.
Chapter 11
Camille
I walk up the stairs on numb, wooden legs, and Hermia flutters behind me like a moth. “Maybe we should call Mr. Kazan, yes?” She sounds frightened, and I can’t blame her. “He told me to call right away if something like this happened.”
Christopher can be terrifying when he’s in a mood, and I can’t blame Hermia for being nervous. If she saw my ex ripping my place to pieces then she must be panicking.
“I don’t want to bother Evander,” I say quietly. It’s like my voice emanates from deep inside my body and I’m watching it from a distance.
I know rationally I should get Evander involved, but I just found out that he’s a Greek gangster and I’m feeling a little strange about him at the moment.
I live in a building with five other units. It’s an old, converted townhouse. Hermia lives on the bottom floor and while I don’t know my other neighbors, they all seem nice enough.
I reach the stop of the steps and pause outside of my apartment. The door is splintered and broken, the lock a mangled ruin.
“He told me to alert him if there were any problems—” Hermia stops as I stand outside my door.
The entire frame is shifted slightly, like a bull rammed into it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper and a shiver of fear runs down my spine.
He found me.
I step into my apartment and Hermia hangs back in the doorway. I hear her suck in a surprised breath and I force myself to look around at the wreckage.
Everything is broken. My second-hand couch, my cheap coffee table, all my thrift store plates and mugs and glasses, all of it smashed. My television, cracked and playing static. My new clothes are strewn around the hallway, and even my toiletries are smashed to paste in the bathtub.
My life lays in ruins around me and I can’t feel anything but a cold and persistent terror.
I’ve never had my own space before. This apartment isn’t much—a small kitchen, tiny living room, miniscule bedroom, and a bathroom fit for ants—but it’s mine, and that meant everything.
And now my space has been violated so deeply, so thoroughly and personally, and I feel like I’ve been shoved down the stairs and beaten within an inch of my life.
“Are you okay?” Hermia asks, fluttering around me. She finds an unbroken glass and gets me water. “Here, here, you drink something. Maybe we should call Mr. Kazan now? Or maybe we can call the police?”
“How did he get in here?” I ask softly.
She shakes her head from side to side. “I don’t know. I was out at the store and when I came back, I heard the banging and breaking, and I only saw him as he came down the stairs to leave.”
“What did he look like?” I squeeze my eyes shut and drink the water. I don’t want to hear her answer, but I have to.
“Tall,” she says. “Dark hair. Flashy clothes. Big gold chain. Scruffy, but a little bit handsome.”
“I hate that stupid chain,” I whisper and put the water glass down.
“Camille? What was that?”
“Nothing.”
I walk away from Hermia and stand at the window.
Christopher definitely found me, and I don’t know how. It’s like my world’s cracking apart, and I’m desperate to hold it all together. For two weeks, I got a taste of what it’s like to be on my own, and I loved it. I have a job, a life, a space, and even a friend in Ophelia. I’m building something, and even though I’m involved with a Greek crime family boss, I feel more independent and stronger than I’ve ever felt in my life.