Page 38 of Reckless Woman
“Do you have proof about Vi?”
“Are you fucking questioning me?” He turns sharply and backs me up against the restroom wall with my jaw between his fingertips. “I had a man inside Greens who was looking out for you, Anna. He was so deep undercover—so convincing—that the therapists wanted him on an extra special dose of methadone. Care to guess where he is now?”
“Dead?” I whisper.
“Dead,” he confirms.
A horrible thought spreads inside me like a rash.
“What room was he staying in, Joseph?”
He frowns “Why?”
“Tell me!”
“154.”
My breath catches.
He pounces.
“You knew him?”
“I saw that number in a message on Vi’s cell.”
“Convinced yet?” he says bitterly.
I nod, those damn tears burning the corners of my eyes again.She killed him. She fucking killed him as I sat in the cafeteria next to a bowl of half-eaten granola.
“Tip of the iceberg,Luna,” he says, taking in my reaction. “Wait ‘til you hear about all the other good stuff she’s been up to.”
“Did she do something to you? Is that why your face is looking like one of Santiago’s torture victims’?” My anger is leaking out of me in a lava-like rage now.
“Confession time is in a motel room a couple hundred miles from here.” He glances down at my side. “Where’s your bag?”
“In Vi’s car.”
“I’ll buy you another.”
He’s limping badly as he drags me down a dark hallway toward a side door. I barely have time to taste the sunshine before he’s pushing me into the driver’s seat of a dark blue Toyota Corolla that’s as banged up as he is.
He falls into the seat beside me with a grimace. “Drive.”
The pain and urgency in his voice makes me fumble with the keys. I hit pay-dirt on the third attempt. Sliding the car into reverse, we’re speeding out of the parking lot with Vi’s black SUV still stationary in my rearview mirror.
She’ll be pissed about this, but it’s nothing compared to the way I’m feeling right now. She knew Joseph was my fucking heart and soul, but she hurt him anyway.
“Slow down,Anna.”
“Shit, sorry.” I lift my foot from the accelerator. “Pure rage was driving there for a second.”
“Keep to the limit.” He takes a swig from a small, brown script bottle, swallowing way more white pills than he ought to. “We don’t want any attention.”
“Is this vehicle hot?”
“Boiling.” He’s slumped in his seat, his eyelids drifting. There’s a spreading patch of crimson across his left thigh. “But Roman took care of it.”
Who the hell is Roman?