Chapter 5

MOLLY

I did not recognize the sheets I was lying on, and I’m picky. I liked my warm sheets. These were cool and smooth but not silk. They were cotton, but like the most expensive form of pure cotton there was. Another odd thing about me. I knew my bedsheets. I’d worked in a bedding store one time, and I could outsell everyone except Marjorie Jones. Damn that Marjorie Jones. She also had a side business selling Tupperware that was killer. I didn’t like Tupperware, so I was cool with that, but the bedding crown was still a sore spot.

I sat up and looked down.

Total déjà vu moment, because I had on silk pajamas, and the room was the nicest room I’d ever been in. Where was I?

I went to the bathroom and gulped at how nice it was.

Or I tried, because I was fully focusing on where I was and not how I was feeling, because if I started thinking about how I was feeling, I’d not be getting out of that bed for another whole week.

My whole body was stiff and in pain, and I felt like a walking black bruise. Throbbing, but nope. I was focusing on the positive. Functional thoughts. Those were the only ones that mattered in circumstances like this. The way I grew up, sometimes when you woke, you had no idea where you were, and you didn’t have the time to wallow in your misery.

That old survival skill was kicking in right now, but kinda in the opposite way because I wanted to wallow. This place was off the rails.

The sink looked like a water rock fountain you’d see in nature. It was glorious. And the shower, oh my goodness, the shower. A clear glass partition separated the bathroom from it, and there were five shower heads. Some lined the entire wall from floor to ceiling. I was looking at the one set right where my butt would be. That would be . . . yeah.

Then, taking a breath, I did look in the mirror.

I winced at myself. My face looked swollen, red, patchy eyes, and I grimaced as more pain rushed through me, half knocking me over.

I grabbed onto the sink, steadying myself.

Deep breath in. One. That was all I was giving myself. Just one breath, and I pushed back, on to the next.

I knew I should be freaking out that someone must’ve changed my clothes, but I wasn’t. A part of me was just in awe. Go to sleep in the hospital and wake up at the Ritz-Carlton. That’s how I was feeling, and my eye caught a button on the wall that was blinking.

I pressed it. I had to.

A female voice came over a speaker system. “Good morning, Miss Easter. Would you like breakfast and a beverage brought to your room?” She sounded soothing, like Alexa.

I leaned over. “Yes. I’d like a coffee—”

“Press again for a list of the full menu.”

I frowned, straightening back up. She kept going, giving me all the options, but there was only one button to press.

“I’d like a coffee.”

She kept talking. I could do a burrito, pancakes, a croissant, or an omelet. There were other options, but I didn’t want any of them. I pressed the button again, but she kept speaking.

I should really—my staff! The robber. The rest of last night (was it last night?) was coming back to me, and now a little panic was setting in.

I finished up in the bathroom, then looked around for my clothes. They were folded and set in a pile on a couch in the corner of the room. I lifted one and took a good whiff. I loved the smell of fresh laundry, but who had done all of this?

After changing clothes, I left my pajamas on the bed, half considering trying to take them with me because they were the softest material I’d ever had on my body. I left the room and saw I was in a back hallway, and as I moved down, lights lit up ahead of me on both sides.

Soft music played ahead, so I followed, coming across a giant dining room with floor-to-ceiling glass walls. At least I knew where I was now: in a high-rise in Manhattan, and we were seriously high up. The Hudson River below was right next to us.

There was a giant waterfall island. All the cupboards looked sleek, like something that I would’ve imagined being on a spaceship. There was a room on the other side of the kitchen and a second sitting area, so I went over, coming to an opened doorway, and through what looked like a library was another door.

I followed, finally seeing whose place I was in. I was floored.

Absolutely.

Truly.

Gutted.

Sitting behind a large mahogany desk was Ashton Walden.

The fuzzies started.

That’s what I felt when I was around him. My body always did a whole swoop, feeling like I stepped into my own vortex, because he had the ability to make me want to lose myself, to flip my switch, and make me want to throw him down on the nearest bed. Plus, he always looked at me like he half wanted to fuck me or half wanted to strangle me. It’d been like that since as long as I’d known him, and it had only intensified over the last six months once he’d come back into my life.

He was the new head of the Walden Mafia family. The head. Not a head. The head honcho over it all. I was rambling in my head because I was freaking out that I was in Ashton’s home. Power, control, danger. Those three words clung to him, walked with him wherever he went, and I’d seen him walk.

I’d seen him do a lot over the years. I was aware of him growing up, every time I saw him with Trace or their other rich friends. How everyone knew not to mess with them, and if they did, it was never Trace who handled their enemies.

It was Ashton. Always.

He got a reputation because of it. No one messed with Ashton. I think the only person who wasn’t aware of how truly deadly he could be was his actual best friend, Trace West. Though, none of that mattered now since both were the heads of their families, and I was breaking out in a cold sweat because how the hell had I gotten myself here?

Sensing me, he lifted heated eyes my way, but they switched to the cold and dead eyes I always associated with him.

Dead. Cruel. Ruthless.

I suppressed a shiver and tried not to take in his cold beauty, but dammit. I couldn’t stop.

“What am I doing here?” My voice was hoarse, coming out raspy.

Ashton didn’t respond, instead taking his time as he studied me. Another cold flicker of emotion passed in his gaze before he stamped that out and stood, coming around his desk toward me. A predator stalking his prey.

I always had that feeling when he was around me, but this time it was the worst it’d ever been. I was in his home. Not the giant house his family ran their business out of, but his personal home.

Ashton and me. He didn’t think I remembered him, but I did.

I remembered the day we’d met when we were kids, though I didn’t remember a whole lot about that day. It was fuzzy, another reason I got the fuzzies around him. There was a whole theme going on. I had some gaps in my memory about that, but him, I remembered. Even back then, he was cute and striking and I’d liked him, immediately.

Liked him—that wasn’t the right word for what I felt that day, but I’d been a kid.

He was angry and cold now, and I guess not much had changed.

He’d come into Easter Lanes one night, looking for Jess, and I’d never forget that night. How he looked like he wanted to murder her, and how I had been reaching for my bat under the counter before Jess went with him. She reassured me everything was okay, but I knew it wasn’t.