I didn’t grace that shit with an answer, just pulled out her check from my breast pocket and handed it to her. She plucked it from between my fingers, her eyes skimming over it. There was a brief moment where I thought she was going to throw it back in my face, but then she must have remembered how poor she was.

“Thanks,” she murmured, slipping the check into her messenger bag.

“I don’t like you living in this neighborhood.” I took a step closer.

She crossed her arms as she took me in. “Then it’s a good thing it’s none of your business.”

“Since when are you so cold?”

“Since you barged into my life again and I was stupid enough to let you in—again—and I promised myself there won’t be a third time. What do you want, Vicious?”

That was a good question. I bit my lower lip and took in her little body, in her yellow-and-red checked coat.

“I want to fuck you again,” I admitted with a groan.

“Fuck me, or use me so you can avenge your stepmom?”

“It’s not about that. Fuck the money. Fuck my stepmom,” I said, realizing it was the truth. I didn’t care about all those things. Not when I was about to lose her.

If I hadn’t already.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’ll never ask you to do anything about it ever again. All I ask is for your time, so I can explain.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” She inserted her key into the lock and was on the stairs inside with the door shut before I had the chance to do my usual move of shoving my foot into the gap.

I banged my fist on the painted metal. At least the door looked sturdy. “Now that I know when you get back from work every day, I’m going to wait for you outside the subway and see you home safely.”

She laughed from the other side, a cold laugh that she’d learned and mastered because of me. Because of everything I’d done to her.

“If you want to waste your time, be my guest. I’m not going to forgive you. And even if I did, I wouldn’t want to be with you.”

“We’ll see about that.” I waited for another response, but this time there was only silence. I grinned quietly to myself. The push and pull was back. She could push all she wanted, but she was going to be pulled back to where she belonged. My arms.

I was still eyeing the door when a skinny white guy who was a veteran junkie, judging by his rotten teeth and lost eyes, shuffled for the door, holding a plastic bag. “You live here?” I growled.

He nodded, confused.

“Third floor. ’Sup, man. You lookin’ to score?”

“No, douchbag, I’m your motherfucking nightmare. Stay away from the girls on the second floor. Tell your junkie friends and anyone you know in this goddamn shithole the same thing.” I shoved five hundred-dollar bills into his hand. And fuck, why was it muddy? I didn’t even want to know. “For every day they’re safe and left alone here, you’ll get another hundred. Deal?”

His eyes widened in disbelief, his jaw falling. I don’t think he’d heard a coherent sentence in a while. “Sure, man. Sure.”

I turned around and walked away, hoping it was worth it.

It had to be.

I had a feeling it would be.

TRUE TO HIS WORD, VICIOUS waited for me at the subway every day at eight p.m. sharp. That’s when I’d appear from the freezing station and join him on my street. We would walk in silence.

At first, he tried talking to me about my day, my new job, my new boss, trying to milk info out of me about my life. I was having none of it. Finally, we settled into a routine where we didn’t say a word until I got to my door. Then, he’d watch as I fished out my key and opened it. Every day, exactly a second before I closed it behind me, he’d asked the same thing.

“Hear me out? Ten minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”

I’d say no.

And that would be the end of it.

After the first couple of weeks, he changed his script from “ten minutes” to “five minutes.” I still said no. I probably should’ve been more insistent about telling him to get lost and stop following me, but the truth was, it really was a bad neighborhood, and I was grateful for him seeing me to my door every night.

It surprised me, his determination and dedication to the cause, whatever that cause might be. We’d only spent a couple of days of bliss in bed together, so the fuel to his lust was bound to run out any day now, right?

A part of me still suspected it was just another one of his games. Vicious was a terrible loser. He’d proven this over and over again. When he wanted something, he took it, leaving bridges burned and scorched-earth battlefields behind him. I could only imagine what he had planned for Josephine now that he’d read the will.

I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me. Even more, I didn’t trust myself not to give it to him again. But it soothed my sore pride that he was there every day. Especially after Georgia. Still, not enough to hear him out.

A month after we moved out, Dean came by our new apartment. He looked good, if you liked the hot-shot, all-American Bradley Cooper look. Which I thought I did, but apparently, I was more of a brooding, all-consuming-jerk Colin Farrell type of girl. It was a Saturday, and I was just getting ready to go to the corner grocery. I swung my door open, and he stood there, with his huge smile and wavy Hollywood hair.

“Sweet Jesus! Dean,” I said, clutching the door tighter, remembering the Post-It note he’d left me. “If you’re here to taunt me, don’t worry, Vicious beat you to it, and he is pretty persistent.”

“Millie,” he said in a tsking tone, pushing my door open and walking in like he owned the place.

He was wearing a white turtleneck, dark denim, a gray tweed overcoat, and that I’m-better-than-you smirk the HotHoles were probably born with. Dean stopped when he spotted Rosie sitting on the couch, reading something on the old iPad her school had provided her. His eyes narrowed at her and mine narrowed at him.

Oh, no way.

“Well, hello, Rosie. You grew up to be eye-candy.” He winked at her. I gagged.

“Well, hello, Dean. You grew up to be an arrogant bastard.” She winked back at him, wiggled her shoulders in a sassy way and added, “No, wait, you were always an arrogant bastard. My bad.”

“Why are you here?” I demanded, swiveling Dean’s shoulders so he faced me. I didn’t like it. The electricity in the air when Dean looked at Rosie. It was the same thing I felt when I was standing next to Vicious.