My mind went off the slowly fading burn of his touch at my back as it registered on me it was a nice room, really, really nice. It was large, larger than I expected, larger than I knew hotel rooms could be. The furniture was stylish, the wood gleaming, all of it obviously exceptionally clean. There was a downy comforter with an attractive cover on the huge bed, not a thin bedspread. There were even toss pillows. Two sweep-lined armchairs at either side of a table at the back in one corner by the window, a standing lamp rounding out the seating area, an elegant desk with a lamp on top facing the room at a diagonal in the other corner In fact, I'd never been in a nicer room.

Actually, I'd been in very few hotel rooms at all in my thirty-four years.

Ronnie had promised a lot of good times in fabulous places and, before he gave me his empty promises, there was a time in our life when his future was so bright, this room would have been a joke to us. Our future held travel all over and everywhere we'd have the best of the best. The best rooms. The best food. The best champagne. The finest clothes. Sweet rides. Big houses. Cleaning ladies. We were going to live large. He told me I would drip gold. He meant it. He loved me that much, I would drip gold. He would make that happen for me.

Then he fucked it all up.

I didn't need gold, I just needed him. But still, he fucked it all up in the end; he fucked it up so badly, I didn't even have him.

I came out of my reverie when I heard something hit surface and my eyes focused on Walker.

Then I felt them get wide.

He'd dug into the bag Shift packed for him and he was currently putting fat rolls of crisp, fresh bills wrapped tight in rubber bands on the wood above the mini-bar cabinet attached to the luggage shelf. The first roll had a twenty on the outside of it. The second, another twenty. The third, a fifty.

At the fifty, my breath started sticking in my throat.

The fourth, more twenties.

Then he came out with a gun clip and it clattered on the wood by the bills as he dropped it there.

My breathing stopped.

Another gun clip. Another roll of fifties. A box of ammo. Another roll of twenties.

Then a gun.

I sucked in air.

"Um, darling?" I called on the exhale. "I'm thinking we need a family meeting."

Just his head turned, his body stayed bent over the bag and his light brown, almond-shaped, curly-lashed eyes hit mine. As usual, he did not speak.

I tipped my head to the unit. "What's with the bank and the firepower?"

His eyes stayed on me. Then he straightened and turned to me.

I braced in order not to flee though I didn't know why I didn't attempt escape, probably because he'd proved his hands were fast and I didn't want to find out if his legs were just as fast.

He still didn't speak.

I carried on. "I mean, I'm no parole officer but it's my understanding ex-cons aren't allowed to be armed."

He finally spoke. "You don't have a record."

I felt my head jerk at the same time I was certain my eyes bugged out.

Then I breathed, "What?"

"Hit trouble, the .38 is yours."

At this juncture, I felt it was time to share.

I took two steps toward him and stopped.

"As I told you during our last and only conversation, Shift knows my boundaries. Any trouble we could," I lifted up my hands and his beautiful eyes moved to them as I did air quotation marks and said, "'hit'," then I dropped my hands and his eyes came back to mine as I continued, "that would require a .38 and a half a dozen wads of cash is not within my acceptable boundaries."

He stared at me.

Then he walked the four steps to me (that, for my legs, would probably be around seven) and then I found my purse being slid off my shoulder. I watched with no small amount of concern as he dug in it and was somewhat relieved when he pulled out my phone. He turned, tossed my bag across the room to the bed then turned back to me, flipped the phone open, used his thumb then put it to his ear.

I waited as it rang. So did he. Then he flipped it closed, opened it again then hit more buttons and put it to his ear.

I waited. So did he. Then he flipped it closed, opened it and repeat.

I waited. So did he.

Finally, he spoke. "It ain't Lexie, scum, it's Walker. What the fuck?"

I pressed my lips together because his face might still be blank but his voice was low and rumbling. Or lower and more rumbling than normal. I didn't know him very well but I felt this indicated extreme unhappiness.

"Yeah, with her, yeah," he growled into the phone confusingly (at least to me), paused then stated in a further growl, "Yeah, the bag ain't light." Another pause then, "She don't know jack." Another pause then, "Jesus Christ, you're worthless."

Then he flipped the phone shut and tossed it on the unit where it clattered. Then he looked at me.

"Family meeting," he said.

I was suddenly not feeling like having a family meeting.

I had no choice.

"He told you dick, didn't he?" he asked.

I nodded and wished he'd take a step back but still, I answered, "I'm sensing I didn't get a full briefing."

"What'd that piece of shit tell you?"

"That I was to pick you up and take you where you wanted to go."

"That's it?"

I thought about it. Then I amended, "Well, actually, his words were that I was to pick you up at noon, call him when you were out and then take further directions from you."

And I had assumed by directions he meant directions to wherever Ty Walker called home or wanted to make his home. But I was thinking I assumed wrong.

"That's it?" he repeated.

Yep, I was wrong.

"That's it," I replied.

He pulled in breath through his nose. Then he crossed his arms on his chest and his eyes locked with mine.

Then he told me what I'd already figured out. "He didn't give you a full briefing."

"Great," I muttered.

"He owes me," Walker stated, held my eyes but tipped his head to the desk to indicate what was on it. "Big," he finished.

I nodded.

He continued to hold my eyes and then he jerked his chin out at me and said low and quiet, "Big."

Oh shit.

"What?" I whispered as I took a step back.

"Don't move," he ordered and I stopped because his order was firm and serious and I didn't want to test how firm and serious he was. "He didn't make it worth your while, I'll deal with him. So I'll make it worth your while."

"What..." my voice sounded choked so I swallowed then started again, "Make what worth my while?"

"You and me are getting married."

My head jerked again even as the rest of my body froze.

Then I said shrilly, "What?"

"I need a wife, you're her."

Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Fucking shit!

"Um..." I started, my heart hammering, the one room and marital status of check in explained, my need to flee overpowering, my sense of self-preservation keeping me rooted to the spot but I got no further, he started talking.

"He didn't take care of you, I will. You need out from under him, I'll make that happen. You marry me; I pay you fifty thousand dollars. At the end, I deal with the divorce. Once it's done, you're clear. I'll see to it we're untied, all you'll have to do is sign the papers, you'll never see me again and I'll also see to it that wherever you decide to go, Shift doesn't follow."

"The end of what?" I asked.

"My business."

"What business?"

"That's need to know and when you need to know I'll tell you what you need to know."

In other words, I'd likely never know all of it just what I needed to know.

"The gun... the money?" I asked.

"I just got let outta prison. I wasn't in there while the Pope considered my sainthood. I got enemies."

"Oh God," I whispered.

"You're covered," he told me.

I'd heard that before and now the person who promised me that was dead and the person he promised to cover me from was the reason I was standing right where I was.

I shook my head. "I don't think "

"I got no time and I got shit to do. You're gonna bail, you can walk out that door. I got nothin' to offer you but cash and my word. I can see you pickin' me up from prison, my word don't mean dick to you but I'm tellin' you right now, and it's up to you to believe it or not, my word is solid. No harm will come to you and nothin' from my business will blow back on you. You'll be my wife, you'll act like my wife and you'll do it until this is done. That's it. Then we go our separate ways."

"I'll act like your wife?" I asked quietly.

He shook his head once. "You wanna let me into that pussy, I'll take it. No increase in money, I don't pay for pussy. That you give if you got a mind to give it. You don't, I'll find what I need elsewhere and that won't blow back on you either."

This was not exactly the romantic, tender marriage proposal every girl dreamed of.

"Ty," I started, lifting up a hand, palm out then dropping it. "I've been..." I hesitated. "I've managed to..." I stopped again.

"Jesus, spit out," he rumbled.

I nodded and spit it out. "That world has been at the edge of mine a long time, pushing in and I've managed to steer clear. I don't know what this business of yours is and I don't know you and I already have the leftover bullshit that comes from broken promises. I don't need more."

"I told you none of my shit would blow back on you," he reminded me.

"And I told you I've heard that before and here I stand," I reminded him.

He stared at me, still unreadable but something about him made me think that he wasn't blank, he was alert and assessing and he gave no indication of it but it felt like he was reading me down to my bones.

Then he said quietly, "Shift has fucked you."

"I know," I said quietly back and he had. Shift knew this, he knew Walker wanted this, he sent me anyway, he blew right through my boundaries, lying to me and putting me in the clutches of a huge, terrifying, taciturn, freshly-released ex-con with enemies and a gun.

"This time, you walk out that door, nothin' bites you," Walker told me. "You go back to him, he'll find a way to fuck you worse and how he does it, you might not be walkin' out the door."

I pressed my lips together then unpressed them and whispered, "I know."

"I can get you clear of that."

I had to admit, that was definitely something to consider.

He kept talking. "Fifty G's will set you up anywhere you wanna go. I'll take care of Shift."

He held my eyes. I noted his were unwavering. He was hiding from me, I knew it. Though I figured you learned a pokerface in prison, probably not healthy to wear your heart on your sleeve. But he held my eyes, he didn't look away, whatever he was hiding was his to hide from the world, not something he was specifically hiding from me.

And he was also not in my face. He wasn't pissed. He wasn't shouting. He wasn't threatening. He told me I could walk out and I believed him. In fact, everything he told me, I believed. I'd been around a lot of the dregs, Ronnie saw to that, so I had a highly tuned bullshit detector. Whatever this man was, he was not bullshitting me.

And he could get me clear of Shift, I knew it. I knew it because Shift was scared of him, I could see this now. That was the reason behind the frantic phone call. He wanted to make sure Ty Walker got what he wanted and liked what he saw. He'd played me to make sure Walker didn't lose it and take what Shift owed him a different way.

And he was right, I pulled up stakes, fifty thousand dollars would set me up.