Inferno - Chelle Bliss by Chelle Bliss

“I don’t know,” she says. “You’ve already done so much.”

“I could put her on my couch, cousin,” Gigi says, still rubbing her back.

“You’re family?” Opal asks, sitting a little straighter.

“Everyone here is. This is our family’s shop.”

Opal cracks the slightest smile as she wipes some tears away from her cheeks. “That’s so sweet.”

“My cousin over there may seem like a big ogre, but he’s really kind, even if he’s cocky as hell sometimes.”

Opal straightens her back a little more and lifts her head a little higher. “I’ll figure something out. I don’t want to be a bother in anyone else’s life.”

“Darlin’,” I say, taking a page out of Pike’s playbook. “It’s no bother. I got you into this situation, and it’s the least I can do. Stay the night at my place, and you can grab your purse tomorrow.”

“He’s safe,” Gigi assures her, moving her hand from Opal’s back to touch her hand. “He won’t try anything funny or else I’ll have his balls in a vise, and I’m pretty sure he’s attached to them.”

I jerk my head back, playing along. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Gigi smirks. “If that isn’t enough, I’ll tell his mother, and no one makes that man shake as much as his mother. The woman is a saint, but the evil eye she gives is fierce.”

Opal’s smile grows a little larger. “He’s scared of his mother?”

Gigi nods a few times. “Terrified.”

“Gigi,” I warn, hating that she’s spilling my secret.

“He’s like his dad, though. He’s crazy protective of the women in this family. He won’t let anything happen to you. I wouldn’t steer you wrong and send you from one bad situation to another.”

Opal stares at me, her eyes flitting around my body. She’s appraising me for safety.

Jeff was nothing special, and the man was no doubt more vicious in private than in public.

“Are you sure?” she asks me.

“Never more sure of anything in my life,” I tell her, lying through my teeth. “And if it doesn’t feel right when you’re there, I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

While I’m sure about the offer, I’m not sure that my life will ever be the same.

Something about the way Opal stares at me and the way my heart skips tells me life’s about to change forever.





2





OPAL





“You seem nervous. Are you sure there’s not somewhere you want me to drop you?” he asks as he drives, focusing on the road.

Fuck.

I’m an idiot.

How in the hell did I get myself into this kind of mess?

Jeff begged me to move to Florida with him, promising me all kinds of grand things, including him getting counseling.

I had a great-paying job in Chicago, but the warm weather of Florida was too hard to say no to.

“I’m not nervous,” I lie, pulling my hands apart after I’ve fidgeted most of the ride. “You could drop me at a shelter if it’s better for you.”

“Is it better for you?”

I stare at his profile, taking in the handsome ruggedness of his features. “It’s not like I’m in any position to be picky.”

He turns his head, looking at me with eyes that disappear when the oncoming car passes. “You don’t have anyone here?”

I sigh and sink into the seat. “I moved here a few weeks ago. I haven’t had time to meet anybody yet. I know literally no one.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yeah,” I mutter.

It’s also stupid. I’ve been on my own for years and knew better, but here I am.

Way to go, Opal.

When I was sixteen, my dad passed away, and a year later, my mother died too, leaving me in the foster system for a year before I was ejected into the world with no one and nothing. A few other foster kids became my friends and taught me the way to be street-smart and keep myself alive.

I thought I was doing a bang-up job of it until I met Jeff, and all my intelligence went right out the window. He sucked me in, made me feel like I finally had someone in my life I could depend on.

I knew he was an asshole, but when you don’t have many options, an asshole sometimes seems better than being alone. I’d spent far too long by myself to want to go back to that life.

But after only a few minutes away from him, I feel my body starting to relax, and my heart is no longer racing erratically for no reason at all.

My anxiety is dissipating. Anxiety he caused.

“Why don’t you drop me off in the center of town? I can figure it out from there.”

I figured it out when I was eighteen and homeless. What’s the difference now?

It’s a warmer climate, so it’s not like I’m going to freeze to death. I’ve seen the homeless people on the sides of the roads here and begging for money at the intersections. They’re surviving, and I have no doubt that I will too.

“Figure it out?” He repeats my words back to me but forms it like a question.

“Yeah,” I mutter, nodding in the darkness. “Wouldn’t you figure it out if you were in my circumstances?”