Chapter 45

The next morning 

I’ve never liked waiting. 

Waiting suggests uncertainty, and uncertainty is what happens to men who don’t plan properly, who don’t keep enough leverage in reserve. It happens to losers who allow other people to believe they have choices, when choices are the very first thing that a smart man removes from the table. 

So no, I don’t fucking like waiting. 

And yet here I am, parked across the street from Zara’s building for the second day in a row, watching the entrance through the windshield of Cain’s truck while my fourth coffee goes cold in my hand. 

It irritates me that she’s reduced me to this, and it’s irritating because Zara has always been easy to read. 

That was part of what made her useful in the beginning, even back ten years ago when I was best friends with Mayhem, back when she was Cobra Callahan’s quiet daughter watching me with those huge dark eyes, like I had hung the moon just by glancing in her direction.