Ruthless King

Sure, it wasn’t as safe as waiting out the front with one of the club’s bouncers. But it meant that she was less likely to be noticed.

Walking out the back door, she nearly fell over as a wave of dizziness hit her.

Crap. This wasn’t good. How sick was she?

“Hey, are you all right?”

She tensed as she heard a man’s voice calling out to her from farther down the alleyway.

Who was there? What did they want?

“Easy,” the man said, walking closer and holding his hands up. “I just wanted to check that you were all right. You looked like you were about to collapse.”

“I-I’m fine. My, uh, my boyfriend is waiting for me. I need to go.”

“He should walk in and escort you out, then,” the man chided. “It’s not safe to walk around here at night.”

Yeah. No kidding.

“I’ll tell him that.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

No, no, no.

“Really, I’m fine. He’s, uh, he’s the jealous type.”

“It’s no problem. I’ll only walk you out to the street and then watch from afar.”

It sounded like a nice offer, but she wasn’t so sure.

“Relax, I’m a friend of Kimmy’s. Let me walk you out. I won’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you when I could have prevented it.”

Well, she guessed that was fair.

“All right. Thank you.” She coughed, her throat feeling scratchy.

Oh, this wasn’t good.

She rarely got sick, and when she did, she wasn’t very good at taking care of herself.

“Well, he’s just down there.” She gestured down the road. “Thanks.”

She stepped away, trying not to rush and look like she didn’t want to be around him.

“You’re welcome, Nyx.”

Jilly stiffened, tripping once more. How had he known she was Nyx? Kimmy’s friend . . . the guy who’d been making out with her last weekend? Trick, no Trent, no Trip!

But how did he know she was Nyx with her hoodie up?

It didn’t matter.

He didn’t know her real name. And why would he care?

Pushing the worries from her mind, she climbed into the Uber car. Too late, she realized she probably should have gotten into the front seat in case he was watching.

Urgh.