Page 10 of The Aries Alliance
“Check out the property. I’ll wait.”
Silence filled the line as I typed in the address he sent me. The picture of a quaint white cottage with rust-colored shutters popped up. It was the perfect location for a young couple to make babies, not for War and me to meet.
“Are you a serial killer or something?”
“If I were a serial killer, do you think I’d tell you?”
“Good point. Why must you meet with me outside work? That’s super shady.”
“I heard you today and want to give you an opportunity.”
“An opportunity to do what?”
“Be on my team.”
“I don’t want to be on your shady HR team.”
“You’re asking too many questions. Trust me, Scarlett. I’ll make it worth your while.”
One thing I didn’t do was trust people easily. They had to prove themselves multiple times for me to believe their words.
Despite that philosophy, I was crumbling like a flaky pastry. My first name on War’s lips made me want to do everything he asked me to. He taunted and tempted me with this cat-and-mouse game. Call me competitive or maybe even dumb for dick, but I wanted to find out what he was up to.
“Are you setting me up because I threatened to expose you and the company?”
Warrick chuckled.
“Threat? I thought you promised to take me down.”
“Same thing. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“I know. You’re a thirty-nine-year-old Aries like me. We were born two days apart.”
“How do you know that?”
“I used my bubble gum degree to figure it out.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You’re about to meet my cousin Click.”
“Hold up. I’m serious.” That smooth voice had my belly flipflopping again. “That was why I sent you that photo. You can turn it into folks at work if I do you wrong. You and I both know I’ve crossed a line and given you the final nail to seal my coffin. That’s how much I want to do right by you. Trust me.”
There was that sultry softness again. He was nothing like the man I spoke with at work. Did he have multiple personalities? An undiagnosed mental disorder?
War was right about the risk he took, though. He knew I didn’t play when it came to reporting wrongdoing, yet he still contacted me and sent me an incriminating photo.
EFU may have had the integrity of a piece of cotton, but they were consistent about throwing Black people in the dumpster if they made the organization look bad. There were no second or third chances either.
War might act dumber than a pet rock, but I would bet my house and everything in it that he knew they would throw him out on his ass if he did wrong. Whatever he had up his sleeves had to be worth something to him.
Like my documents, I’d be cautious and put his picture somewhere so if anyone turned on me, War would go down too.
“Why the urgency?”
“It’s to address your report and other pressing issues at EFU. I want to answer your questions and need time to do it properly.”
If I wasn’t sure about attending before, I was now. Even if I didn’t get a full resolution to my concerns, War gave me space to follow up in a private setting for an extended amount of time. That was worth whatever shenanigans he might have planned for the next couple of days. I needed to meet him to complete my mission.
