Page 3 of The Lies You Love
She eyes the money for a second. “Keep your cash. I work at Eddie’s Café. I get my coffee for free.” She smiles, winks, and pushes by me. I wad up the bill and shove it back into my pocket as I watch her walk away.
I know where she works, and she wanted me to know where she works. Sighing, I get my head back into the game. If I weren’t so struck, I would have had the forethought to invite her for a drink at the Silver Moon so I wouldn’t be a loner sitting by myself. As it stands, I’m the only guy sitting at the bar drinking sparkling water with a lime on the rim. It’s the most convincing cocktail I could think of on the fly. I do not drink on the job. My phone out, I pretend to be engrossed in it as I check all my spyware apps to see if I can trace who Ramsey is meeting.
There’s nothing obvious, so it must be someone she met in person. I hold it up to my ear so I can listen to the conversation she’s having with the guy in a corner booth. She has an untouched beer bottle in front of her, and the man has two empty glasses sitting next to him. Ramsey’s faint French accent slips into her words as she plays hard to get.
“You told me you wanted a drink. Nothing more. I am a lady,” she says, laughing coyly.
Rolling my eyes, I sigh. Usually, I’d be grateful for the entertainment, but I’m on the countdown to a month off and she’s literally schmoozing with a dude in a bar.
“Do you want to take this to the bathroom?” the man asks Ramsey.
She giggles, and says she shouldn’t, but what do you know? She’s getting up and following him into a dark corridor that houses the toilets. This wasn’t her usual M.O. before. This is the rebel behavior after. Her life was picture perfect before her mom, a French diplomat, was rolled up in a scandal that rocked the entire world. Her mom is now serving a life sentence, and Ramsey needs to be guarded for her own safety for the rest of her life. Her mother’s crimes were so horrifying that people seek to punish her daughter for them. Her father, a wealthy American real estate developer disappeared after his wife was found guilty. Ramsey doesn’t have siblings and isn’t allowed to have contact with any of her former friends. She was given the option to go back to France, where life might be easier for her, but she chose to stay in the city. Not the part of the city where she used to live, mind you, the seedier version friends from her old life wouldn’t deign to step foot in.
I listen to Ramsey get railed in the bathroom with little interest. At least I know if I’m hearing her climax, she’s not getting offed or kidnapped. I surveyed the place when I entered and didn’t see anyone I recognized as bad. That doesn’t mean they haven’t hired guys I don’t recognize yet. Ramsey lets out that weird cry she always does when she’s finishing, and the guy grunts twice like a pig with mud caught in its nose. I sip my drink and listen to the pillow talk of two people who just fucked, but who are also strangers. It’s awkward, and I’m glad I’m not the one having to deal with the aftermath of such an occurrence. Tomorrow night, I think. Maybe a different Charge Man would take her sex life more seriously. Perhaps thinking one of these men might want to cause her harm, but I can’t focus on that when actual bad guys are stalking her while she takes a casual morning run. At least I’m near her, listening to casual fucking. Or that’s how I rationalize it, anyway.
I make sure to turn back to my watered-down drink when they exit the hall where the bathrooms are located, keeping my face hidden.
“What’s your deal then, mate?” the bartender asks. His cheery demeanor is the first thing to throw me off. The second? He’s asking me a question. Bartenders at Silver Moon don’t give a fuck about anything. They do not give a shit. It’s a bare minimum establishment. “With your fake cocktail and all.”
“Had some time to kill before a flight. Trying not to drink, but like to be around it.” We’re near the airport. Which is convenient now, but it’s also why this bar is bad news with regard to human trafficking. “Where in Australia are you from?” I ask, changing the subject. “Mate?” I add for good measure.
“Brisbane mostly.” He pauses. “Where is your bag then?”
“My bag?”
“You mentioned a flight.” His eyes turn to slits as his accusing glare turns deadly.
Ah, a new guy. A new bad guy. Immediately I take note of any discerning features for my report. There’s a tattoo of some kind of bird on his forearm that looks disfigured due to a jagged tan and white scar. He has glass blue eyes and a dimple on one side of his face. I heard someone call him Hudson earlier, so that’s one piece of the puzzle that doesn’t have any guesswork.
Smiling with my eyes, I push my glass toward him and fish out a bill from my pocket and put it on the counter. “It’s in the car.” I look at my watch. “Which I should get back to if I’m going to make it through security on time.”
“Yeah, mate. Happy traveling.” He takes the cash and doesn’t ask if I want change—leaving my side of the bar to head to the back, where the kitchen and backroom are.
Ramsey will be close to the apartment by now if she didn’t stop walking, happy and sated now that she’s fucked today’s flavor of choice out of her system. She won’t go to Auden’s store because her friend will call out her behavior immediately. I bring my phone up to my ear to see if Ramsey’s talking or if she’s still with the guy, but all I hear is the swishing and fumbling of the phone rolling around in her bag and a faint blare of a horn in the distance. I also heard the same honk in real time—telling me she’s nearby. Jogging, I pick up my pace because now I’m not sure what I’m going to be handling when we get back. Is the dude with her? How did she meet him? Why was the bartender so suspect? So much for a lazy weekend. I haven’t even packed for my time off yet. Expect the unexpected, I remind myself.
My hand is on the door handle of the lobby of my apartment building when I hear, “Look what the cat dragged in.”
I recognize the voice and check my watch. “You’re early.”
Grey slaps me on the back. “No. I’m never late.”
“Same thing,” I counter. Grey reaches past me to use his fob to get into the building. Half the year, this is his home—his apartment, his to do what he wants with our condo.
A rush of cool air greets us as does the useless security guard sitting behind a desk. He’s used to seeing us together but knows little about our arrangement. “I saw her doing another walk of shame,” Grey says, following me on the elevator. I hit the button for our floor and nod. “That brings her body count up to four for the week.”
As he should be, he’s up to date on her life. As long as it takes me to craft the nightly reports, he spends just as long going over them.
“It’s a record,” I state. “Do you think…” I pause, choosing my words carefully because I know the ramifications. “Do you think we should pull the plug?”
“And what? Send her to the country? How would she expend her… pent-up energy in the country?”
I cock my head back and forth. “Ride horses? Plow fields?”
“Our girl only likes to plow one thing, and rural areas are short in supply of that one thing. I mean, she might have to get an actual boyfriend to stick around if she was somewhere with a low population. A hard dick on speed dial.”
Grey uses his key to open the apartment door and we both enter, I’m still keeping an ear open to listen for Ramsey’s movement, but when I hear the shower turn on again, I know she’s probably at home for the rest of the day and evening.
“I don’t know. Ol’ Rage hasn’t said anything about it. I think the bosses are afraid of her. Ramsey will throw a fit if we try to move her away from the city. Probably not worth the hassle she’ll cause.”
