Authors: Scarlett Black
Ceasefire (18 page)
I
suppose stranger things have happened. How does a Stanford MBA graduate,
valedictorian of her class, who now runs an escort service and had broken dreams
of Wall Street glory, wind up in the far corner of a library with a hired
“professional,” as he liked to be called?
What
they don’t tell you in grad school is how the real strings are pulled behind
the scenes in the corporate world. I can’t say this with one hundred percent
accuracy, but guys like Harris probably drive more of the world’s economy than the
cotton-headed geriatrics sitting in the top floor suite, where their office
overlooks Central Park, sipping fifty-year-old scotch.
No,
the real chess pieces are shuffled around in dark alleys. Pawn takes Queen
with a syringe to the neck, and a company’s stock price takes a nosedive by
fifty points the next day when the female CEO with a golden smile is found dead
of something innocuous like natural causes.
Who
profits? The company that hired the pawn.
How
do I know this? Deductive reasoning. I’d suspected it long ago, after
conversations with some of my professors who’d been with those powerful
companies.
Harris
helped confirm it. I could tell by the way in which he interacted with me,
initially, that my needs and Dubya Three’s request to help were beneath him.
The not-so-subtle eye rolls. The huffing. The sighing. The telltale
annoyance that practically shouted, “Goddamn amateur!” without a word spoken.
I
don’t react well to men like this. It pisses me off.
My
emotions were across the board. One minute, I was a panicky, shaky mess, ready
to cry like a little girl who’d dropped her ice cream, and the next, I was a
ball-busting bitch.
Push
the right buttons. See what happens.
I
seethed, feeling my skin prickle, trying to contain myself. Harris was there
to help, against his better judgment I assumed, and I didn’t want to snap, say
the wrong thing, and have him walk away.
“So,”
he said quietly, flipping a sheet of notepad paper over, “you’re telling me
that all I have to go on is a bodybuilder with a prison tat, brown hair, brown
eyes, who likes to beat up hookers?”
That
did it. Over the edge. And before I spoke, I made a mental note to call Dubya
Three and ask him why in the hell he connected me with
this
jackass.
I
took a deep breath, leaned forward and pointed at his face. “Listen to me,
asshole, my girls are not some cheap whores working a street corner for their
next meth fix. They are gorgeous, intelligent women that have more class and
respect for other people in their pinkies than you do in that giant, over-sized
body of yours.
“These
women can hold their own in any conversation with governors and congressmen,
billionaire CEOs, Hollywood producers…anybody. They were doctors and lawyers
and professors who probably got sick of trying to defend or teach humongous
dickheads like you, and if you think for one second I’m going to sit here and
let you demean them, especially while three of them are in the hospital, you
can think again. Walter sent me to you because I asked him for help. Get up
and walk if you want to, but don’t you
dare
disrespect them again. Do
you hear me?”
Harris
tilted the baseball cap back on his head and propped himself up on his elbows,
giving me a half-grin and a muttered, “Huh.” The only way I can describe it is
that on the inside, he’d had a revelation, something along the lines of, “Well
how ‘bout that?”
“You
finished?” he asked.
I
practically growled a frustrated, “Are
we
finished?”
“We’re
just getting started.” Grinning. “You’ve got some fire in that belly, huh?”
“You
could call it that.”
“I
like that fire. Keeps the smart people savvy.”
“That’s
debatable, but whatever you say.” I could feel that metaphorical dropping of
my blood pressure as I eased out of pure rage and back into something
resembling a subdued agitation. I was calm-
ish
, but ready to strike
again if need be. Had he been testing me? Had I impressed him? Either way,
his softened features indicated I’d passed. Not that I needed his approval; it
was nice to be done with whatever games he was playing.
“It’s
not much to go on,” he admitted, glancing down at his notes. “But, I’ve taken
care of business with less. I found a guy one time just by a receipt he’d left
in a hotel room. He spent thirty-seven dollars on a tank of gas.”
“What
happened to him?”
“He
wasted his money.”
A
shiver raced down my spine. I didn’t need any more particulars than that.
Didn’t
want
to know. “Can I give you anything else? Like details about
the business or some of our clients that might help? My partner, she’s meeting
with everyone in an hour to talk about old clients or anybody that they
might’ve pissed off recently. I could call you once they’re done if they come
up with anything.”
Nodding,
rubbing a hand across stubbly cheeks, he said, “Possibly.” What he said next
took me by surprise. “Tell me about yourself.”
“Me?
What do you want to know?”
“Any
enemies? Anybody you might’ve pissed off lately? Everything relevant.
Background stuff. How a smart young lady like you—what are you twenty-one,
twenty two?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Mr.
Wickam gave me a brief rundown—no offense, but you’ll take it anyway.
How’s
some Stanford smarty-pants end up running an escort service? Shouldn’t you be
on the cover of business magazines with your hot new startup instead of
peddling blowjobs?”
“You’re
right, that
is
offensive.”
“Come
on, work with me here. All I’m trying to do is lay it out there like it really
is. Things are what they are and it doesn’t make a bit of difference what kind
of label you want to put on it. I work in absolutes,” he said, then leaned
over to whisper, “which is exactly how I’ve stayed alive as long as I have.
Got me?”
I
could do nothing but hold my tongue and look away. Harris was a Class-A jerk,
but I’d begun to realize that it was simply his nature. Rough, gruff, and
tough. He was used to dealing with the shadier side of humanity, the kind that
required the personality of a bulldozer. Talking with someone like me, a
young, intelligent woman that was easily half his age, probably pushed him
further out of his comfort zone than I was out of mine.
Harris
tapped his pen on the table. “Well?”
“Tell
me why you want to know.”
“Because
something’s off about this whole thing.”
“How?”
“You
said that you’d checked with the other services in town, yeah? No harm done to
any of them. No recent reports of battered women that made the news. At least
nothing out of the ordinary. You think it might be someone that’s familiar
with your business because you’re still—what was the word you used?
Underground?”
“Yeah.”
“This
whole thing, it’s not a coincidence. If it were some serial thug who got his
jollies by beating up women, there’d be more randomness to the pattern, if he
had a pattern at all. What that says to me is, you’re partially right about
the fact that he’s targeting your business, but the way I see it, he’s not just
coming after the business itself, he’s coming after
you
. Maybe your
partner, too, though I doubt it. He’s trying to cripple the business to hurt
you
in particular, and I want to know why.”
Even
though it poured outside with the strength of a monsoon, rain spattering the
windows beside us so rapidly that it sounded like automatic gunfire, the clouds
inside my mind parted and bright sunrays of revelation poured through.
I
could’ve smacked my own face for not seeing it sooner. Why in God’s name had
the fact escaped me? Was it because I was so certain that we’d pulled off the
coup without a hitch that I’d gotten too confident?
It
had to be him. There were other options, sure, like disgruntled clients or
random chance, but when given the choice between accidental universal
alignment, and the option of a simple, logical answer, I’ll take the latter any
day.
“Oh
my God,” I said, falling back against my chair, rubbing my face. “I think I
know who it is.”
“The
prison tat guy?”
“No,
who’s behind it.”
“And
who would that be? Because if you’ve got a solid possibility, that’d make my
job a helluva lot easier.”
“I
can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”
“Forest
for the trees, Miss Kim. Happens all the time. Tell me who.”
“Roman.
He’s the owner of Midnight Fantasy, where I used to work.”
“Why
him?”
“Because
I stole half of his staff.” Saying the words out loud, admitting it like that,
gave the situation more gravity than I had realized. Of course it was Roman.
Of course he’d found out somehow. I knew he would eventually. I expected him
to be pissed off. I expected some form of retaliation. I didn’t know when,
but I knew it would happen one day. It was unavoidable.
I
knew it was coming, but I never expected him to resort to physical violence.
I
thought maybe a lawsuit, something along those lines. He was too clean,
exacting, precise, calculating, and uptight to dirty his hands with the blood
of innocents, especially if the man he’d hired could be traced back to him
somehow.
But
it had to be Roman, all right. It was the only thing that made sense.
Harris
pinched his eyebrows together, tucked the notepad back into his leather jacket,
and asked, “Care to tell me what you mean by that?”
I
crossed my arms and tapped a foot. No, I didn’t want to tell him—I was
embarrassed, but not quite ashamed, because that was the price of business
survival. Like I said, worse things than secretly recruiting employees from a
competitor happen around the world every minute of the day, but that didn’t
mean that my conscience wouldn’t waffle at underhanded tactics.
It’s
an unspoken rule that you learn to exist in a cutthroat state of mind, or you
watch those red numbers on the bottom of your spreadsheet grow higher and
become unmanageable until the inevitable happens. You go under.
I
looked Harris in the eyes, watching him as he waited for me to continue.
I
was out of options. I told him almost everything.
Not
necessarily my life story, but a big part of it. The highest marks in grad
school, the failed recruitment from major companies, Joey, taking whatever job I
could find, then getting laid off.
Desperation.
Survival instinct.
Then
the promise of more money than I knew how to spend, catering to the illicit
whims of rich elite like Dubya Three, which resulted in temporary relief but
rapidly devolved into greed and lust for more. Always more.
I
explained my on-again, off-again trysts with Roman, leaving out the explicit
details, letting Harris know that, at the time, it was more than just sex for
me, but not for the asshole that I thought I could love. The rejection that
followed. The immature need for vengeance, which resulted in starting Secret
Desires to get back at Roman, with the earnings as a side bonus.
Roman
had found out what I’d done, and he wanted his own retribution.
How
did I miss it? Harris was right. Forest for the trees.
And
how
did Roman find out? Did it matter? It could’ve been an infinite
number of possibilities. Maybe he put a tail on me. Maybe he threatened one
of the escorts and she caved. Maybe he bribed a client to find out where he
was getting his rocks off. I could speculate until I was blue in the face and
it wouldn’t make a difference.
Harris
plucked a toothpick from a breast pocket and tucked it in the corner of his
mouth, working it around, chewing on it while I finished telling my story. He
waited until I was done before he asked, “You ever heard the phrase, ‘don’t
start a war you might not win’?”
“Yeah.
You think that’s what I did?”
Harris
pulled the toothpick from his mouth, smiled, and then winked. “I’m not talking
about you.”
When
I parted ways with Harris, I took with me an insane plan and a nervous
stomach. What he’d proposed might have been the smartest way to get what we
needed, but it was also the most dangerous. It took him a while to convince
me, and I can’t say that I left with absolute certainty that it’d work.
I
paused under an overhang outside the library. The rain fell in sheets so
thick, it looked like walls of white blowing through the trees and across the
cars parked there. A gust of wind kicked up and tore an umbrella from a
woman’s grasp. She chased it and gave up when it lifted from the ground and
blew high into a tree.
I
called Michelle at the office and she informed me that she was in the
conference room with all of the ladies. They were worried, confused, and
demanding that we hire security to accompany them on their client meetings. I
had her put me on speaker. I assured them that security was our highest
priority for the future, but until I gave the all clear, they were absolutely
not supposed to entertain anyone, not even the men and women they’d known for
years.
“It’s
for the best until we get this straightened out. Go home,” I said. “Take a
vacation. Rest. Relax. Catch up on some reading, whatever you need to do for
a couple of days.” I chuckled when I heard the grumblings in the background.
“No whining, and don’t give me any crap about lost earnings. I’ve seen your
numbers. You can afford it and I promise, the money will be there when I’m
ready for you to come back, okay?”
I
heard a collective mumble of agreement around the room and the muffled sounds
of everyone leaving. Michelle picked up and asked, “Where’ve you been?”
“Meeting
with Wickam’s contact. He’s going to help.”
“Help
how?”
I
hesitated. “Um, the less you know, the better.”
“Kim,
no.”
“I’m
serious. It’s not the most…legal thing we could come up with and I don’t want
you getting mixed up in it. If anything happens, you can claim ignorance and
it’ll be the truth.”
“What
do you mean if anything happens? Is it dangerous? Because if it’s dangerous,
I don’t want you—”
I
stepped off the curb and into the library parking lot, splashing through the
collected puddles, and interrupted her. “It’s Roman.”
“Roman?
Oh my God, how?”
“Million
different possibilities.”
“Are
you sure? We’ve been so careful and I’m positive that none of the girls
would’ve told him, not even if he tried to buy them off, you know?”
“Right,
they’re earning too much already. Anyway, the point is, it’s him, and how he
found out…it doesn’t matter. He knows we…I mean he knows
I
stole some
of his top earners from him, and he’s looking for some payback.”
“What’re
you gonna do?”
“Michelle?”
“What?”
“Walk
away for a couple of days. I’ll be fine. This guy I met, he knows what he’s
doing. We’re gonna take care of things and then we’ll be back to normal.”
“What
does ‘take care of things’ mean?”
“Bye,
Michelle. Say hi to Aaron for me.” I heard her sharp, “Wait—” get cut off as
I hung up. More than likely, she’d be on my front doorstep that evening.
I
wouldn’t be there. I would’ve already spent my time with Joey, hugging every
possible ounce of love that I could squeeze out of him, likely crying and
wishing on every star that I’d made different decisions. Harris had assured me
that I wouldn’t be in any real danger, but he couldn’t guarantee it. You can’t
account for crazy.
I
took a deep breath. A dark green pickup cruised by, parting the deep puddles
like Moses and the Red Sea. Harris stuck his hand out the driver’s side window
and offered a reassuring thumbs-up. It wasn’t as comforting as he thought.
Next,
I called Finn. I had to see him because I had no idea what the next day or two
would bring, and it was better to get some things off my chest now than to
potentially do it from a hospital bed. Or, you know, as a ghost returning to
haunt him. Messages from the afterlife aren’t usually that well received.
“I’ve
been thinking about you,” he said. “Is everything okay?”
God,
it was so good to hear his voice again.
“Not
really. Can I see you, like right now?”
“Yeah,
you want to grab some lunch together?”
“I’m
not sure I could eat, but I’ll watch you.”
“I’ll
be sure to chew with my mouth closed this time.”
Fifteen
minutes later, I sat across from him in a booth. We were at some old greasy-spoon
diner downtown that served nothing but breakfast twenty-four seven. I’d seen it
for years but never dared to enter. That was back when I was worried about
what Dreama would think of all the extra calories. I’d already changed my mind
about not being hungry. I realized I hadn’t had a full meal in days. The
smell of crackling bacon on the grill, pancakes, biscuits, french toast, it was
all too much for my growling stomach to ignore. Fifties music played over the
speakers while we held hands and waited on our coffee to arrive.
The
small talk was minimal. I distracted him with questions about his job and how
he’d been since our morning together. It worked, at least until he said,
“Great, until you ran out of my house like your building was on fire. What
happened? And come to think of it, you never did tell me what kind of business
you own.”
“Yeah,
about that.” I squeezed his hand and felt the numbness of dread slinking out
of my stomach and down into my legs. I didn’t want to tell him. God, I didn’t
want to tell him
at all
, but if things were going to happen between us,
he needed to hear the truth. If a relationship were to happen, then it needed
to start with a foundation of trust and truth, not lies and deceit.
I
needed him to know how thankful I was that he’d come into my life before I lost
the chance to tell him.
“What
is it?” he said, crinkling his forehead. He was gorgeous even when he was
perplexed. I nearly changed my mind. What if I told him and he ran? I’d
never get to stare into those mesmerizing baby blues again.
The
truth, Kim, I thought. Just get it out there. He’ll understand…maybe.
“I’m
not who you think I am.” I nibbled on the inside of my lip, waiting on him to
respond, as if that explained things. Apparently, it didn’t.
“Oh,
I see.” He tilted his head back, nodding, then shook it. “No, I don’t. My
turn…so you’re wanted by the FBI, CIA, and the men in black?”
“I’m
being serious.”
“Then
tell me.”
I
sighed, pulled away from him, and took a sip of my coffee because my mouth had
instantly gone dry. Strong, black, scraped off the bottom of the carafe.
Perfect. I couldn’t help but think that it might be the last cup of coffee I’d
get to enjoy. “When you met me in the café the first time, honest to God
truth, I’d just gotten laid off like thirty minutes before.”
“I
remember.”
Another
sip of coffee. Why did my tongue feel like a dried up sponge? “You know,
Finn, honestly I could go on and on about what’s happened to me since that day,
but most of it is pretty insane, and I’m scared that if I tell you, you’ll get
up and walk out the door and I’ll never see you again.”
He
gave a disjointed laugh that was part disbelief, part discomfort. “What? No
way. I didn’t make all those trips to the café for nothing. Whatever it is,
I’m sure it won’t surprise me.” When I opened my mouth and hesitated, he
added, “Come on, it can’t be that bad.”
“Uh,
yeah, it can.”
Finn
let go of my hands. I hoped it wasn’t an omen. He leaned back and crossed his
arms. “You’re married, aren’t you?”
“God,
no. But…” I hesitated again, took another swig of coffee, and then glanced out
the window. The rain pounded on the glass. Cars swam by on the flooded
streets. A stoplight changed from green, to yellow, to red.
It
couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, yet it felt like hours of silence.
“I’m not married, but…I have a son. His name is Joey, and he’s almost two
years old. His father’s not in the picture and doesn’t want to be, but Joey,
he’s my world, you know? Everything I’ve done, and God, it sounds horrible
hearing it out loud, everything I’ve done was for him, so he could have a good
life. I’m so, so sorry, for not telling you about him the day we first met,
but being a young, single mom is such a huge red flag for a lot of guys and I
wanted you to know
me
before you had a chance to judge the situation.
Does that make sense?”
Finn
smiled that amazing smile and huffed. “Are you kidding? That’s it?
That’s
what you were worried about? Kim, I know it goes against the whole single dude
stereotype…but I love kids.
Love
kids. I babysit my sister’s two boys
all the time. My ex brother-in-law, this guy Teddy, he’s this massive dickwad
that got caught poking his secretary. Ran off with her and left Emily with
nothing.
Nothing
. So I help out every chance I get. That whole single
mom thing is rough. I realize you didn’t know me well enough, but you could’ve
at least given me a chance, right?”
Could
I have fallen for him any harder in that moment? I wanted to grab his hand,
run out to the car, and whisk him away. I’d introduce him to Joey and we’d
disappear somewhere, thousands of miles from here, away from Dreama, away from
Roman, away from the life I’d been living.
Instead,
I nodded and apologized, told him I was sorry for judging without giving him an
opportunity. Then I steeled myself for the awful truth that had to come next.
“That’s
not all,” I said. Again, I nibbled on my bottom lip. I couldn’t remember when
I’d picked up the habit, but it was recent, and the skin had grown raw. I’d
emptied the coffee mug, and rather than being able to hide behind it, I
squeezed my hands tightly around the white ceramic.
“There’s
more?”
“Promise
you’ll hear me out before you make any decisions, okay?”
“I
promise, but the past is the past. If you don’t want to tell me, don’t. We’ll
move forward from this point on,” he said, tapping the table. “Right here,
today. New start, new beginning. Your past doesn’t matter to me.”
“Yeah,
I think it will.” I could feel the river of tears pushing hard against the
dam. “I want you in my life, and God, I’m so thankful that you found me
again. So thankful, but I have to tell you this stuff. I have to get it off
my chest because I’m not proud of it and you deserve to know.”
He
relented. “Okay. I’m listening.”
The
waitress stopped by, took our orders—pancakes for me, a western omelette for
him—and poured us another cup of steaming hot blackness, giving me a chance to
collect my thoughts and ready myself for Finn’s imminent departure.
This
is it, I thought. Get ready to watch him walk out that door.
I
said, “I was—I was—I didn’t expect it to be this hard.” My lip trembled. I
was scared to say it. I had to, though. I had to tell him. I could’ve taken
his offer for a clean slate, to pretend that the past never happened, but not
with Roman still hell bent on revenge. I’d never forgive myself if something
happened to Finn. He had a right to know that his safety might be in
jeopardy. “Okay, here goes. I was desperate, Finn. Stupid. I let pride get
in the way because I could’ve gotten help from so many different places.
Instead… The reasons matter, but they don’t change the fact that I made some
bad decisions—whatever, forget it—the truth is, I couldn’t get a job, I was
worried we’d get kicked out of our apartment, and I made a choice I now regret
because of the money. I—I worked for an escort service for a while.”
There.
I’d said it. The truth was out there, floating between us like a small, dark
cloud.
Finn
remained silent. Staring at me. I watched his jaw muscles clench and
unclench. My body felt hot. Stripping everything off wouldn’t have been
enough.
I
burned on the inside.
“Finn?
Say something.”