Hating Beauty (The Vegas Titans Series Book 6) (3 page)

Chapter Four

Knox Cole

The diner is in the last section of
waterfront in Chelsea that hasn’t been renovated, and looks like the perfect
recruiting ground for strippers. It’s one of those metal-fronted vintage places
you’d see on postcards, but it’s so dilapidated you almost don’t notice it
wedged between project houses. It’s shiny, but sad.

When I go in and sit at the counter
the place is pretty empty. A guy with a nametag that says Boris is drying
glasses behind the cash register. He tosses a menu at me with a nod and no eye
contact.

“What’ll you have?”

“Katja.”

“Pardon?”

Now he looks up.

“I’m looking for Katja, who works
here.”

His eyes regard me skeptically. “There’s
no Katja. Wrong place.”

Boris’ accent is as thick as his
face. Russian maybe?

I paint on my most charming look of
puzzlement. “Oh. Really? Maybe I have the wrong name. I thought she said Katja,
but, my memory is fuzzy. Um, see, I’m a tutor. She asked me to meet her here,
where she works. I’m supposed to help her study for a test?”

It’s a stretch, but I figure it’s
my best shot. I’m twenty-eight, which is probably a little old to play a
college kid. I’ve got some grey hairs in my five-o-clock shadow, for crying out
loud. I hope he buys it.

Boris squints and leans on the
counter. “Test?”

“Yeah, uh, a psychology test. She
wanted some extra help. Not that she really needs it, she’s one of the best
students in the class.”

A long moment stretches out and I
pray to god the random lie I’m telling is the right one. And apparently it is,
because Boris’ face clears and lights up.

“Psychology. Ah. Not Katja. There’s
no Katja. It’s Jana you want. Jana’s our scholar, the best student. The best! She
no work today. She not to come in. You got wrong day maybe. Tomorrow she is back.”

Katja is Jana? Jana what? Who is
this kid? It’s two o’clock, and she already has two names. Shit. It’s two
o’clock. That means I have only fourteen hours left.

I’m annoyed at how difficult it’s
been to track her down. I’m realizing I’m going to have to take some kind of
risky step if I’m going to get the information I need to find her in time. I’ve
got to get Boris to tell me where she is
now
.

Jutting my elbows onto the counter,
I lean in confidentially. “Actually,” I whisper, “This is really embarrassing,
but maybe you can help me Boris. I need to talk to her about
something...personal.”

“Personal?”

“Yeah.” I beckon Boris closer and
drop my voice to a whisper, even though there’s no one else around. “See, I
left my cell at her place the other night. I was there to tutor her for the
first time. We had just met but there was this
chemistry
, you know? She’s
so beautiful. Well, you know that. Anyway, we didn’t exactly get around to
studying, and in the excitement and all the wine we drank I just…I kind of
blanked out. I don’t remember where she lived. But I need to get my phone back,
and it had her number in it, so I don’t know any other way to reach her. We
were supposed to meet today, but if she forgot I’m screwed. Can you give her a
call, ask her to come down here? Help another guy out?”

I’m hoping it’s a story, just
convoluted enough to dazzle Boris into not thinking about it. Normally a little
white lie about getting laid would make another man smirk—chuckle and wink—maybe
elbow me playfully and say something like “you lucky bastard.” Talking about
boning a lady of mutual acquaintance usually invokes the bro code that earns me
enough respect to get what I want.

Not with Boris.

The effect of my speech on him is
startling. He’s already a forbidding-looking dude, but the moment I insinuate
that I spent the night with Katja/Jana, he turns a deep shade of purple and the
veins in his tattooed neck strain out.

“You son of a bitch,” he growls.

He lunges across the counter,
shoving me off of my stool. I crash onto the floor in a heap, raising my arms
over my head in surrender.

“Whoa, hey Boris, calm down.”

“How dare you talk like this about
Jana! A good girl living with the nuns, you ought to be ashamed to say such
lies about her, about any good woman. You are a piece of shit. Get out, you dog.
Get out of my place. I run a respectable business. Get out, you filth!”

Boris is a surprisingly strong guy,
smacking me with his apron. It’s too bad no one is here to watch the show—I get
it’s a good one. But since I figure I’ve got no beef against Boris personally,
I don’t fight back. I let him pick me up by the scruff of my shirt and my belt
and ramrod me out the diner door onto the street, kicking me on the backside as
I go.

“Don’t come back, you sick bastard!”

Not likely!

I land in a grayish yellow puddle
in the curb. Gross. But I feel a wry grin flicker over my face. Poor Boris.
Here he was trying to protect this girl, and instead he gave her to me on a
platter.

“Don’t worry, Boris,” I mutter.
“Neither of us will be coming back.”

Katja. Jana. Whoever she is, Boris
has just given me the final clue I need to find her. Whipping out my iPhone with
a flourish, I command Siri: “Find nun public housing New York City.”

“I can’t answer that now.”

“Dammit, Siri. Find nun public
housing New York City.”

“Fine, Knox. Here you go.”

I mean, there can’t be that many
nunneries in the city, and Katja/Jana was definitely not a nun. Not the way she
was dancing. Not the way she kissed. So it’s got to be a place for non-nuns,
too.

Sure enough, only one entry pops
up: The Leo House, “a Catholic guest house for travelers.”

Man, I’m good. I could have been a
detective.

“Fuck me sideways, Siri,” I say. “We
have ourselves a score.”

“I’m not that kind of girl,” Siri
responds.

I open the link and skim until I
find directions, then leap up with an excited whoop. The address for The Leo House
is only a couple of blocks away from the diner. Damn, I’ve never worked this
hard to find a woman before. I’m relieved the search is almost over.

Katja/Jana/mystery girl, here I
come.

Chapter Five

Knox Cole

I won’t bore you with the details,
but suffice it to say it was harder to get through the nuns at the front desk
of the Leo House than I thought it would be. After a few false starts, I
finally convinced them that I was Jana’s coworker and friend from the diner,
and that I was here to surprise her for her birthday. It may have also involved
a lot of flirting and tipping, but it worked.

Only a half-hour of bullshitting,
guest-book signing, and ID checking…I’m in. Those Catholics run a tight ship, I
tell you what.

Just not tight enough.

Katja/Jana’s room is on the second
floor facing the street, and I easily force the lock with a credit card. Inside
it’s quiet, sparse, and empty, something like an army barrack but with more
furniture. The afternoon light spilling in from the window gives me an aching
look at this woman’s private life. The room really isn’t much—just a bed, a
dresser, and a utilitarian desk. But it’s clean.

Once I’m in, I re-lock the door
behind me. She’s obviously not home, so I figure I might as well search for the
laptop while I’m waiting for Katja/Jana to get back. Searching shouldn’t take
long.

Rifling through the mattress and
pillows gives me nothing useful, but I do find what looks like a rosary twisted
around the headboard, and I feel a stab of guilt. What if Boris is right and
she really is a good girl? Shit. I don’t want that on my head. But then, what
was she doing disguised as an exotic dancer at Breslin’s party?

I try to absolve myself of the
guilty feeling, and turn my attention to the dresser. The first thing I find is
the underwear drawer.

“Holy fuck,” I whisper, pulling out
lacy black thing after lacy black thing. “Mmm, god.”

My dick throbs in appreciation as
the inevitable mental picture of Katja/Jana in sexy lacy black underwear sears
through my consciousness.

Down boy. Business.

The next drawer is less dangerous,
just a jumble of clothes: socks, jeans, and t-shirts, all unfolded and mashed
together. This tells me she’s either a slob or a brainiac preoccupied with
bigger problems than neatness. I’m guessing the latter.

The last drawer is a lot of
paperwork and schoolbooks, but no laptop. However, there is something
interesting: a small box of wigs and make-up.

“Wigs?”

Yes. There’s one that’s short and black,
the hairstyle Katja was wearing at the party. It’s not her real hair. Whoa. Trippy.
It occurs to me for the first time that maybe I’m up against some kind of con
artist. If that’s so, then I don’t have to feel guilty about turning her in to
Breslin. Right?

I slam the drawer shut, frustrated
with my thoughts, but the momentum makes the whole unit shake. A picture frame topples
from the top and crashes onto the floor.

“Shit.”

I pick it up from the floor and see
that the glass pane has cracked. Was that there before, or did I do that? If I
did, she’ll probably notice and know someone is here. Oh well, too late to fix
it. I brush it off and set it back in its place, turning to walk away, but the
picture catches my eye.

It’s what looks like a family
portrait, a mother and two girls. Peering closer, I realize the youngest is Katja/Jana.
Her hair is decidedly not short or black, like the wig she was wearing at the
party. It’s long, wavy, and a warm glowing color something between brown and
red. The mother and sister have the same type of hair and strikingly similar
faces, but over the mother and the older sister’s heads, someone has scrawled the
word “vai” in black ink.

What the hell does that mean?

I set the picture down and look
everywhere else a laptop could possibly fit, but it’s not here. Not in the
closet. Not under or inside anything. I tap the walls for secret compartments.
Nothing. No laptop. Shit.

Now all I can do is wait.

I check my phone. It’s only three
o’clock in the afternoon. It’s early in the day. I tell myself it’s normal that
the girl’s not home. She probably won’t get home until five or six. That’s what
normal people do, right?

I still have thirteen hours left in
Breslin’s clock. Thirteen hours to get the girl and make her bring me to the
laptop. It’s going to be fine.

Might as well set up camp. After a
quick survey of possible hiding spots, I decide to curl myself into a ball in the
closet with the door open just enough to give me a view of the room. I set my
phone to silent, cross my arms, and settle in.

Sitting still is not my favorite
pastime: it leads to thinking. I hate thinking. It makes me depressed. So to
avoid thinking, I play Fruit Ninja on my phone, willing myself to my closest
approximation of a blank Zen state.

Five o’clock comes and goes. I
switch to Candy Crush.

Six o’clock. Grand Theft Auto.

Eight o’clock. Damn. I’m not going
to lie, my cortisol is spiking. She better get here soon.

I toy with the idea of sexting
someone, but decide against it. The idea of sex just makes me think about Katja.
I mean Jana. Or whatever her name is - and that’s not a safe thought
trajectory. Not when I’m planning on bringing her to Breslin, ruining her life,
and precipitating her premature demise.

This closet is getting really
uncomfortable. I try to flex my muscles silently in place, ruefully
acknowledging that I’m not as young and spry as I used to be. Also, my brittle
control over my spinning thoughts is starting to fall apart. This waiting thing
is taking too damn long, and I can’t help but think about what I’m doing.

“How the mighty have fallen,” I mutter
to myself.

It’s useless. The thoughts crowd
in, alternating between Katja/Jana/mystery girl’s young face and snippets of my
past that I’d rather forget. Cue Knox’s downward spiral.

How did I get here? I’m staking out
a girl’s closet. It’s sad, and not just physically: it’s sad all around. I used
to
be
somebody. Now I just
work
for somebody. And the work is
getting distasteful.

I wish I could be proud of myself
for manipulating and lying to a protective diner manager and a middle-aged holy
woman so easily. Here I am, former UFC Light Heavyweight champ, and I’m reduced
to lying to nuns. And why? So I can turn a young girl over to a sadistic prick
that wants to kill her for stealing his laptop.

Shit.

Usually I wouldn’t give a fuck, but
today, now, over this young mystery girl, it doesn’t feel like a routine job.
It doesn’t feel like a victory. Something doesn’t sit right. Something is
bugging me, and I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not like I didn’t know what
kind of guy Breslin was when I started working for him. It’s not like I’m not
that kind of guy, myself, these days.

God help me. Really, I mean it. My
life has become a parody of itself. What have I become? There was a time that
my brain and body pursued glory in the ring. It was a fair fight between equal
opponents. There was a time where I loved what I did. Then I fucked it up. And
now…

God I want a drink. Or a fuck.
Something, anything, to drown out these nagging doubts.

The clock drags on.

It’s three am. Fuck. Only three
hours left to the deadline.

I’m going insane and my cramped
muscles are yelling at me when I finally hear a key turn in the door. Thank
god! Someone flips the lights on, and I hear the soft rustle of jackets and
bags falling to the floor, and shoes on the carpet.

Katja. Jana. Whatever. She’s finally
here.

This would be the time to attack. I
should jump out of the closet, surprise the hell out of her, overpower her in a
few seconds and tie her up, then call Breslin. That was my plan, but I don’t do
that. Instead, my breath catches and my body tenses, eager to just see her.
Watch her.

What is it about this girl?

She mutters something to herself
that I can’t catch and kicks off her shoes. I see them whiz across my field of
vision and hear them plunk against the walls. Soon she walks where I can see
her and plops wearily on her bed with a deep, sincere sigh that I can feel all
the way in my own body. Her face is clouded, tired, but still strikingly
beautiful.

She’s laying half on the bed with
her legs dangling down, staring at the ceiling. Her long reddish hair is
splayed around her, and for some reason she reminds me of a mermaid; between
two worlds, half awake and half asleep. I can easily imagine lying on top of
her, running my fingers through that hair. It looks so soft.

Down, boy.

With her eyes lidded, she starts to
shimmy, and I realize with a spike of sensation that she’s wiggling herself out
of her pants. She slides them slowly down over her hips, her thighs, her
ankles, and onto the floor. Damn, those are some fine legs. My mouth is
actually watering. And now I’m getting a front-row seat to the real-life
fantasy of seeing her in a lacy black thong. She stretches her legs up to the
ceiling, out wide like the splits, and then scissor kicks a few times. She
really is flexible.

That’s it, baby.

My heart rate accelerates. The
closet feels like it’s getting hotter.

With another muted groan, she kicks
herself up to sitting and rolls her t-shirt up over her head, tossing it aside.
Now she’s just in her black bra and matching underwear, and I am feasting
myself on the sight of her curves spilling out all over the place. I bet her
skin is soft. I bet she feels perfect.

Oh fuck. I give up. I’m only human,
after all. I give up all thoughts of being business-like, and indulge myself,
in full-on lusting after every inch of that body of hers.

She’s in shape, but full—a woman’s
body, not a girl’s. Just fucking exactly how I like it. Those might even be
D-cups. Unselfconscious, she stretches and rolls her neck slowly and
sensuously, arching her back to work out the tension of a long day. A soft moan
escapes her lips.

Fuck. I am so turned on just
looking at her. Silently, I’m begging her to turn around so I can get a good
look at her ass. I want to see more so badly that I forget myself for a second
and sit up straighter, straining to see.

I accidentally bump into something
hanging above me, and freeze.

It only makes a small rustling sound,
but it does make a sound.

Shit.

But she doesn’t seem to hear, shows
no reaction. Maybe the street noise drowned it out? She does however seem to
somehow hear my silent prayer to show me more, and stands up, walking away from
me.

Damn, that ass! I want to bite it,
slap it. I just might die. All I want is to spring out of the closet and do
unspeakable things to her for hours and hours. Oh yeah. It could go on for
hours.

Now she’s picked up her jacket and turns,
walking softly over towards the closet. She’s reaching for the door with her
left hand, rummaging for something in her coat pocket with her right.

It’s now or never.

The closet door opens slowly, and I
jump out, pushing my body into her, and running us until we hit up against the
opposite wall. I’ve got her pinned and breathless.

She stares up at me, her eyes clear
and unconcerned. I admit, it hurts my feelings a little. I thought I’d at least
startle her, but the girl is stoic as stone.

“Hey, Katja,” I say. “How you been?
Sorry to barge in like this, but, see, you left without saying goodbye last
time.”

A faint smile plays around her
lips. “Yes, I can tell you are very happy to see me. Unless that’s a gun.”

God, she’s sexy. Somehow it hadn’t
occurred to me until now that I have a raging boner, and that she can
definitely feel it against her hips.

“Nope,” I grin. “Not a gun. Just
me.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Wow,
impressive. Feel mine?”

Something hard presses into my groin
and for a minute my mind reels, confused.

She laughs. “Sorry to disappoint,
handsome. That’s not me. That is a gun.”