Considering she had just checked off a bunch of sexual acts without flinching, I had to assume it was because she was getting a strong mental image. Of me. Face buried between some soft thighs. Maybe hers.
“You're a real prince,” she said, trying to cover her embarrassment. But her cheeks were still flaming.
“Girls want flowers and candy, they go for the nice business men. They want a good solid fucking that can make them see the face of god, they come to men like me. I make no apologies about being who I am.”
“What is a man like you?” she asked, her eyes shrinking, like she was trying to see through me.
“What?”
“What are you? What do you do?”
There wasn't really a title for men like me. Men who did what they were paid to do. No questions. Very few morals.
“I do what I'm paid to do.”
“Such as?”
“Such as breaking into shitty apartments above what I can only assume is the worst tasting Chinese in the city, kidnapping the pretty girl living all alone and drag her back to an abandoned warehouse to await further instructions.”
“That's it? So you're like, what, a kidnapper? That's what you do?”
“When the price is high enough.”
“What was I worth?”
“What?” I asked, leaning against the wall across from her, crossing my ankles and my arms across my chest.
“What are you getting paid to kidnap and hold me hostage?”
Well, there was no reason not to tell her.
“For the abduction, ten grand. Two grand each day I gotta keep you.”
To this, she huffed out air. “Guess I'm in the wrong business.” There was a pause, her hand going up to run her fingers through her hair. A nervous habit? “Well, not for long...”
She seemed so resigned. So accepting of her fate.
I'd seen grown men, hardened criminals, beg. Grovel. Cry. I'd seen them pissing themselves when they realized there was no hope for them.
And here was this chick, a nobody, just a girl... sitting there calmly realizing her time on Earth was over and she would never get a chance to do anything with her life... and she was calm about it.
The fuck was that about?
“I don't suppose I could talk you out of this?” she asked, her tone dead, knowing there was no chance.
“No, doll.” I would back out if I had a choice. I didn't.
She nodded, lips pursing. “Any chance you would be willing to slip me something right before the hand off to Lex?”
“Come again?” I asked, brows drawing together.
“It sounds like you know Lex,” she said, watching me. “And if you know him at all... then you know the sick, horrifying things he does to women. A lot of women. Random women who mean nothing. Now, imagine what he would do to me... someone who has obviously pissed him off somehow.”
She had a point.
Poor fucking kid.
“So you're asking me to...” I trailed off, wanting her to fill in the blank.
“Give me something to kill myself with. Before he gets a chance to play with me first,” she said, her pale skin looking almost green at the word 'play'.
“You fuckin' serious?”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice firm. “I don't know much about drugs. But I think heroin is really easy to overdose on. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to come across some. It's cheap. It won't hurt your bottom line,” she babbled on as if she wasn't talking about suicide. “I've never done drugs so I wouldn't even need all that much. I can just like... snort it, right?” She looked at me as if waiting for an answer, but went on without it. “I don't know you. And maybe you're no better than him. Maybe you don't give a damn about me at all. But I don't think you're that cold. I don't think you'd be okay with the things he would have in mind for me.”
“You want me to help you kill yourself.”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck,” I said, pushing off the wall and pacing the small space.
She was right. I was a cold fuck, but I wasn't heartless. Just knowing I was holding her against her will was chafing me, settling with a lead feeling in my belly. It was the rule. I didn't mess with women. It wasn't a fair fuckin' fight. And I couldn't think of a god damn thing a woman could do to warrant what Lex would do to her.
“Is that a no?” she asked, sounding defeated.
I turned my head, seeing she was watching me pace, her body rigid.
“He comes for you,” I said, walking up to her, my boots almost touching her bright purple toenails, crouching down so I could look her in the eye so she could see the genuineness there, “I will give you something to end it with.”
At this, she nodded, her eyes swimming slightly. “Thank you.”
Then I stood, turned, and got the fuck out of there.FourAlexOkay. There was no reason to freak out. It was always a possibility. From that first day that I sat across from his coffee shop on the steps of the museum, pretending to read some paperback I found discarded on the subway when I was actually making a mental note about every mannerism, what he drank, what he ate, how many cigarette breaks he took.
From that first glance, there was always a chance that he would find out. I probably should have been shocked that it took him as long as it had to figure me out. I mean... ten years. For someone as hyper vigilant and observant as him, that was an insane amount of time. And if he had any clue how long I had been keeping an eye on his operation, he would have felt like every kind of fool. If there was one thing a man as prideful as Lex Keith wouldn't tolerate, it was being made to feel foolish.
By a woman.
Shit.
A part of me was floored that I was sitting in some abandoned train car instead of in one of Lex's torture rooms (of which I knew three: one in a basement at a dry cleaner, one in a shed off some abandoned piece of property, one specially built in a storm shelter in the woods. Incidentally if you found yourself in the first two, you would probably get the spit kicked out of you and be on your merry way within a night or two. If you ended up in the third one, well, you were in for a long stay. And you probably weren't ever getting out alive).