“Somehow, I don’t think you mean you want to slap him for all the ass grabbing.”
“No. I just… I don’t know. I want him to see the real me, I think. I felt so defeated by working there, so worn down, so not like myself. It sounds silly, but I just need to do this.”
“It doesn’t sound silly. But you didn’t have to get involved in a kinda risky conversation to have this last face-off.”
“No,” she agreed, nodding. “I am coming to this meeting because, well,” she said, pressing her lips into a firm line.
“Go on. You can tell me,” I told her.
“Well, because I don’t trust you guys to make sure this product doesn’t hit the market. I know that sounds horrible,” she admitted. “I don’t mean it to. I just think your focus is my safety first. And if the only way to secure that is to let this go through, well, then you would make that deal. I can’t let that happen.”
Honestly, that was fair.
I mean neither of us planned to let the product hit the market, but sometimes shit went down, sometimes deals went sideways.
“Alright, but let us do the talking, okay?”
“You’re the professionals. I am just there for accountability. How do I look?” she asked, turning to face me, spreading her arms a bit.
“Beautiful,” I told her without hesitation, it being the plain truth. She was always unfairly beautiful. Like the sun radiated from within her, making her almost hard to look at sometimes. “And confident and determined,” I added when she clearly wanted more than that.
“Thank you. Okay. Now, don’t tell me you are going to ruin all this with a bulletproof vest.”
“No. Smith and Nia haven’t even found a single security camera at his place. He’s stupidly lax about personal protection.”
“I mean, it’s not like he’s a celebrity. Unless he was getting death threats, I would think he lives a somewhat normal life.”
“A normal life in a four-point-five million dollar estate with a maid and two grounds keepers.”
“I don’t begrudge someone their wealth that they’ve worked for, but it always drove me nuts that he was cheap. He made the girl at a snack cart give him his exact change. Because he really needed those thirty-five cents. I have a perverse sort of pleasure at the idea of seeing his face fall when he realizes he’s not about to make millions and millions of dollars while endangering the public.”
“It’s not perverse. I always enjoy watching someone who thinks too highly of himself being brought down a peg or two.”
“Let’s get to it then, shall we?” she asked, giving me a smile, but there was suddenly some tension behind it.
It was understandable she was nervous.
I’d been on more jobs than I could count, several of them much more dangerous than this one.
But there was no denying the skittering of nerves across my skin as we moved downstairs, as we met up with Quin, as we went over the plan.
We weren’t expected.
Quin had decided a surprise drop-in would be the safest bet.
We knew from both Smith and Nia that he was home, recovered from his flu, just moving from room to room, restlessly flicking the TV on and off, drinking cucumber-infused water left on the island by his housekeeper.
“He liked his water at room temperature. He has sensitive teeth,” Gemma supplied to the question hanging in the air as we drove into his neighborhood. “Which conveniently doesn’t apply to his bourbon on the rocks.”
“Alright. You ready?” Quin asked, turning to look at her in the backseat.
“As I am going to be,” she agreed, and it hadn’t passed by me that she had been deep belly breathing like she did when she meditated the whole ride.
“Now, I personally think this is going to go smoothly. But just in case shit goes down, you get behind one of us. And if we say it is safe to run, you fucking run. You don’t wait for us. You don’t try to be brave. You run. Got it?”
“I know I can’t fight,” she admitted, rolling her eyes at herself.
“Okay. Let’s get this shit over with.”
With that, we climbed out of the car, making our way down the street in silence.
Walking behind Quin, I reached out for Gemma’s hand, giving it a quick, reassuring squeeze, finding it uncharacteristically clammy.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I added in a whisper as we made our way up the driveway.
Quin stooped, reaching to grab a key under the lone gnome in the front garden where Gemma had told us we’d find it.
With that, we walked into the house like we belonged there.
Which made the actual owner who did stop short, dropping his glass of what looked like bourbon on the rocks as he let out a choked curse.
“What are you do–Jenna?” he asked, eyes squinting at Gemma who was half-hidden behind me.