9. Jezebel

CHAPTER 9

JEZEBEL

F uck, fuck, fuck.

Brett had come to the Cathouse one time last year to haul Thelma out of the garage. He was one of the few people in Vegas who knew where I lived, and he’d almost spilled the details to Cole. All I wanted to do today was sweat my tits off in the gym and then head to the shooting range, and now I was stuck in a car with a hot guy who didn’t deserve to be a part of the shitshow that was my life.

I typed out a message as Cole drove.

Me

Code Hippo.

Soon after our team’s inception, the members of the Choir had created our own rating system, kind of like DEFCON, but less boring. Bear, shark, lion, crocodile, and hippo, in that order. Tulsa had argued for “snake” to be on the list, but Dice had vetoed that because she had pet snakes and thought they were cute. Privately, I was on Tulsa’s side, but I didn’t want to wake up to a viper in my bed, so I’d abstained from the vote. Spiders had also been discussed, but given that Spider’s nickname was, well, Spider, that had the potential to be confusing.

Echo had suggested mosquitoes because they killed more people than all the others combined, but then Barbie had asked her whether she’d rather be trapped in a room with ten mosquitoes or ten hippos, and she’d grudgingly agreed to include the hippos.

And Code Hippo meant I needed help.

Me

I accidentally accepted a ride “home” from Cole—can someone bring the key for Priest’s apartment?

Priest was in Virginia, and he didn’t live in the apartment anyway. Mostly, he stayed at the Cathouse with us, plus he had a home by the ocean in California so he could keep up his surfing habit. The apartment was where he took his lady friends. And by “lady friends,” I meant the women he married when he got drunk and miserable. Six and counting. Four divorces and two annulments later, why he did it was still a mystery, but Dice said he’d been engaged once, and it didn’t work out. We thought the multiple weddings thing was some sort of trauma response. I mean, for the most part, Priest was pretty cheerful, but there were times when he got really fucking dark, and that was when he showed up with a ring on his finger.

Anyhow, he made a terrible husband. His record for marriage was five months, and he spent most of the time somewhere else. In the end, there were tears and lawyers, and he bought the poor woman a car or a selection of nice jewellery as an apology. For now, he was single, and we were all grateful for that.

Tulsa

“Accidentally.”

Storm

How do you accidentally accept a ride home?

Me

It was Thelma’s fault.

Dice

Sure it was.

Me

Could someone bring the damn key?

Tulsa

Can’t you just get him to drop you off outside a random apartment building?

Me

Cole’s the type of man who’ll stick around to check I make it safely inside.

Marcel

That’s sooooo adorable.

Me

The key!

Tulsa

Chill, I’m coming.

Me

I bought some time. We’re going to Happy Valley to shop for food.

Tulsa

How very domesticated.

We were in the produce aisle when I saw Tulsa approaching, head down, scrolling on her phone. She shoulder-checked me a little harder than was strictly necessary, and the key fell to the floor.

“Hey, watch where you’re going.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Cole bent to pick up the key, such a fucking gentleman. “Yours?”

“Thanks. Looks as if Team Asshole has gained another member.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. I think I’ll get a watermelon.”

Cole pushed the cart, and he insisted on paying as well, which I felt bad about because if Echo’s research was correct, he wasn’t exactly rolling in cash. And the guilt felt weird, like a pair of shoes that didn’t quite fit. It wasn’t an emotion that usually bothered me.

“Where to?” he asked when we were back in the car.

“Left at the lights. Then take the second left.”

We drove in a big square, and I surreptitiously checked behind us for any vehicles that looked out of place. Nothing stood out, thankfully. Echo would be watching too. Since the attempt on my life, I’d become even more cautious than usual, but there was no sign of another hit team.

“Didn’t we drive down this street already?” Cole asked.

“Uh, I think so? I only moved into my new place a month ago, and I’m still getting used to the area. It’s definitely right up here.”

Better to act dumb than admit to driving a surveillance detection route.

Priest’s apartment was in a nondescript building, not too nice, not too shabby. As predicted, Cole decided he was carrying the groceries inside, and I directed him to the small parking lot at the rear.

“It’s the space for unit 301.”

“You don’t keep the Porsche in a garage?”

“She has a cover.”

Cole was lifting bags out of the trunk when the back door of the building opened and three people walked out. And not just any three people. Marcel, Sin, and Barbie, all three of them carrying duffel bags. I swallowed a groan because whatever they’d been doing upstairs, it had undoubtedly been Marcel’s idea and I probably wouldn’t like it.

On the third floor, I held my breath as I slotted the key into the lock.

Son of a… The place smelled like the perfume counter in Macy’s. There were flowers. There was a picture of a fucking kitten on the wall.

Priest’s apartment was small, not much more than a studio, really. One bedroom, an all-white bathroom with a shower over the tub, and a kitchen separated from the living room by a waist-high counter. A dining table with two chairs was tucked into a corner. I’d only been in the apartment a couple of times—once to shovel him into the shower on a particularly dismal day, and again to clean up after wife number six. The place had been decorated since then—the last time I stood in this room, the wall behind the couch had been stained red from an entire pan of lasagne being hurled at it. Well, not at it , exactly. Wife Six had thrown the lasagne at Priest, but he’d ducked.

“Didn’t realise you were a cat person,” Cole said, nodding toward the kitten. “Where do you want the groceries?”

“Anywhere in the kitchen is fine.”

He interpreted that as “put everything away” and opened the refrigerator.

“No wonder you wanted to stop at the grocery store. All you have in here is a six-pack of beer, a jar of pickles, and an egg.” He turned to look at me, incredulous. “How do you survive?”

“All-you-can-eat specials.”

Through the open bedroom door, I spotted a laptop on the chest of drawers, plus a bottle of perfume and a teddy bear. I made a mental note to check the bear for recording devices—we had a nanny cam in the equipment room that looked remarkably similar.

“Do you work from home?” he asked.

“Yes, but don’t get any ideas about dropping in for breakfast.”

“Too stalkerish?”

“Too stalkerish.”

“Damn. There goes my plan to rent the apartment next door.”

Cole was joking, but his words were still a punch to the gut because once upon a time, Bastian had done exactly that. I’d never know if it was intentional, whether he’d rented that particular unit with the intention of unearthing my deepest secrets, or if he’d had the idea later. Dead men didn’t tell tales.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Relax, you’re safe. Tinkerbell would object. She likes to prowl around her catio in the evening.”

“One of my neighbours had an outdoor cat, but it got run over. When I moved in, there were posters everywhere asking people to keep an eye out, and I guess they worked because some guy showed up with Sooty in a cardboard box. There were tears. So many tears. I didn’t have any tissues, but a guy from the seventh floor donated a toilet roll to the cause.”

I lied a lot, and I did it smoothly, convincingly, and without guilt. At times, my life depended on it. When I was little, Mom had told me that “practice makes perfect,” and I’d taken the advice to heart.

So why didn’t the bullshit spilling from my lips sit quite right today? I’d been out of sorts since I broke my damn leg, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. Tulsa had suggested that it might be the fracture, that the reminder of my own mortality had knocked me off kilter, but that wasn’t it. I’d been injured plenty of times before, and even a bullet wound hadn’t left me feeling this way.

“That’s a damn shame,” Cole said. “Tinkerbell can be a grouch, but I still want her to live a long, happy life. Although I’m not sure she’s going to forgive me when I take her home.”

“Home to San Gallicano?”

He nodded. “She’s already had the shots, and she wasn’t impressed about that. My neighbour offered to watch her when I go out on the boat.”

“Your neighbour sounds like a gem.”

“Yeah, she is. She keeps an eye on my place when I’m away and invites me over for dinner once or twice a week when I’m home.”

“I bet she does.”

Wait, was that a hint of displeasure in my voice? Where did that come from? So what if Cole had a female neighbour who cooked for him—I didn’t care.

But he picked up on my tone. “Yolanda’s also old enough to be my grandma.”

“Good.” Shit. “I mean, it’s good that she’ll look after the cat.”

Cole looked at me.

I looked at Cole.

Then he kissed me. Or maybe I kissed him, but whatever, the outcome was still the same. My crutches clattered to the floor as he hoisted me off my feet, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. Fuck, my thigh hurt like a bitch, and that was after the good drugs.

“This is a bad idea,” I mumbled against his lips.

“The worst,” he agreed. “Bed or counter? Your choice.”

“Bed.”