Skin Trade, page 3
“No,” she said firmly. “My business doesn’t have the turnover to be able to wash that kind of cash, and trying to force me into it is only going to backfire on you. I’m not an idiot, Mr. Neck Tats. You’ve got a laundry problem. You said it yourself. That’s why you need me, so getting me locked up doesn’t fit into your plan. And I want twenty percent. Ten isn’t enough to risk going to jail for, or to put up with you waving your gun around any time you feel like having a tantrum.”
He mouthed the word tantrum, actually looking shocked for a second, and then his face hardened. “It’s cute that you think you can negotiate,” he said flatly.
“You’re stupid if you think I won’t,” she replied, equally as flatly. “Because, honestly, I’d rather die than put myself through the stress of the last two weeks on a regular basis, and we both know you need me too much to kill me. If you didn’t, you’d never have offered me the deal for the ink in the first place. You were looking for a way into the norm world and here I am. You might have trapped me, and that was my bad, but that doesn’t mean I have to let you run me into the ground.”
He considered her for a long moment and then took a seat, swinging round one of the comfortable chairs. “Tell me about your gift,” he demanded. “Can you still see and speak to spirits with that new tat?”
“Like you didn’t ask the artist that made it,” she snorted, refusing to answer the question directly in case he was up to some shady shit like recording their conversation. The truth was that she could still see and hear them. The ink only protected her from possession, but that was all she needed. She’d been dealing with the rest of it for her entire life and, if she was honest, some small part of her wanted to try and find a way to help this damn spirit move on, if only so it didn’t latch onto some other unfortunate soul with a limited channelling ability that might let it loose upon the world.
He conceded the point with a nod. Of course he’d asked.
“What’s your name?” she asked curiously. “I can’t keep calling you Mr. Neck Tats.”
His grin was wide and sexy. “Knowledge is power and you ain’t gonna wanna pay the price of that power,” he teased.
“Neck Tats it is then,” she shrugged. “Could be worse, I suppose. Could be Neck Beard.” Was she flirting? She mentally slapped herself. That was a path she was not going to go down. And she wasn’t going to allow herself to even consider what sort of price he might demand for the favor of knowing his name. Or how much fun it might be to pay it. Nope. Absolutely not. No way. She needed to get back to the business at hand. “Twenty grand a month, twenty percent cut,” she said. “That’s all I can move. If you want more, then you need to lend me someone to teach me how to do the books so I don’t get caught. And you might want to give me your number too. If I’d been able to tell you the bank was closed yesterday, you could have saved yourself a wasted trip.”
“It wasn’t wasted.” He was still amused. “I collected on the interest owed.” His eyes flicked down her body and she cursed her inability to control the heat that rose in her skin.
“Do we have a deal?” she demanded, impatient to have him out of her studio so she could go home and wash off the day.
“Give me your phone.” He held his hand out and she rolled her eyes. Did he really think she wasn’t capable of putting in a contact while he dictated it? Still, she handed it over and almost missed the small grin that curved his lips as he tapped at the screen. He had truly beautiful hands. Square and masculine. She didn’t normally go for guys wearing rings, but there was something about his that emphasised the muscular lines of his fingers. Simple, thick matte bands, one in black and one in silver. She liked that they weren’t flashy. It took her a second to realise he was holding her phone back out to her and she didn’t look at his face, knowing he’d be laughing at her.
It was her turn to laugh when she saw he’d saved himself under the name MNT… Mr. Neck Tats. It seemed surreal to find such amusement in such a shitty situation, but what was done was done. She was going to survive this. She might end up in jail, but maybe that was better than being dead.
“I’ll have the money dropped off tomorrow,” he told her, rising to his feet. “Goodnight, Beatrix.”
She shivered and he was gone.
Chapter 5
Bea waved her last customer out of the shop and paused in the open doorway to let some of the cold, crisp outside air into the studio. She loved her job, but some of the chemicals she used had really strong smells and sometimes the ventilation system got a little overwhelmed. It was already getting dark and she pulled her cardigan tighter around her, only belatedly noticing a black SUV parked up on the other side of the road in a no-parking zone. It must have been there a while because she hadn’t seen it arriving as she was cashing out her client and she frowned, wondering if she should leave them a note. The parking fines had recently gone up in the city.
As she watched, the front door opened and a stocky, well-muscled Hispanic guy stepped out, wearing dark jeans and a black T-shirt. She didn’t have to see his tattoos to know he was one of MNTs guys. He just had that aura about him. She ruthlessly squashed the tiny tendril of disappointment that he hadn’t come himself before it could take root anywhere in her thoughts. Mr. Neck Tats was an asshole. She was glad he wasn’t here.
The guy grabbed a black bag from the back seat and headed across the street towards her and she moved back inside, hoping none of the neighbors saw him entering the salon. It didn’t look like there was anyone standing at their windows, but it was easy to miss.
“Boss said to drop this off,” he said, his voice neutral, and she had to wonder what he thought of this whole bizarre situation. He probably didn’t have to run errands to her side of the city all that often. She doubted Mr. Neck Tats had managed to trap many norms into working for him.
“Thanks.” She took the bag from him and went to drop it in the safe, pausing at the door when he didn’t immediately leave. “Is something wrong? Am I supposed to give you a receipt?”
“Nah.” He appeared to be studying the studio, his eyes critical. “You leaving any time soon?”
“No.” She hadn’t planned to. She hadn’t put any videos up on her social media in days and it was a big source of income for her. One she could use to hide money with. “I’ll be here another couple of hours.”
“I’ll stick around,” he said flatly. “This place is too exposed.”
“That’s really not necessary,” she promised, feeling flustered. “This is a good neighborhood and the money is safe. I have a good vault to keep it in. And you’re parked in a no-parking zone.”
He raised an eyebrow at that, but simply shrugged. “Boss would be pissed if I let you get hurt,” he said. “So I’ll stay in the car until you’re ready to go home.”
Stupid men and their stupid muscles and stupid tattoos. She’d been living and working here for close to six years and suddenly she was incapable of taking care of herself? “Look, I’ve never had a problem in this neighborhood and I doubt I ever will. It’s not like your side of the city. We don’t get drive-by shootings or random gang violence here. I’m as safe as I have been every day for the last six years. You don’t need to waste your time watching over me. I’ll just lock the door like I always do.”
“You work for the Boss now. The Boss has enemies. His enemies are now your enemies.” He looked at her as though she were stupid. “Don’t matter how careful we are, someone might notice. And if they do, you’re a soft target.”
A soft target? That stung, even if it were true.
“Surely you hanging around here paints more of a target on my back than the small chance someone has noticed my existence?” She tried to reason with him, but he wasn’t budging. “Fine. You want a drink or something?” He took a cup of tea and went back to the car, sitting in it where she couldn’t see him through the blacked out windows, but she knew he was there and it was messing with her concentration. She ruined two nails before she finally got her phone out and sent a text to His Lordship.
I don’t need a bodyguard. Please make him go home.
Seconds later her phone rang and her stomach lurched as she answered it.
“He botherin’ you?” How did he manage to sound so damn sexy, even on the phone? It wasn’t fair.
“He’s in a no-parking zone,” she said primly. “And he’s not bothering me. I just don’t like feeling like I’m being watched.”
“Too bad,” he replied, sounding amused.
“Look, for the peanuts I’m washing for you, you don’t need to give me some bullshit about ‘soft targets’ and ‘protecting investments’,” she said flatly. “We all know you wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep if someone decided to shoot me in the next ten minutes because you’d just sucker in some other poor patsy.”
“Do we?” She opened her mouth to respond and then closed it again. What the hell was that supposed to mean? “Get used to it,” he said and hung up.
Seconds later her phone chimed with a text from him.
I like it when you say please.
Ugh, he was such an asshole. She slammed her phone down harder than she meant to and sent a couple of bottles of nail polish rolling across her workspace.
“Damn it!” She managed to catch them before they went tumbling to the floor and set them back on their stand with quick, angry movements. Why did she let him rile her up so badly? He was a complete stranger and he was ruining her life. His smart comments should just roll off her like water off wax, not send her questioning every word for hidden meanings like some teenage school-girl with a crush.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. She had work to do and none of this was helping. It took several minutes for her hands to stop shaking, but she made herself a cup of herbal tea and settled back in to work. No one was getting in the way of her creativity, no matter how handsome or infuriating he was.
Chapter 6
Three days later, things were starting to feel normal again, or at least as normal as they could under the circumstances. The black SUV hadn’t reappeared, although only an idiot would have failed to notice the new security cameras that had sprouted up around the studio and the panic button that someone had literally broken in to install overnight. Assholes. The idea that he was always watching and could look at her any time he liked was just infuriating, but any time Bea adjusted the cameras, someone logged into the system and remotely pointed them back to where they were before. She considered just unplugging the whole system or cutting the wires, but it would have been difficult to explain to clients why a bunch of guys that were clearly gang-members were crawling all over her salon repairing the security system.
So she learned to ignore it. And if he wanted to watch her painting nails, he was soon going to get bored. She was an artist, it was true, but there was no way he was going to pick up any of the details from the cameras. They were too far away.
She’d reluctantly given Emma some of the money to launder through Blossom & Bloom, knowing that her room-mate could use the twenty percent cut to make her life a little easier. She didn’t make great margins on the flowers she sold and her little delivery bicycle needed repairs, but it was up to Bea to keep her away from Mr. Neck Tats and his goons. They were Bea’s problem and Em didn’t deserve to get dragged into it.
They’d had a good evening, having cracked open a bottle of wine with dinner since they were celebrating their friendversary. The date they’d found each other at the night class for running small businesses wasn’t the one they celebrated. It was the day they’d realized that the other was just like them – a supe masquerading as a norm – and suddenly had the feeling that they were no longer alone in a world that hated the one thing about themselves that they couldn’t change. After a few initial hiccups of distrust, leftovers formed of fear and post-traumatic stress behaviors, they’d become fast friends. Becoming room-mates had been the next obvious option in a city where the rents were sky high. Their relationship had healed both of them in too many ways to count and so, every year, they celebrated it.
The wine had been preceded by cocktails and followed by an after-dinner whisky that Em had been hoarding away, so when a gloved hand covered Bea’s face in the middle of the night, waking her from a dead sleep, drunken Bea went absolutely wild, flailing against her attacker and getting hopelessly tangled in her bedsheets. There was a muffled ‘oof’ as one of her swinging punches caught the guy in what had to be the nuts, because he dropped like a sack of potatoes and the hand fell away from her mouth.
She drew her breath to scream and then realized there was another person in the room and his shoulders were shaking… with laughter. A split second later the scent of his cologne registered on her senses and she knew exactly who it was.
“What the fuck?” she demanded belligerently, glancing at her clock. “It’s three in the fucking morning.”
“Are you… are you drunk?”
“Don’t you come into my bedroom and question me!” she snapped, fumbling for the switch of her bedside lamp and then flinching when it switched on and blinded her. “This isn’t in our agreement! Go away!”
The guy on the floor staggered to his feet with a rueful look in her direction and she realized it was the one that had delivered the money a few days before and then refused to leave. It was on the tip of her tongue to apologize, but fuck him. Fuck them both.
“Get dressed.” Mr. Neck Tats said it flatly as she glared at him. “We’re leaving in two minutes.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you in the middle of the night, you asshole!” She needed to be drunk around him more often, she thought. It seemed to dull his attractiveness somewhat. Although it might just be because he’d woken her up and that never ended well for anyone. She liked her sleep. “I told you to go away! And you can fuck right off too!” she yelled at the spirit that had appeared and was hovering next to Mr. Neck Tats, examining him closely. “It’s your fault I’m in this whole fucked up situation in the first place!”
“Bea?” Em appeared in her bedroom doorway, blearily rubbing her eyes. “What’s happening? I heard yelling.”
“These two assholes have broken in and they’re trying to kidnap me!” Bea declared and Emma blinked more awake.
“I’ll go call the cops.” She turned and started to shuffle away, but MNTs goon grabbed her before she made it into the hallway and bundled her back into Bea’s room, kicking and squirming.
“This can go one of two ways,” MNT told them. “You can get dressed and get in the car like I told you to and I might even buy you a coffee on the way. Or my friend here will tie up your friend and then he’ll carry you out to the car in your pajamas. Either way, you goin’ out tonight.”
“Ugh. You suck,” Bea said with as much venom as she could muster, shoving her tangled bed sheets away and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. The world wobbled dangerously as she rose upright and she staggered before catching herself. Of all the nights he could have chosen, it had to be tonight. Asshole.
The goon bundled Em out and across the hallway into her own room and Bea could hear them talking as she dragged a pair of jeans and a sweater from her drawers, but MNT was just standing there looking at her.
“Get out!” she screeched and he smirked, folding his arms as he leaned against the wall.
“Nah, I’m good.”
Fine. If he was going to be a jackass, he could spend the rest of the night regretting it with a hard on that she was going to have absolutely no part in fixing. At least that was the idea. After several minutes of her attempting and failing to get a bra hooked up, he took over, strong hands turning her around, pushing hers out of the way and deftly hooking up the little eyelets in seconds. Reaching over her shoulders, he slid his hands into the cups and adjusted her breasts in them, the way she did every morning, which sent a spear of ice slicing down her spine. Exactly how much was he watching her? Slightly subdued, she didn’t argue as he sat her on the edge of the bed and slid her feet into her jeans, dressing her like a toddler. To be fair, she was wrecked enough that she probably had the motor skills of a toddler, but this was still surreal and horrible and weirdly arousing. He was treating her with care and for some reason it warmed her as much as it pissed her off that he’d even seen her in this state.
He stood her up and pulled up her jeans, buttoning them with a small smile on his face as she stared up at him, unblinking. He looked like he was having fun. What a weirdo. He manhandled her into a sweater and then sat her down again on the edge of the bed, turning back to the drawers.
God, if he saw her vibrator, she was going to die. It was tucked in with her socks and she realized, with horror, that socks were exactly what he was looking for.
“I can get them!” she blurted out, trying and failing to stand, but she was too late. He’d opened the drawer and had gone still, looking down into it with the most peculiar expression on his face. She decided to brazen it out. “You never seen socks before?” she demanded, praying her face didn’t look as hot as it felt. “I thought you were in a rush?”
“I’ve seen socks.” He nudged the drawer closed and turned back to her, the same strange expression tightening his features. Without another word, he knelt down and put her socks on, focusing on the task at hand while she went up in flames of mortification. This night couldn’t get any worse.
His two minutes had long since come and gone by the time she managed to get her feet into shoes and stumble drunkenly down to the obscenely large car parked outside their apartment.
“You overcompensating?” she demanded loudly, gesturing at the ridiculous vehicle, and this time it was the goon that had to hide his laughter, his shoulders silently shaking as the question reverberated around the street.
“Get in the car,” MNT said, “and maybe you’ll find out.”
“That’s what this is?” She stopped dead on the sidewalk and stared at him. “You dragged me out of bed at three in the morning and made me get dressed so you could show me your dick in your ugly-ass car? Why would you do that? What is wrong with you? You could have just showed me in my room and I’d be asleep again by now. Not that I want to see your dick. You’re an asshole. You could have just not come at all.”
