Player - A Deadliest Lies Novel - Michele Mannon Page 0,70
. until I didn’t.
“Can I talk to you in private?” he asks.
I frown at the wobble in his tone. My fights are over and done with. Yet something’s frightened the wee fella. For a heartbeat, I consider saying no. I’ve got bigger plans for my evening, namely giving her a ride to la-la land and giving her what for like it’s our last time together. But, it appears, the Jamie is making me charitable. “Lead the way,” I say.
We cross the bar to a hallway leading to a back exit. The polite fella steps aside, allowing me to exit first. It’s not until the door slams behind me that I curse beneath my breath, a few seconds shy of admitting my mistake.
Silence greets me out here in the darkness. I count off in me head, waiting for the mob ambush or Mrs. Ogdenhayer to step out of the shadows.
It’s when nothing happens that I realize how fecked I truly am.
“You disobeyed an order, Finn.”
Hayden.
“G’way. Where’d you come from?” I spoke with the boss just yesterday while Clarissa was in the shower. Either I need me ears waxed or he didn’t mention being in Cork.
“Don’t play me for a fool. She’s still here.”
She. Clarissa.
“I was given permission to conduct this job as I saw fit.”
He clucks his tongue, the sound immediately grating on my nerves. “With a reporter? A woman who graduated at the top of her class? Someone with balls enough to live in wartime Syria, who was advised to leave due to heightened threats of bombings yet chose to do her motherfucking job anyway?”
Jaysus. He’s checked her background. I freeze, me mind racing. Put so, Clarissa sounds like a dangerous liability. Someone who’d expose our secrets. A threat.
“You spoke to her.” I keep my tone neutral as I gage his response. Because of course he did. Probably warned her away. And, of course, she kept it from me and is still here. Christ on a bike. What now?
“I underestimated her.”
You wouldn’t be the first.
“She tell you we talked?”
That would be a bleedin’ no.
I tap my head. “Been taking a few beatings, in case you hadn’t noticed. Joggles the ol’ memory.”
“And now you’re lying to protect her.”
“Maybe she missed the warning part?”
That stubborn, driven beour.
He stares at me, hard, his eyes piercing through the darkness until the silence between us is deafening. I bleedin’ hate when he does this. Silence, for a man with the gift for gab, makes me uncomfortable.
“You fell in love with her.”
I pull back like he punched me in the face. “What nonsense are you spilling?”
“My best operative falls head over heels for a woman who makes it her mission in life to expose men like us.”
I think about those videos. All the documentation she’s collected and the research done to compose her story. What he’s saying isn’t surprising. Except for his assumption that I love her.
“A ride, that’s all she is.”
He shakes his head, like he knows something I don’t. I’ve got to say, he understands exactly how to stir up the devil inside me. I’m two seconds shy of wiping that smug smile off his face, too. Total bollocks, that’s what this is.
“I need to hire a bodyguard.”
I start at the abrupt change in conversation. “Boss?”
“Someone who can keep his mouth shut and hands to himself. An African American, preferably. Out of our men, who best suits my needs?”
“You’re asking my opinion?”
“I’m not asking what your favorite color is, am I?”
I scratch my chin, thinking. “Samuel. The fella said three words to me the entire time we trained at Hell Camp.”
“What were they?”
“Fuck off, Finn.”
He doesn’t laugh. “And the other . . . requirement?”
“Can he keep his hands to himself? Do you mean does he get off on a good fight?”
“No.”
There’s a long pause. He doesn’t want to tell me. I’ve got to say, I’m intrigued. Wait a feckin’ second. This is about a woman, isn’t it? About Samuel keeping his mitts off Hayden’s wan. Unfeckinbelievable. Whoever she is, she deserves a medal. And the Bastard accuses me of falling in love? When he’s sending one of us to watch over his woman?
“Answer me.”
“Samuel won’t touch her. Though he might refuse this assignment after he discovers who he’ll be watching over.”
Hayden snorts. “He’s already en route to Malawi.”
I stare at him, incredulous. “What in shite’s name?”
“Just reassuring myself I’m sending the best man.”
I allow that to sit for a spell. “Second best.”
Hard to say in the dark but I think he rolled his eyes.