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Little ways of getting her back when she had done little but fuck me over and blame me for everything my entire life.
“What about your uncle?” Cato asked.
“Little by little over the years, his paranoia got to him. Fucked with his head. Which led to drugs and then, a while later, a fatal overdose.”
“Fuck, Rynn. I’m sorry.”
Luckily, mercifully, I hadn’t been the one to find him. He’d just so happened to have maintenance scheduled the day after he overdosed. They found him, called the police, told my mom, who then told me.
“Your uncle is dead.”
That was all she’d said.
Like the man hadn’t been my only father figure. My onlyparentfor years.
“Turns out he wasn’t just paranoid, though,” I told Cato.
“What do you mean?”
“The day after he died, a small crew of men went into his apartment, tossing the entire place, and coming back with some sort of file folder.”
Who knew whose secrets were in there.
I wish he’d told me about it.
I would have gotten rid of it for him.
Or, maybe, all that was in there was blackmail to keep the bad guys from getting too close. And once he was gone, it no longer mattered anymore.
“So, you… use what he taught you?” Cato asked, circling me back to the point.
“Yes. After blackmailing my father with his own secrets, I saw all the ways secrets could make me money. Over time, I built up a name for myself. Then I opened myconsultingbusiness.”
“Who hires you?”
“Anyone who wants to find out secrets about other people. Spouses who want to see if their partner is fucking around. Businessmen who want dirt on rivals. And, increasingly, less than… reputable organizations who want something to use against other such types of organizations.”
“What percentage of your clients are criminals?” I asked.
“I’d say it is close to fifty-fifty. The night we met, that was not a criminal. I mean, he’s probably a criminal,” I relented. “In the white collar sort of way.”
“And the night this happened?” he asked, reaching out to stroke a finger gently down my bruised cheek.
“Yeah, that was criminals,” I admitted. “On both sides,” I added.
“What was the job?”
“Recording a conversation that was happening that evening,” I told him. “To do that, I needed to break into a loading dock, then a sealed-off room, and finally haul my ass up into the air ducts to climb through to listen through the vents.”
“That explains your arms and legs,” he said, glancing down at the wraps.
“Yeah. The person I talked to about the ducts assured me that they would hold me, that they would be tight, and that it would be hard to get back out, but he’d failed to mention how sharp everything would have been. Not that I could have worn pants to protect me anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because the place I needed to sneak into was attached to a rave-style club that only let pretty girls in party dresses in.”
“A normal club?” he asked, brows pinching.
