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“Still wet?”I whispered in her ear as I passed the basmati rice, fingers brushing hers against the cardboard packaging.
“What?” Wren dropped the box at my words. Luckily I had expected the motion, my palm catching the box easily before it hit the counter.
I affected an innocent look I knew neither of us bought. “I thought you were going to change, but you’re still in your wet bathing suit.”
“Oh, right. I forgot a change of clothes.” Wren mustered a wan smile as she avoided my eyes, and I couldn’t help the grin that crossed my face at the first battle won. I thought Wren would have thrown down a little harder after her show of bravado outside my car and her attempts to fuck with me at the pool. It was a fun game while it lasted, even if she bailed prematurely. But a win was still a win, even if the ease with which I won it didn’t settle quite right.
* * *
I expectedthat interaction to gain me some peace from the small pink menace that was constantly in my space, but the reprieve didn’t last long. Two days later, I rode home in the passenger’s seat of Dev’s truck, typing up some notes to update Alex on the job Dev and I had just completed. Alex had overseen the start of our security install, serving as the face of our business as always, but had left early for another job.
So it was just Dev and me driving the couple hours back home. We picked up lunch, the greasy fries and burgers distracting me as my stomach growled, likely because it was closer to dinnertime than it was lunch, our work having taken most of the day.
Only instead of watching the interstate turn into the familiar tree-lined back roads, the buildings grew closer together until we were parking in front of a quaint storefront.In Bloom. The hand painted logo was frosted on the glass of the front door, a small, familiar bird dotting thei.
“What are we doing here?” My question came out too harsh, and Dev raised an eyebrow at my tone.
“What crawled up your ass? Gotta visit Wren and drop off her lunch. Why did you think I bought three burgers?”
“I thought you were really hungry.” I threw up my hands, frustrated that I didn’t question the second beef burger he ordered despite knowing Dev didn’t eat beef.
It was a rookie mistake, one Alex would probably have gotten on my ass for if he were here. I had been hired for my coding skills, but both Dev and Alex wanted me to be as well-rounded as possible if I were going to be a member of the team. Even if their ideas of well-roundedness were different.
To Alex, well-rounded meant information. Observing, having me identify small details that could help with security systems. Knowing the guardsman at the north door was a smoker meant that his frequent smoke breaks could be a security risk. Knowing a woman’s favorite coffee shop meant you could run into her there with little effort on your part. And less suspicion on her part, as Ames experienced firsthand.
But for Dev, well-rounded meant identifying weaknesses. Knowing people’s mental weaknesses meant exploiting them in a business situation. Their physical weaknesses meant exploiting them, period. Either through the target practice he challenged me to or the regular training in martial arts, which we both enjoyed, often sparring together in the basement at Alex’s house.
And if there was one thing I learned from exploiting other people’s weaknesses, it was that I had to protect my own. So rather than continue with my complaints, I followed Dev up to the front door, acting like it was just a coincidence that this was the first time I had ever been this close to her storefront. Just before he opened the door, a shrill ring had Dev’s attention pulled toward his phone.
“I gotta take this.” He thrust the food in my hands. “Go give this to Wren, I’ll be right in.” I groaned but took the food, unable to come up with a reasonable excuse as to why I couldn’t go in ahead of him.
“What are you doing here?”
The harshness of Wren’s tone surprised me, and I raised my eyebrows at her narrowed eyes. “Has the little bird learned to bite?”
“Oh, so just here to taunt me, then.”
I rolled my eyes at her dramatics as I glanced around the empty shop. The whole store was painted white, from the walls to the countertops, the only color in the room the far wall, which held shelves full of vases in various colors and shapes.
Wren stood by a long counter that spanned from wall to wall, covered in an assortment of flowers and greenery. A smoky black vase sat in the middle, a few stems sticking out of it in the beginnings of an arrangement. Looking at the burgundies and pale pinks, I figured it was yet another bouquet ordered by my future brother-in-law.
Done observing my surroundings - Alex would be proud - I finally answered Wren’s original question as I settled across from her, resting my empty palm on the cool countertop. “Dev and I had a meeting. I come bearing food.”
I held up the greasy bag in one hand, and Wren squealed in excitement as she jumped over the counter in an ungraceful movement, knocking a few cut stems onto the ground beneath her feet.
“Yay! I skipped lunch and I was so hungry and I still have a few more arrangements to finish today.” She grinned up at me from where she stood half a foot below me, face bright and open. Innocent. I could have my hand wrapped around her throat in a moment, without any effort, and I stretched my fingers as they itched at the thought.
I didn’t like her smile, the fact that she felt comfortable enough to stand so close to me. It was as if our fight the other day didn’t mean anything.
I needed space from her, from her floral scent and bright clothes. Today, it was an emerald green top that tied around her neck and matched the stems of the flowers throughout the store. I frowned as I eased onto the counter, taking a deep breath as I tried to do what Alex taught me and exploit whatever weaknesses I could find.
“You know, we were working with an outfit today, a couple hours away, setting up additional security around their family compound and making sure their system couldn’t be hacked too easily. I got to talking to one of the guards there. Not a super important guy, but he was a talker. Told me the reason they needed updated security was because a few of their footmen were murdered last week. Gunshots to each kneecap, then one to the forehead to finish them off. Better that than a Colombian necktie, though. You know what that is?”
I wasn’t exaggerating. Much. We had been working with a small subset of the Cartel up north, far enough away that they weren’t encroaching on Cillian’s territory, which was the largest criminal organization in the area by far. But not far enough away that they hadn’t heard of us, reaching out when they needed a security update by a discreet team with our type of experience.
Only there was only one footman who was killed last week, and he wasn’t shot execution-style. He’d been stabbed after getting caught trying to run drugs in another gang’s territory. No one was upset or surprised to find him dead after that. The updated security was totally unrelated. But Wren didn’t need to know that.
“I’m not scared,” she raised her chin, but her fingers trembled as she picked up a rose that had fallen on the floor with her maneuver over the counter.
