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“Looks like you’re never here.”
“I’m not,” I said, shrugging. “Vi has been here more this week than I have.”
“Workin’ on my case?” he asked.
To that, I sighed as I leaned against the wall. I damn sure wasn’t going to sit next to him. Or think about why I didn’t want to do so, either.
“Trying to,” I admitted.
“Problem?”
“Yeah. You run a really tight ship.”
“Not tight enough,” he said, shaking his head.
“Has there been a new development?” I asked.
“Another link got broken,” he said.
“Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“Means a reliable system I’ve had in place suddenly ain’t so reliable anymore. And the only way that’s happening is if my snake is slithering around some more.”
“You’re going to be cryptic about this, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I at least know if this broken link was broken stateside, or somewhere else?”
“Somewhere else,” he told me.
“Could your snake be… somewhere else? Is that why it’s so hard to find him?”
“Nah,” A said, shaking his head. “I don’t do business with men I can’t see when I want to have a little chat.”
“Probably smart,” I conceded. “But with you keeping everyone so close, it means no one else can get close to them. It’s making it almost impossible to find anything out.”
“You need to be closer.”
“That’s… what I just said.”
“Nah, I mean, closer closer.”
“Are you cryptic on purpose?” I asked.
“You need to work for me.”
“I am working for you. What else do you want me to do?”
“Different kind of work for me, mama,” he said, shrugging.
“A, fucking spit it out,” I snapped, getting one of those little smirks out of him. One of those definitely not sexy little smirks.
“I need you working in my house.”
“What? Why?”
“That way, the walls have ears, even when I’m not around to listen.”
“Wouldn’t cameras work just as well?”
“Nah, I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause cameras don’t pick up on vibes, mama. But you do. Need you there to do that.”
“As what? Your bodyguard?”
I didn’t trust that smile on his face.
“My maid.”
“You can’t be serious,” I said, waving around. “I haven’t even taken the vacuum I got a year ago out of the box.”
Come to think of it, why the hell wasn’t my place full of dust bunnies? Unless Vi cleaned when she dropped into town.
“Cook then.”
“Do I look like someone who knows how to cook?”
“You’ll just have to learn to fake it then, ma. I got faith in you,” he said, climbing out of his seat as Vi came in the door.
“I snagged two,” she told him as she tossed a grease-stained white paper bag at him.
“Appreciate it,” he said, giving me a nod as he passed. “See you bright and early tomorrow morning. Make sure you pack a bag.”
“Pack a bag?” I asked, brows furrowing.
“Didn’t I mention?” he asked. “It’s a live-in position.”
And after dropping that bomb in my living room, he was gone.
“What’s a live-in position?” Vi asked, already flipping open the lid on the pizza as she walked into the kitchen.
“He wants me to be his maid,” I told her.
That somehow managed to make Vi actually look away from her food for a moment. “Did you tell him that you don’t know how to clean?”
“I did. He doesn’t care. He wants answers on his case, and I haven’t been able to give him any from afar.”
I mean, honestly, it wasn’t a terrible plan.
“Dude… you’re going to be living in a drug kingpin’s house,” Vi said, making a whole different reality dawn on me. “I mean, I bet he has all the streaming services,” she went on.
“Really? That’s what you’re thinking about?”
“I mean, you will only be working when his men are around, right? So that leaves a lot of time for streaming.”
“Your priorities concern me,” I said, shaking my head at her. “He’s a known drug dealer.”
“Technically, he’s a kingpin. He doesn’t actually do the drug deals. Anymore anyway,” she said.
“Still.”
“I mean, our fathers are gun smugglers, Hope,” she said, rolling her eyes. “No one we are close to is going to be winning any humanitarian prizes. So, why are you being so snobby about this?”
“It’s not snobbish to be concerned about living with a criminal.”
“I’ve shared many a hotel room with criminals,” Vi said. “Granted, they were handcuffed to the bed, but still…”
“I wish I could think of any way out of this. You know what kind of shit I am going to get from Mike and the other guys about this?”
“Well, you tell them to put on a French maid’s costume and start scrubbing some floors then,” she said, and for a moment, I let myself relish in that mental image.
“I might use that line on them when they come at me about this,” I told her.
“You should. I’m brilliant.”
“Can you do me a favor?” I asked.
“Buy some extra batteries for you to put in Mr. Good Vibrations since working that close to all that sexy is going to wreak havoc on your sex drive?” she suggested.
