Page 110 of Good Enough
“Waters… get her locked down.
“Steel and Demon will have the first shift of babysitting the happy couple at whatever bolt-hole he chooses, then TB and Nemo will take over. I want a twelve-hour rotation until we clean up this goddamn mess.
Then God clicked off the line.
The men got up and scattered their different ways, which left Kai in the conference room with Waters. He got up, pulled a couple of water bottles out of the refrigerator under the side table, and returned to his seat next to her. He twisted off the cap and set it in front of her next to the empty one from Demon. “Drink.”
On autopilot, she did as she was told. She felt so numb. Almost like she was watching events unfold instead of taking part in them. “I don’t understand why you’re helping me.”
“You’re in some serious shit. You think we’re gonna let you swing when Big Bird tried to kill you?”
“You left me.” She hated how whiny that sounded. Like a spineless teenager.
“Yes. I did. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Maybe. But you didn’t have to leave the way you did.”
“Possibly. But I can’t change it now.”
She sighed. “No, you can’t. I’m sorry things went as they did. I wish…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what I wish.” She paused. “He hates me.”
And there’s the whiplash.
“Who does?”
“God. I’ve made a mess, and now he feels like he has to get me out of it because I’m Ka-Bar’s sister.”
43
MAY 20TH
Waters
Waters put his water bottle down and leaned on his forearms folded in front of him on the table. “What if he does? I’ve never known you to be concerned with whether or not someone hates you. I’ll set aside that part of your psyche for right now because I know you’re scared.”
He raised a hand to her mouth as it opened up to deny it.
“Don’t even try,” he warned.
Kubrick closed her mouth and looked down at the tabletop.
Oh, hell no, woman. Don’t you dare pull inside yourself.
He reached across the table and, with one finger, tipped her chin back up so that she’d look him in the eye. “Now, putting aside the ‘why’ question, where the hell do you get that he hates you?”
“You know, I had to triple the rate I originally offered to get him to agree to actually consult. Now he’s really going to charge me out the ass for getting you all involved in my mess. Especially since he isn’t calling the police.”
“You are correct. From the get-go, he hated taking this job, but he did it because he knew you were in danger. In order to make it look on the up-and-up, he made it as painful as possible for the studio pricks. If it hadn’t been for Ka-Bar calling in Steel’s marker, he wouldn’t have even met with you. But he did, so that got you in the door. We’re not exactly in the straight and narrow kind of business. When he thought this was somehow connected to your brother, there was no chance in hell he wasn’t going to take the job, but he had to make it look good. In all honesty, he doesn’t like anyone. Even us.”
Don’t even think that last part is a lie.
Waters cleared his throat. “We just had two separate things going on at once and got blindsided into believing they were connected. That should never have happened. Unfortunately, there were some extenuating circumstances.”
He watched as Kubrick chose to ignore that uncomfortable conversation.
“Well, his dickishness didn’t stop when he signed on the dotted line,” she argued. “Whatever test you seem to think I passed, I obviously didn’t. So, what other evidence do I have? One, the nickname. Two, the barking at me. Three, he talked about me like I wasn’t even in the room today. Four, he makes unreasonable demands that compromise everything about me, my job, and my situation by telling you to lock me down. And last but not least, he makes me feel like I’m just another Hollywood princess in an ivory tower who needs rescuing by one of his stud castle guards.”
Knowing an actual grin would get him a kick to the solar plexus, and from experience with her during training, those hurt like a sonofabitch, Waters was grinning from ear to ear. On the inside.