Page 38 of Take Her
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice an octave higher than it had been.
“I have a feeling you know who I am.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah—you’re the Italian guy,” he said, then swallowed.
“Hmm. Finish that sentence,” I prompted.
“Th—that I’ve been following, for the girl.”
Beneath the facemask I was wearing, one of my eyebrows arched up, but I made sure to let nothing on. I wanted to hear his story, unadulterated. “Keep going. Tell me everything.”
“She hired me. A few weeks ago. Said that I was supposed to keep tabs on you. So I did, and it was easy—you never go anywhere—just your apartment and your job. And that other night, when you went to that brownstone that’s got a sex club downstairs. I used to do divorce work a ton—a wife went through her husband’s credit card receipts is how I knew about it.”
I indicated with the tip of my gun that it would be in his best interest to be more forthcoming.
“And—she paid me up front.” I watched him blanch at that, becoming whiter than his dingy sheets. “I’ve already spent it. I can’t get it back?—”
“I don’t want the money,” I said, before he could lose focus. “Tell me more.”
“There’s not much more to tell.” He pulled a hand out from beneath his sheets under my watchful gaze and ran it through his hair. “It’s the easiest job I’ve ever had—and it’s paid the most one has in years.” He considered this, and then he looked at me. “Are you real? I’m on Ambien, man. This is fucking trippy.”
Which meant he was likely not lying—and it explained how hard it was to get him up, even when his life was on the line. “Mmmm. Why?”
“I—like money?”
I growled. “Why me, you fool.”
“I don’t know!” he protested.
“And you’ve never interacted with any other members of her family?”
“I don’t even know who she is! She paid me in cash and told me not to ask questions!”
I rocked back at that, my teeth gritting. Why would Lia be siccing this inept man after me? Then again, if she hired quality help, they’d have been smart enough to know who she was—or how dangerous I could be.
“I just stay far away, take a couple pictures—there was even that whole week where I lost you,” he said and then began bawling. “I’m not even good at my job, please don’t kill me!”
“Where’s your fucking phone?”
He snorted snot back unattractively. “Over there. Can I—” he asked, and I waved him on with the gun, before putting it away as he grabbed it from his nightstand.
“Open it.”
He did so and handed it over to me.
I programed in one of my burner lines and gave myself my own title in his contact list: Monster.
“From here on out,” I told him, “you work for me. You keep interacting with her, like normal, but everything you tell her, you also run through me. And then you add whatever else I tell you to onboard.”
He nodded frantically. “Okay, okay,” he said, as I rocked back and made to stand. Then he gave me a bleary look, finally focusing his concentration, and the Ambien making him potentially unwise. “Since I’m working for you—are you also going to pay me?”
I laughed like Satan himself. Up until that moment, I’d been thinking I’d let him go, because he wasn’t worth my time, but then?—
“Let me give you something to remember when you wake up,” I said, and punched him.
His nose crushed beneath my knuckles and blood instantly spurt out. He yelped like a shot dog, and both his hands flew to his face, reeling, blubbering, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
I grabbed the front of the T-shirt he was wearing and yanked him upright before letting him go. “Sit up in bed so you don’t drown in your own blood,” I said, wiping my hand off on his sheets, before leaving his apartment behind.