Page 76 of Smoke and Shadows
A harried Sheila shoved a bar apron at her and muttered, “If you can start tonight, the job is yours.”
Marissa kept her alias as Olivia West, and managed to impress Sheila that night. This was actually her third time working undercover in restaurant service; although, this was the first time she had to dress up as a skanky waitress. She had also once gone the stripper route in Eastern Europe. Thankfully, Tyrell and Fletcher didn’t own a strip joint. Otherwise, she suspected, Viktor would never let her take the job.
“Here you go, peaches.” Jerry handed her the beer. She collected her order, and made her way to her section of the restaurant and set the beer in front of her two customers. One was a man dressed in a sheepskin jacket, weighing about three-hundred pounds, with a red puffy face, which probably meant his liver was overworked. The other man was reed thin under his wool jacket, a beard covering a sallow face, and with rotting, yellowing teeth, he gave her a toothy smile—he was probably a smoker and a drunk, too.
“Anything else I can get for you? Your burgers should be out in five minutes.” Marissa maintained her distance. She’d had her share of ‘handsy’ customers, and, hated to think that Viktor was right.
“What’s the rush, sugar?” sheepskin jacket guy said. “Big John here can take care of you.” He patted a pudgy thigh that was definitely pushing the constraints of his denims.
“Busy night, sweetie,” she replied. “Holler if you guys need anything.” And she quickly retreated to the front of the house. She parried several advances all through the night, butthankfully, the rest of her customers weren’t as disgusting as those first two.
At about 11:30 p.m., when the bar was hopping and the kitchen was winding down, two men—one wearing a fleeced-denim jacket and the other wearing a leather coat—walked into Fletcher’s Bar. Marissa managed to hide her surprise when she recognized Morris Tyrell and Garett Fletcher. Fletcher was of medium height, a bit taller than Marissa, but very stocky. Judging from his barrel-like torso, the man had let go of his trim-muscled self as an Army Ranger and had let a few too many beers give him a slight paunch to his belly. Tyrell wasn’t a big guy and was about Marissa’s height of five-five, and appeared unhealthily lanky. He had the look of a substance abuser.
Grabbing her tequila shot orders, she walked back to her table when Fletcher stepped in front of her. Marissa didn’t like his leer as he studied her from head to toe.
“You the new girl?” his gruff voice asked.
“Yes, I am,” she replied. “Olivia.”
“Sheila did good,” Fletcher declared. “Me and Tyrell here would like some dinner. Get us a pitcher of Bud.” He pointed to an empty table. “We’re sitting over there.”
Marissa watchedthe two men stagger out of the bar. It was 1:00 a.m. and she had cashed out half an hour ago and moved her clunker of a car into the wooded area of the parking lot. Both Fletcher and Tyrell had pinched her butt the entire night. She bore the indignity, but was really sorry that Sheila had to witness the asshole behavior from her boyfriend. How could the other woman take it and not give him shit? It was none of Marissa’s business, and she should remain detached, but when Sheila apologized for Fletcher's behavior to her, she couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“Seriously, Sheila, you can do better than this,” Marissa hissed. “Why do you put up with him? You’re the one running the place. He needs you more than you need him. I doubt if he knows anything about managing the bar.”
“I love him,” Sheila whispered. “Always have. He wasn’t always like this. When the Army kicked him out, he changed.”
Marissa closed her eyes. And when the CIA fucked him over. Damn it.
“I’m sorry,” Marissa said. “It’s not my place to judge. Especially since I’ve been here only a couple of days.”
“So glad I hired you,” Sheila said. “The last girl, Candy, she’s a good waitress, but she wants Garett. I know they were sleeping together. At least, she’s up and left him. But you be careful, Olivia. Garett and Tyrell, they’ve got their eyes on you.”
Marissa’s mind had wandered off to informing AGS to interrogate Candy, who they had in their bunker, about anything Garett might have told her, but her mind snapped back with Sheila’s warning. “What do you mean?”
“Garett and Tyrell like their kicks with women. That’s how I know Garett loves me, in a way, because he doesn’t share me. But I know that’s what they had with Candy, and with her gone, they’d be looking for a replacement.”
Oh, God, Marissa thought. This was the second ménage discussion she was having in a span of a week.
She followed them now. The men were using one vehicle, Fletcher was driving. He dropped Tyrell off at a typical ranch-style house. Given the size of Tyrell’s residence, it couldn’t be the likely place for storing chemical weapons.
She knew Fletcher lived up this road, and if ever he was working with Reed, his expansive ranch-style house on about ten acres of land would be the more conceivable location for the nerve gas canisters. There was also another structure about seventy feet from the main house.
Watching Fletcher's car turn into the long driveway,Marissa drove past the house, and made a U-turn a mile up, and headed back to her motel. When she got to the motel parking lot, she took out her cell phone and made a call to Tim.
“It’s about time you called,” the analyst said.
“In case you didn’t know, I have a day job.”
Tim chuckled. “So, what do you have for me, girl?”
“The packages are in,” Marissa said. “I want you to keep an eye out for any comings and goings on their properties.”
“Roger that.”
Marissa ended the call. Because of the less than secure connection, she kept communication brief. She had only talked to Viktor once since the time she arrived in Chesapeake, WV. Her man had not made another comment about her appearance when she showed him her final look. But his eyes said it all. And so did his actions. Spurred by a mixture of lust and anger, he took her savagely the night before she left for her assignment. Marissa blushed as she remembered how Viktor fucked her on the hood of the car after they had pulled into the garage. He bent her over the Charger, shoved her jeans down, nudged her underwear aside, and drove into her.
“You like that,” he growled into her ear as he moved inside her. “You like to be treated like a cheap fuck?” He came violently, pushed away from her instantly and helped her back into her jeans. Then he dragged her up to his loft, shoved her into the bathroom, and ordered her to take off all that makeup. If Marissa wasn’t mistaken, she had just caught a glimpse of his Dom mode. She had allowed him to dictate to her, although, part of her wanted to rebel because she knew his mood was driven partially by what she had to do for her job. After she had showered, he didn’t wait for her to dry her hair. He picked her up and tossed her on the bed. He fell on top of her, ordered her to hold onto the slats of the headboard, yanked her legs apart, and fucked her hard all over again.