Page 20 of Deceitful Oath
I wink at her, watching her rosy lips part, a fleeting look of lust painted across her face. Her cheeks are flushed even thoughshe’s been sticking to water. Her golden hair hangs messily over her shoulders, begging to be pulled.
She’s going to be the most beautiful person I’ve ever killed.
That sadistic thought sobers me up and I change course, deciding to get more information from her. “So, you know I write screenplays. Tell me about your work.”
“It’s nothing exciting,” she sighs, taking a sip of her water. “I do some delivery work and bartend at a club. I also used to be a waitress but I got fired the other day.”
“Oh shit, what happened?”
“Ugh,” she says, slamming her glass down on the sticky bar. “It’s the weirdest story. Someone died at the cafe during my shift and my boss fired me for not reporting it.”
I force my face into a look of disbelief.
“I think he had a heart attack,” she continues. “It’s really, really sad. But the circumstances were also super strange. The guys he was with just grabbed him and hustled out of there. I didn’t even have time to call 911.”
“Why didn’t you report it to your boss? Did you kill him?” I ask, my tone light and joking. Deep down, I know she would never admit to doing it.
“Kill him?”
“I’m joking,” I say, forcing myself to laugh.
“Dominic,” she says, her voice laced with passion. “I don’t even kill the spiders in my shower. In fact, I named them all. Tom, Jerry, and Roosevelt. Roosevelt is the odd one out…don’t ask.”
I stare at her, not knowing how to process this information.
“But the point is, I wouldn’t ever hurt a living thing…human or not.”
“Not even if someone paid you?”
She snorts, rolling her eyes. “I’m broke, but I’ll never be broke enough to accept dirty money.”
You work for the mafia, my mind screams. I push the thought down and shake my head. “Quite the noblewoman, you are.”
“Trust me, I have enough bad luck on my side to tempt fate like that. I’m actually kind of…cursed.”
This was interesting.I ignore her tales about murder and dirty money, and hone in on this. “Oh yeah? I need to hear this.”
“So, it’s kind of a long story,” she starts, pausing to assess my attention skills. I nod dutifully, encouraging her.
“When I was twelve years old, my parents and I were driving up to our summer cabin. About halfway there, I fell asleep in the backseat and they didn’t want to stop at a motel for the night, so they just kept going.” She pauses, recalling a painful memory. “Anyway, long story short, there was a drunk driver. He hit us. My parents died instantly, but I survived.”
“Shit, Lux, I’m sorry.”
And I meant it. Losing your parents at that young of an age must be excruciating. I lost my mother at sixteen and it had felt like drowning in the deepest, darkest pits of hell—and I had still had my father to take care of me.But an orphan at twelve years old?
“Yeah…well,” she brushes it off. “It was a long time ago. But that’s how I ended up bouncing around foster homes. And with every new home, my bad luck doubled and tripled. Now, I’m cursed.”
“So, what happens to you?”
“Well, random things go wrong every day,” she says, tapping her finger on her lip like she’s thinking. “For example, my apartment got broken into twice this week alone.”
I actually burst out laughing, realizing I’m the source of her current run of bad luck. She looks shocked for a second but cracks up as well.
“See? It’s not normal, right?” she says, her shoulders shaking with laughter. “At least they didn’t steal anything. They actually stocked my fridge for me, so I guess it’s a win?”
I knew that was a good idea.Enzo looked at me like I’d grown a second head when I sent him grocery shopping, but I didn’t care.
“Last call, folks.” The grizzly bartender appears in front of us. “You want anything?”