Gregory didn’t make mistakes—in his business, there was no room for them. In the grand scheme of things, the occasional blunder might be excused. But if you made too many of them, you became weak. A liability. Incapable of handling your business. Therefore, it was better all around to just avoid making mistakes at all. Life expectancies were so much better that way.
“Mr. Alexandrov.” Jim’s voice intruded for the second time, and Gregory looked up, furious at the interruption. Now that he finally had Lacey’s folder in front of him—filled with pictures and intimate details and conversations she’d had with her peers—he wanted nothing more than to be left alone with it. Needed nothing more than to read the file cover to cover and do his damnedest to figure out the best way to approach her. The best way to take her from her muscle-bound lover.
The best way to make her his.
Because if he had learned nothing else in this business, he’d learned to take—and, in turn, protect—what was his, at all costs. Men who didn’t know that code or who didn’t live by it were more than stupid. More than ignorant. They were careless, and in his mind, there was no bigger insult.
“Marina is here to see you. Again.”
“Tell her to come back later.” He never took his eyes off the file in front of him. “I don’t have time to talk to her now.”
“She insists, sir. Says—”
He slammed the file on the desk and stared at Jim with incredulous eyes. “She insists? Who is she to insist? I’ll see her when I want to see her, and coming here, badgering me for money twice in three days, is not the way to get my attention!”
Cheeky little bitch. He’d cared about her for a while, had treated her well, and as such she thought it gave her rights to him that no one else had. And while that might have been true—once again, he took care of what was his—she was going to find out that any favor she curried from him had long since come to an end. Especially since she was working hard to make a nuisance of herself.
“She says it’s not about the money. She says she heard something disturbing today—something about a redheaded writer who is new to the city.”
His hand froze in midair, halfway to the folder. “Lacey? She knows something of Lacey?”
“I don’t know,” Jim said calmly. “But I thought it best to ask you before I sent her away.”
“Yes, thank you. I would very much like to hear what Marina has to say about my little writer.”
“I’ll escort her right in.”
“Yes, do that.” Gregory waited until Jim had left the room before he shoved the folder containing information on Lacey into the top drawer of his desk. Marina might now be a junkie and a sometimes whore, but she’d been trained as a computer programmer. Her attention to detail was truly impressive, even when she was half drugged out of her mind.
The door opened again and in walked Jim, closely followed by Marina. He had schooled himself not to show shock at her appearance, but even so, it was hard not to respond negatively. When she’d been with him, she’d been a beautiful woman. Tall, blond, curvaceous, she’d held his attention longer than any woman had before her. He’d broken it off when he got bored, as he always did, but had kept in touch because of a strange affection he had for her. He’d often thought it was because she was so much like him—resilient, resourceful and downright wicked when the situation called for it.
But looking at her now, he was hard-pressed to find the beautiful woman he’d once shared so many intimate moments with. She was thinner than she had been even a week before—which was saying something, as it had been months since he’d seen a curve on that long body—and was also a lot more strung-out. Dressed as she was—in a tank top and short-shorts—he could see the track lines on the inside of her arm. She had a sore—red and oozing—on the left arm that looked like an infected injection site.
“Marina, love.” He kept his voice warm, even though he was completely disgusted by her appearance. But he knew just how twisted Marina was—it was what had attracted him to her in the first place years ago—and the more eager he was for the information she had, the longer it would take to get it out of her.
“Gregory.” Even her voice was different—lower, raspier, as if she was severely dehydrated. Or had been downing vodka like a Russian sailor.
Normally he would have extended a hand to her, but frankly, he was afraid of catching something. So he simply nodded to the chair across the desk from him and said, “Sit, please. Can I have Jim get you something to drink?”
“Vodka on the rocks.” She pulled out a cigarette and lit it, her hands shaking like she was in the middle of a particularly bad bout of the DTs. But the glazed look in her eyes told a different story; she was on the downside of a pretty good high. Years of selling the stuff—and watching his girls use it—had made him somewhat of an expert.
He nodded toward Jim, who filled a glass from the bar in the side of the room and handed it to her before discreetly leaving them alone together.
“So, Marina, what can I do for you? I’m not used to having the pleasure of your company twice in one week.”
She knew him well enough to recognize the threat in the cultured tone, but was either too high to care or thought she had something so good that he would overlook his annoyance. All she said was, “I knew you’d want to hear this right away.”
“Really?” He steepled his hands in front of him and did his best to look uninterested—which he would have been, if she hadn’t mentioned to Jim that she had info on a small redheaded writer. The promise in that statement had him chomping at the bit, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of knowing it.
“There’s a reporter in town,” she said, after taking another shaky drag on her cigarette. “And she’s investigating Crescent City Escort Service. Says she wants to know what happened to some of the girls who worked for them, and who either disappeared or turned up dead.”
Shock stiffened his spine, had him dying to shove his fist into Marina’s face. Surely she knew something of what had made Lacey suspicious. Surely she wasn’t here just to deliver the nerve-racking news. Surely she knew more.
“Really? And where did you hear this?”
“She was meeting with Derek earlier today—down off of Magazine. He told her to leave stuff alone, and she told him she couldn’t stand not knowing what had happened to all the girls who’d ended up escorts against their will.”
Beneath the desk, his hand clenched as he fought desperately to remain calm. Lacey, investigating the disappearance of girls from his escort service for a book? It couldn’t be.
And yet how many true-crime writers were there in New Orleans with red hair and a killer smile? He could think of only one, and he’d lived in this shithole his whole life.
“Derek? Who’s Derek?”
“You know, the black guy who used to drive the girls around. He hasn’t worked since everyone got busted, but he’s a good guy. Probably too good, if he’s telling tales to some reporter chick who plans on putting everything in her book or on the Internet.”
He had some vague recollection of the man, but nothing really concrete. Then again, how could he actually be expected to know all of his employees? There were just too many of them.
Crossing to the corner bar, he poured himself a double shot of Stoli, then drank it in three slow, measured sips. It wouldn’t do to show his consternation or concern.
“And he knows this true-crime writer? This redhead you were talking about?”
Too high to sense the danger in his tone, she shrugged. “I guess. At first I thought she was on the stroll, you know, but then I heard them arguing about some dead girl.”
His fingers tightened reflexively on the glass as he debated pouring another shot. Normally, he would forgo it—once again, it never paid to show weakness—but in this case, he figured it was okay. Marina was so high she probably wouldn’t notice if he guzzled the entire bottle—without benefit of a glass.
“What dead girl were they talking about, Marina?
Can you be a little more specific?”
“I don’t know. Do you know how many fucking dead girls show up in this city? Some girl who got whacked by a junkie a couple years back, I think. Derek knew her and so did the redhead. I think she was related or something.
“Anyway, Derek got a little rough with the slut—”
“What slut?”
She rolled her eyes, then said, in a voice that implied she was talking to a child, “You know, the redhead. Derek shook her hard enough to leave a few bruises, I bet. And then some hot blond guy came rushing up. He broke up the whole thing.”
Yes, the redhead in question was definitely Lacey, and the blond, her erstwhile lover. It was an interesting turn of events, but not one that was particularly worrisome. At least not yet.
“Did they say anything else?”
The look she shot him was sly. “Maybe.”
He let a few, silent seconds pass, then pulled out his money clip. Laid two hundred-dollar bills in front of Marina and watched her mouth all but water. “The redhead said she had to find out what happened to some dead girl, and how the escort service was connected. That she was writing a book about it, but that it was about more than that now.” She snapped her fingers suddenly. “I guess she’d already talked to Veronique, but V didn’t give anything up.”
A skitter of alarm worked its way down his spine, as he remembered Lacey standing outside his club, staring at the flyer on the light pole like she’d seen a ghost. Was that the girl she was talking about? If she’d managed to track down Veronique and the chauffeur, she obviously knew what she was doing.
Which still wouldn’t have worried him; he was covered all the way up the line, with enough dummy corporations between him and the various escort services he owned that it would take a miracle for her to find him.
But the way she had been looking at the photos on his wall—the way she had ripped that flyer off the post outside—had convinced him she was connecting dots he hadn’t thought could be connected. He’d tried to arrange a meeting with Lacey the other night, but Jim had sent an imbecile to collect her. He’d let it go; hadn’t wanted to spook her. But if even half of what Marina said was true, he couldn’t wait any longer to meet his little redhead—and bring her into the fold, so to speak.
“Did anything else happen?” He turned to Marina with a smooth smile. “Anything you might have forgotten to tell me.”
She shrugged. “Not really. Unless you count the fight she got into with the guy who butted in with Derek. They went at it pretty hot and heavy—”
Well, that sounded promising. Maybe Lacey’s tastes were growing more refined. If she had no emotional entanglements, it would make things easier—
“And then he threw her in his truck and took off.” She laughed, the sound like nails scraping down a chalkboard. “It doesn’t take a genius to know what happened when he got her alone.”
At her words, his fingers clenched so tightly on the glass in his hand that he feared he was going to break the crystal. Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, Gregory placed the delicate glass on the bar and walked back to his desk.
Pulling open the bottom drawer of his desk, he yanked out a syringe, a spoon and a bag of the really pure stuff he usually kept for special visitors.
Her eyes lit up at the sight, like he knew they would. “Thank you so much for coming to me with this information,” he said, as he sprinkled some of the heroin onto the spoon. “Can I offer you a reward?”
She watched his hands, mesmerized by the sight of the white powder. Thrilled—he could tell—by the thought of shooting such good stuff into her collapsing veins.
He flicked his solid-gold lighter on, ran the flame under the spoon until the powder was liquid and bubbling. Then he filled the syringe.
“Here, Marina. Let me help you with this.”
She held out her arm, and after a minute or two, he managed to find a vein he could use. He watched her eyes as he injected her, watched the pleasure take her. Then stood and poured himself one more drink.
He had just finished it when her eyes rolled back in her head. Without glancing in her direction—junkies were so unattractive, after all—he walked out of his office, shutting the door behind him. Jim was waiting in the next room, and Gregory nodded to the closed office door.
“Give her a few minutes, and then take out the trash. I don’t care what you do with her, but I want her gone by the time I get back. And I don’t want to see her again.” He turned away, then stopped when he was halfway out the door. “Oh, and I think it’s time for us to move on that other project we had going on. Trouble seems to be brewing.”
“Of course, sir.”
Byron stared after Lacey for long seconds, shock ricocheting through his body, before he recovered enough to stuff himself back into his jeans.
He started after her as soon as he pulled up his zipper, but those few precious seconds cost him, and cost him big. He trailed Lacey into the building, but her small head start afforded her the extra time she needed to get her key in the lock. By the time he caught up with her, she was disappearing into her apartment, her long, red hair flying behind her.
“Lacey!” he pounded on the door with a closed fist. “Open up.”
There was no answer, and the shock he’d felt at watching her run started to give way to anger. What the hell had he done that was so bad, she felt the need to run away from him? And why couldn’t she be bothered to talk to him, instead of hiding in her apartment like a thirteen-year-old in the middle of a tantrum?
He wasn’t used to this. When his girlfriends in Manhattan had a problem with him, they were more than willing to tell him exactly what he’d done to piss them off. And running sure as hell had never occurred to any of those women. They’d rather be boiled in oil.
So what the hell was wrong with Lacey? She was no wallflower who couldn’t speak her mind. Yes, they’d had an argument, but he’d pretty much figured the amazing sex that had come after it had negated many of the harsh things they’d said to each other.
His anger ratcheted up a few notches at the thought, though he didn’t know what pissed him off more: the fact that she’d had sex with him and made him think everything was okay, or the fact that she’d jumped out of a moving vehicle to get away from him without so much as a fuck-you to his face.
The thought had him redoubling his efforts—had him pounding harder on the door even as he felt like an idiot for doing it.
“Goddamn it, Lacey. Let me in. I’m not going away until you talk to me.”
Still nothing, but if he was quiet, he could hear her moving around. “I’m going to knock this door down, Lacey. I’m not kidding. You’re acting like a child. If you’re upset—”
The door flew open before he could finish the sentence. Lacey stood there looking very much like a cross between an avenging angel and a gypsy. She’d changed out of the skimpy outfit she’d been wearing on the street earlier and into a long white skirt and tank top that showed off her light golden tan.
Before he could say anything or demand to know what the hell had gotten into her, she let him have it with both barrels. “I am not a child, and I really don’t appreciate you treating me as if I am one. Especially since you have the intelligence level and sensitivity of a rabid goat.”
Determination alone kept his jaw from dropping open at her blatant attack. Grinding his teeth together, he stared at her incredulously before finally getting it together enough to speak. “Then stop acting like a child. What adult actually runs away instead of having a fucking conversation?”
“How exactly am I supposed to talk to you?” she demanded, stepping back from the door to let him in. “Every time I try to say something to you, you distract me with sex.”
“You didn’t exactly seem to mind while it was happening.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s a typical male answer.” She looked down her pert little nose at him, and it turned him on all over again, despite the fury coursing through him. r />
“Well, here’s a news flash, baby. I’m a fairly typical kind of guy.”
“Not that typical—if you were, I wouldn’t be having this problem.”
Frustrated, he shoved a rough hand through his hair. “And what problem is that?”
“You make me—” Her voice broke, and she swallowed nervously before starting again. “You make me forget that this is only supposed to be casual.”
His cock hardened at her words, even as his heart melted. “I didn’t realize that casual was still the arrangement. I thought we were moving beyond that.”
“Oh, come on, Byron. We’re glorified fuck buddies. We decided that at the beginning.”
“You decided. You never gave me a choice in the matter. I went along with it because I figured having fantastic sex with you was better than having nothing at all. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want more.”
“Yeah, right.” The look she shot him was full of disbelief. “It’s not like we’ve done much else. I mean, how much more do you know about me, besides that I’m flexible as hell and like to fuck? Oh yeah, and that I’m easy to control?”
Once again he was speechless. There was so much to take issue with in her statement that he didn’t know where to start. With her ridiculous accusations that he didn’t know anything about her, or the fact that she thought he wanted to control her?
Or maybe he should just focus on the fact that she wasn’t happy with the knowledge that their relationship was getting more serious?
Not wanting to make things any worse than they already were, he took a few seconds to sort out his feelings. He was angry; he knew that. But underneath the anger was a very real disappointment. Not to mention a healthy dose of hurt and embarrassment. He’d been falling in love with her, and she’d been hell-bent on stopping herself from falling for him.
Maybe he should have figured it out—after all, she’d continued to post those damn fantasies, a surefire sign that he wasn’t satisfying her. Only he’d been too stupid to believe it. He’d been sure that if he gave her a little time, she would realize she didn’t need the blog anymore.