The Client

by Gadziala, Jessica

  I moved through the rest of the shower in a blur, drying and dressing in oversized sweats, making my way back into the bedroom on numb legs, finding the bedding fresh, the room aired out, drinks and snacks on the nightstand in case I needed them.

  I didn't want food.

  I wanted sleep.

  I wanted oblivion.

  I wanted the thoughts of him to stop.

  Except I found my dreams plagued with memories and impossible possibilities, things that we could never have, never do, never be.

  Days tripped into one another, a blur of a zombie-like fog that only got broken up on Raven's chosen bedding wash day.

  Then back into that bed—and that misery—I fell.

  There were no signs of it letting up, no light at the end of the tunnel.

  I was just about ready to accept this patheticness as my reality.

  When, suddenly, there was a knock at my door.

  And I realized Raven hadn't given up on me.

  She'd called in reinforcements.

  My brothers were at the door.

  THIRTEEN

  Fenway

  "Nia!" I greeted, leaning in her office doorway, watching as she lifted her unamused brown eyes, inspecting me for a moment before leaning back in her seat, flicking her black braids over her shoulder.

  "What do you want, Fenway? I'm not on your case."

  "No, you're not," I agreed, nodding. "But I believe you should be, you Mistress of the Keys, you."

  "Mistress of the Keys," she repeated, a rare smile pulling at her lips. "I like that. Alright, fine. I'll bite. What do you want from me?"

  "I know your boss is running his usual investigation angles. And he hasn't steered me wrong in the past, but I think I need you to look around."

  "Why is that?"

  "Because I think you would be able to find someone who goes by the name of Wasp somewhere online. She made a comment once about arms dealing in her family. That's an angle I think you could work too."

  "What would make me want to abandon my current work to deal with your little issue?"

  My little issue.

  I'd been involved in international scandals, in corporate takeovers, in every sort of ugly, backstabbing situation you could think of.

  None of them felt quite in the same league as this little issue of mine.

  Maybe because all that other shit, it was background noise, it was something pesky to have dealt with, so that I could go back to my normal life.

  This?

  I was attached to this.

  And I wasn't sure anything would go back to normal again.

  But I could maybe find a new normal if I found answers, if I found her, if I got closure.

  Even as I thought it, I wasn't sure that was true. But I was choosing to let myself believe it. At least in part.

  "What do you want? Triple your usual fee? A summer home in Tuscany? Name the price, Nia," I demanded, moving to sit in one of the chairs on the other side of her desk, leaning back, tired down to my bones.

  "Name my price," she repeated, steepling her fingers, observing me over the tops of them, trying to figure out if I was being honest or not. "What if I wanted your jet? Your yacht?"

  "If that's your price..."

  To that, her brows knitted, her lips pursed. "Okay. What is going on here?" she asked, waving a hand at me. "I'm newer here than a lot of the others, but I've seen enough of you to know that this rumpled suit, no shave, dark eye circle look is not you. When's the last time you got some sleep? Because, frankly, Fenway, you look like shit."

  I had just enough humor left to snort at that. Even if I knew she was being honest. Painfully so. As was her nature. She was one of the few women in a male-dominated field. She had to be tough to get by.

  "The last time I slept was the night she walked out of our room in Australia," I told her truthfully.

  "How long ago was that?"

  "I don't know. Two weeks, give or take." It had taken three days to get into see my team of fixers since, for once, my problem wasn't of the "someone is going to kill me if you don't step in" variety.

  From there, it seemed like they'd just hit dead-end after dead-end.

  "She really got under your skin, huh?" she asked, leaning forward, grabbing a notepad and pen off her desk. "Alright. I'll bite. What do you know?"

  "She goes by Wasp. She has a best friend. I think she called her Raven. And then the two brothers who are in the arms trade somehow. She converted a skoolie."

  "A skoolie."

  "A school bus. Into an RV, of sorts. She told me she is a dog trainer."

  "Alright. What else? The more details, the better.

  The problem was, I didn't have anything really solid to go on. I had little details, general preferences, but no names or events or even a home state to drop a pin in.

  "All details are good details," Nia told me, shrugging. "People share everything on social media. You never know what might be an important part of the search."

  "She likes classic movies. She has a strong aversion to gross feet and bad grammar. She's traveled a lot. But it sounds like just across the continental US. She mentioned a lot of different tourist traps and restaurants."

  "Alright," Nia said, nodding. "This is a good start. Oh, Jesus. Stomp your feet or something," she snapped, making me turn to see who she was looking at only to find a tall, massive man with tanned skin and a short crop of hair standing in her office, looking for something on a shelf. "No worries, man. You're not interrupting or anything," she added to the man who ignored her completely. "Yep, I wanted your hands all over all my shit. We don't do boundaries at this office or anything," she went on as the man continued to ignore her.

  "It's nice to—" I started, trying to introduce myself to someone who was clearly a new member of the team. He would likely be on one of my cases more than once. It was always good to get on their good side early.

  "Don't bother," Nia told me, rolling her eyes at the man's back. "He has no people skills to speak of. Or manners. Or respect for someone else's property," she added as the man tucked something under his arm and made his way out of the room.

  "Who was that?" I asked, jolting when he slammed the door.

  "Holden," Nia said, shaking her head."He's new."

  "What is his job title?" I asked, knowing that each of them had a particular specialty, and that their names reflected that. The owner, Quin, was The Fixer. The man who helped people in sticky situations was The Ghost. There was a Messenger, a Negotiator, a Cleaner, a Babysitter. More recently, a friend of mine became a member of the team under the title of The Executioner. Nia, appropriately with her impressive computer skills, was The Hacker.

  "The Inquisitor," she said, snorting. "I know. It's ridiculous, right? So pretentious. Like he is going to come riding into your town, round up your wild women who were accused of witchcraft, and put them on the rack until they admit to it. When all he really does is go into our communal fridge and steal other people's meals. Meals they put a lot of time into preparing."

  "Why, Nia, if I didn't know any better, I would say you have a crush."

  "Oh, ew," she said, cringing. "God, no. He's not my type."

  "I've heard that before. Doth you protest too much?"

  "Doth?" she repeated. "And no. Not at all. The stoic, silent type with bad tempers aren't my type. I like men with some levity."

  "Oh, Nia, dear thing, you can just come out and say it. You're hopelessly in love with me. You've been carrying a torch all this time."

  "Yeah," she agreed, smirking. "That must be it. I'm in love with your pain in the ass self. Cleaning up grown-ass men's problems gets my panties wet," she drawled.

  "I am afraid to inform you, but I find myself in love with someone else."

  Those words sounded clumsy on my tongue, unpracticed, my lips struggling to form the right sounds.

  But there was no denying the truth in them.

  I didn't even know the woman's real name, but I had fallen for her.
<
br />   I had to figure out where she went, why, what would possess her to cut ties completely. When things had seemed to be going so well, when we had all sorts of plans to keep exploring the world together.

  "Wow. You love her," Nia repeated. "I wasn't sure you were capable of loving anyone other than yourself."

  "Neither was I, honey, neither was I. Alas, it seems I am not only capable, but very much afflicted with this love shit."

  "This love shit," she laughed, but her smile fell fast, reading something on my face that she didn't like. "It sucks, right? Love. It's a real mother fucker."

  "That it is," I agreed.

  I hadn't been able to think of much else since I woke up alone. Business calls and emails went unanswered. Or, more likely, redirected to Alvy to delegate for me. I didn't go out. I didn't even think about it.

  I just lay in a hotel room waiting until it was an appropriate hour to drink, then doing so until I passed out. Only to have dreams plagued with images of her.

  I needed this case figured out.

  I needed answers.

  I need to track her down and talk this out.

  Confrontation was not in my nature. It was why I had people in each of my companies to handle the reprimanding and firing and all that other unsavory shit. It wasn't for me. I'd gotten too much of it in my life already. I didn't want to invite more when it wasn't necessary.

  Just this once, though, it seemed necessary. "Figure this out for me, Nia," I demanded, hearing an edge to my voice that had never been there before. Desperation, perhaps? Or something as equally unsavory.

  I knew she liked a challenge. She thrived on them. The impossible cases, the information no one else could track down. Once she had a case, she worked on it day and night, barely catching snippets of sleep until she finally found what she was looking for.

  "Okay," she agreed, nodding. "But I am going to hold off on naming my price."

  "You have an IOU without an expiration date, honey. Anything you want."

  "Wow," she said, shaking her head. "You really are lovesick for her, huh?" she asked as I climbed out of the chair, buttoning my center jacket button.

  "Sounds about right," I agreed, heading out of her office.

  Love, yes.

  That explained the borderline obsessive thoughts of her, memories of her.

  But sick, yes, as well.

  It explained the aching in my chest, the pit in my stomach, the lack of motivation, the siren's call of my bed.

  I had to get some answers.

  Even if they weren't what I wanted to hear.

  It was better to know.

  That was new to me. I'd always been perfectly content accepting a half-truth or a full lie if it made life easier, if it let the party go on, if I got to keep the status quo of light and easy and carefree.

  I never needed to know someone's deep dark secrets, their motivations, their reasons for their decisions.

  But I had to know Wasp's reasons for blowing into my life and out again, pulling some vital part of me along with her, refusing to give it back.

  I had to know.

  Then things could go back to normal.

  I could go back to normal.

  At least that was what I was trying to tell myself.

  It wasn't a long wait, in the grand scheme of things. Nia's obsessive need for answers produced more in two days than the rest of the team had managed in two weeks.

  "Nia," I greeted her as I opened my hotel room door, finding her looking puffy-eyed and paler than usual, exhaustion taking its toll.

  "You are not going to believe this shit," she told me, brushing past, charging into the dining room area, waving at the empty seat.

  "You found something?" I asked, hope a skipping sensation in my chest.

  "Something," she scoffed, dropping a file on the desk. "Try everything."

  "What did you find?" I asked, my chest feeling tight, my stomach sloshing around ominously, and I hadn't even gotten to the drinking part of the evening yet.

  "Your girl, Wasp—you're not going to believe where she's from."

  "Where?"

  "Right fucking here," she said, eyes huge, waving an arm toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  "She's from Navesink Bank?" I asked, not ready to accept that kind of coincidence.

  "Her daddy was a biker. The local Henchmen kind of biker. But a long time ago. He was killed, leaving behind a wife, two sons, and a little girl," she told me, waiting for me to put the pieces together.

  "Her brothers," I started, remembering her comments about them being arms dealers. Like the local outlaw biker club did for a living. "They're Henchmen."

  "They sure are. Meet Reeve and Cyrus," Nia said, flipping open the file, grabbing a picture of two men with light hair and eyes, one with longer hair, the other with a distant, tortured look to him. "And this is Raven. Her best friend. She is married to a man named Roman who also lives here," she told me, producing a picture of a beautiful black-haired woman and a man who looked vaguely familiar, like someone I'd brushed shoulders with in the past, but hadn't made any sort of connection with.

  "How did you figure all of this out?"

  "I got the pictures you gave to the rest of the team. And I ran them into a search."

  "You found her on social media?"

  "No, actually. Your girl is a complete ghost. Not even any old defunct pages from her teen years. Nothing."

  "Then how did you find her?"

  "Raven, whose real name is Rebecca, had a big, fancy-ass wedding. Fancy enough to make the local paper in Navesink Bank. And her maid of honor was right there next to her. Took fucking forever, but that was how I found her."

  "What's her real name?"

  "Yeah, see, that's the thing. I have no idea. And you know how much I hate saying that. But I have looked really hard. I can't find it. She was named in the paper as Wasp. And once I made the connection to Rebecca/Raven, I found her social media. Where she had posted a throwback to when they were teens. Her, Wasp, and the two brothers. But I couldn't get any records from Wasp's birth or anything. And her brothers don't really do much social media either. You know how outlaws are about that shit."

  I didn't. But I could imagine that when your career and life involved something as illegal as arms dealing, the rules about what you posted online were strict.

  "What about the local high school? She must have gone to class with Raven."

  "I know," Nia agreed, dropping down on the chair across from me, what was left of her energy seeming to seep slowly out of her limbs. "The old yearbooks aren't scanned in. I have to wait until Monday to go to the school to look. Normally, I'd wait until I had all of that to give you. But with how wrecked you looked in my office, I figured the sooner the better with whatever information I have. You have the brother lead and the best friend lead. If you want to follow through with those. Or have the rest of the guys on the team handle it."

  I didn't have time to wait for my team of fixers to find some diplomatic way of figuring this out, approaching the brothers or the friend.

  I had to handle this myself.

  Which would be pretty new for me.

  Handling my own damn business.

  "Nia, you are every bit as good as you think you are," I told her, getting a smile. She never pretended to be humble about her skills. I always appreciated that about her. "Better, even," I added. "Thank you for this."

  "We have to pull out all the stops for our most notorious client," she told me, and the price she was paying was clear.

  "Go on. Go get some sleep, Nia," I told her, reaching for my wallet, grabbing some cash. "And have a nice dinner on me."

  "A nice dinner," she said, taking the cash, looking up at me. "This is nice dinner for a month."

  "Then have nice dinners for a month. You earned it. And you have my IOU for when you need it," I told her, leading her to the door.

  "I know you're going to try to go get your girl," she said, stepping into the hall, turning to face me. "Can
I offer you some advice?"

  "I'm sure I could use it," I admitted.

  "Let her talk," she said, shrugging. "You come at her too hard, you're only going to lose her again before you even get any answers. Then you're never going to be able to get some sleep."

  With that, she was gone.

  I went back to the table, flipping through the file, checking out the faces, wondering which would be the straightest route to her.

  The best friend, I decided, looking over the wedding pictures. In my experience, when a woman found a man she looked at like Raven looked at Roman, she wanted that kind of thing for her best friend too.

  There was also the added perk of Raven not likely wanting to kick my ass like her brothers might.

  Decision made, I showered, changed, threw back some coffee, and made my way across town to the development of mini mansions that Nia had provided me the address for.

  "I got it!" A woman's voice called from inside when I'd hit the bell. "It's probably the Chine...oh," she said, pulling the door open.

  She was every bit as pretty as her wedding pictures, but wearing a silk tank top that had some sort of purple smudge on the stomach, her hair wrapped up in a bun on the top of her head in a frazzled mom look everyone recognized.

  Her bright blue gaze slid over me, settling on my face, lips curved up ever-so-slightly.

  "All that money," she started, shaking her head, "And it took you this long to track her down?"

  "I had the best team on the job," I admitted, feeling relief wash over me. I'd picked the right person. She was happy to see me. She wanted me to be able to talk to Wasp. "Is she here?" I asked. It was a rhetorical question. Wanda was parked way in the backyard.

  "She's staying here temporarily," Raven told me, nodding.

  "May I see her?"

  "Well, there's a problem."

  "What kind of problem?"

  "I waited for you to show up. When you didn't, I had to call in reinforcements."

  "You called her brothers," I mused.

  "Yes. And they convinced her to get up, get pretty, go out tonight. Made her an offer she couldn't refuse. An underground casino."