by Bethany-Kris
Likely a charmer.
Sell ice to a Snowman.
Cozen kept that information in the back of her mind as a just-in-case. Just in case she forgot, and found herself in trouble. Just in case she needed it.
Checking her watch, Cozen noted the time as she tried to pretend like her ass wasn’t frozen to the fucking bench.
Two minutes to go.
Four days of watching Jett Griffin told Cozen the man kept a firm schedule, and ran a tight ship. Maybe it was because the man was anal about his days, and spent the time wisely. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Like the fact he was so busy between his legal, illegal, and other ventures that he didn’t have time to mess around.
Cozen counted down the seconds while she pretended to read her book. The large, black sunglasses she wore kept her eyes and more hidden from view. She was just another fashionably dressed, brown-haired New Yorker, as far as anyone else was concerned.
Easily looked over.
Sure enough, at twelve-thirty sharp, Jett Griffin stepped out of The Kingdom with his entourage in tow. A tail of four men, one of which opened the door of the restaurant for him so that his hands never had to touch the handle, and another who rushed to the still running town car on the side of the street to open the back door.
The two other men flanked Jett.
As fast as Cozen had gotten her eyes on the target, he and his men were gone. They never wasted any time between leaving a business, and getting the hell out of dodge. The longest she had ever seen Jett take from exit to entrance into a vehicle was, at most, fifteen seconds.
For some reason, he did not like to linger.
Safety, perhaps.
Who knew?
She filed that information away, too.
Cozen waited a few more minutes, and watched people begin to flood the restaurant for the afternoon rush. Done with her pretense of doing nothing, she tossed the paperback aside on the bench as she stood.
Someone else could find it and enjoy.
Thrillers weren’t her thing.
Her whole life was a thrill.
Crossing the street when she had a chance, Cozen took the steps to the restaurant two at a time. She pulled the sunglasses from her face as she stepped inside to get a better look at the joint. While she had been watching it for a while, this was the first time she actually went as far as to come inside and look around.
She bypassed the woman chatting at a podium to people waiting to be seated. High-class, and upscale, the restaurant catered to those with deep pockets. Rich colors filled the business, and gleaming hardwood floors made her boots clack as she made a beeline for the bar. Patrons took comfort between tables with silk coverings and modern lights overhead, or tucked in booths closest to the walls.
She recognized the man standing behind the cherry oak, built-in bar with inverted lights shining down on a wall of top shelf liquor bottles. He was the same man who regularly was the last to leave the business at night, and lock the doors.
Either a manager, or the owner.
It didn’t matter.
He had the say so.
That’s what Cozen figured, anyway.
The closer she came to the bar, the more voices filtered in from the kitchen just to the left.
“He wants what?”
“Listen, Rowena, he’s not asking for a lot. So you have to smile a little more, and be pleasant.”
“I am fucking pleasant!”
“Could you say that without the cussing, too?”
Seemed not all was well in The Kingdom.
The man behind the bar sighed as his gaze drifted toward the kitchen, and then narrowed with irritation. As quickly as his frustration came on, it bled away when the girl working behind the bar handed him over a sheet to peruse.
“Thanks, Marissa.”
“Everything checks out, right?” the redhead asked.
She was pretty with dainty features and blue eyes that made her look doe-eyed. Men had a habit of going for that kind of thing.
“So far. Get back to me on the second order, though.”
“Will do, Chase.”
Chase.
Such a fuck-boy name.
Cozen plastered on a smile as she came up to the bar, and Chase finally looked her way.
“Can I help you?”
His short tone told her that Miss Rowena in the kitchen wasn’t the only person here with a fucking attitude problem.
“Maybe you can help me,” Cozen said. “I was told The Kingdom was looking for new hires. Something behind the bar, or someone to work the floor.”
She hadn’t been told that.
It didn’t matter.
Chase lifted one well-manicured eyebrow. Yeah, fuck-boy was a guy who groomed his eyebrows, apparently. Cozen was the type of woman who appreciated a little ruggedness in a man, but that was just her preference.
He pointed at the girl down the way with far too much concentration in her face as she chewed on the tip of a pen, and looked over the sheet. “Bar position has been filled.”
“Twelve times twelve is one-twenty-four, right?” the girl asked.
Cozen cleared her throat, and clicked her tongue before saying, “One-forty-four, actually.”
“Oh, okay, thanks!”
Chase stared blankly at Cozen. “And I haven’t needed a server in a long time.”
Shame.
“You sure? They were pretty specific—”
“Chase, you’re a fucking asshole, and I don’t give a shit what you want!”
The blonde that came rushing out of the kitchen from the right looked crazy as hell as she slipped around the bar where Cozen was still standing. She had a glinting, silver serving tray in her hand, and in her haste, stumbled over one of the barstools.
The woman went flying.
Cozen stepped out of the way of the falling woman, but managed to catch the serving tray in one hand, and the pen and pad that slipped off it with the other. She straightened up, and handed it over to a very frustrated looking fuck-boy manager behind the bar.
“Here you go,” Cozen said. “I suspect these are a bit too expensive to be dropping all over the place, right?”
Chase scowled. “You know what, keep it. Your first day starts now.”
“You haven’t even asked my name.”
“Although I don’t care as long as you know how to work a table and not be a bitch every day you show up to work, do tell,” he said dryly.
She could pretend not to be a bitch.
“Cozen.”
“Got a last name?”
“Taylor,” she returned. “I’m not exactly dressed for work, am I?”
All the other girls were done up in the same black bodycon dresses and silver heels.
“Just smile a lot,” Chase said, shaking his head as he peered over the bar at Rowena on the floor. “Anything is an improvement over that one at the moment. I suspect the patrons won’t even notice you’re not in uniform as long as you treat them well.”
As the man said those words, Rowena was still trying to get her legs untangled from the barstool.
Sometimes, shit just worked out.
Cozen was lucky like that.
Cozen handed over the drink orders to Marissa who—at least for the three days Cozen had been working at The Kingdom—was still struggling to figure out how to do proper liquor orders. It wasn’t that the girl was stupid, or even a little bit flaky.
She was actually sweet, and nice.
And damn, she could make a good drink.
Marissa just wasn’t good with numbers. Or as she liked to say, she didn’t do math. Cozen figured the girl was skating along by the skin of her teeth because Chase had eyes for the bartender. Cozen saw him looking at Marissa one too many times when he thought nobody saw him do it.
“Need help?” Cozen asked the girl.
Marissa shook her head. “It’s okay. I’ll get used to it.”
“You do know you have a calculator right in your phone, right?�
�
“Not supposed to have it on me while I’m working.”
“Chase wants proper numbers on his orders, too. I think he’d suck it the fuck up.”
Marissa smiled a little bit. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Use your phone, hon. It’ll be easier.”
And less stressful, too.
Cozen didn’t point that fact out, though.
Turning away from the bar, Cozen balanced the silver serving tray on her palm as she headed for the kitchen. For whatever reason, Jett Griffin had not yet came to the restaurant since she started working there.
Maybe some switch in his schedule.
A vacation, possibly.
Cozen didn’t worry because men were creatures of habit. He would come back eventually, and she would get her chance. That was all she needed. Just one single chance to put herself into his path, and find a way to insert her presence into his life.
An opening.
All good thieves found their openings.
In the kitchen, Chase was doing his rounds. The manager—she had come to find he wasn’t the owner of the restaurant—clapped his hands to speed up an already rushing crew. She figured a lot of the stress in the place was caused by his high-intensity nonsense.
Cozen didn’t care.
She did her thing.
“Dinner rush is coming, so hurry it the hell up, guys! Herald, get that prep work finished! Courtney, go fix your hair before you get back on the floor! Cozen—”
“What?” Cozen asked.
She slid the food order over the kitchen rack to one of the men working behind it—a helper to the one chef working the stoves, and making the food. The chef was another one in the place causing all kinds of chaos whenever he could with his ridiculous demands and loud demeanor.
Another man Cozen didn’t care about.
“I need you in the private room today,” Chase said.
“I think you need more people on the floor, actually,” she returned dryly. “It’s busy, and the girls need all the help they can get.”
“Yeah, well, you replaced Jett’s favorite girl, and my only job when that man comes through the front doors is to make him happy. So guess what, sweetheart? It’s your job now.”
Cozen cocked a brow.
Jett, huh?
She knew he would be back.
“You got it, Chase.”
Cozen didn’t wait to hear what the manager had to say, as she was already leaving the busy kitchen, and heading for the private area to prep it. She didn’t need to be told what to do—she already knew.
Jett wanted to be happy.
Cozen found her opening.
“Sir.”
“Sir.”
“Jett,” Sargon greeted.
Jett gave Sargon a cutting smile as he stopped at the back passenger door held open for him. In the gated, circular driveway of the Griffin estate, Jett truly was a king in his kingdom, and typically expected to be addressed with the same respect.
Sargon was not typical, though.
“Sarg,” Jett replied.
Sargon’s upper lip curled back a bit in his disgust. It was an automatic reaction he wasn’t very good at hiding whenever someone tried to use that nickname on him. For his new boss, the nickname had come after a conversation about shortening Sargon’s name to something less … strange and unique.
He quite liked his name.
“Still not a fan, huh?” Jett asked.
“Will never be a fan, Jett.”
Jett’s gaze drifted over the waiting men standing at the ready in the driveway. One would drive Jett while Sargon stayed close to the boss in the backseat, and another would follow close behind in a nondescript vehicle.
Depending on what Jett had planned for the day, he was known to take less or more men accordingly. He always had a small army guarding his four acre Long Island estate. Sargon, for the last two weeks, was ever present at Jett’s side.
Maybe because Jett found him mildly amusing and interesting. Or perhaps because he thought Sargon was capable of protecting him far better than the rest of his men should something happen.
Sargon didn’t know what it was. He did, however, know that the rest of Jett’s men—all of them being friends of the man he had killed in a back hallway of a restaurant—were not at all fond of his presence, or Jett’s preference to have him closer than the rest of them.
During the men’s downtime, Sargon often found himself excluded from the group in whatever way they could shun him. The others had no qualms about making changes in schedules or the way they handled their boss without first letting Sargon know.
They thought it bothered him.
Offended him.
Sargon found it all amusing.
Like small children trying to punish him on the playground because the mommies and daddies paid him a little bit more attention than they got. It was nothing more than petty jealously, and he didn’t entertain that sort of nonsense.
He had better things to do.
Foolish fuckers.
Sargon was there to do a job and get paid.
Nothing else.
“Are you enjoying your work?” Jett asked Sargon.
Sargon shrugged, and put a little more of his weight against the opened passenger door as if to seem relaxed. “It’s been fine.”
“The rest of the men have welcomed you, then?”
He looked over the other men—they dressed in black, while he kept his usual silk dress shirt, and black slacks—and then went back to Jett. He gave a nod, unwilling to say much else. He also wasn’t the type to tattle. The men would either step the fuck up, or back the fuck off.
Either of which, Sargon could and would handle.
Alone.
Sargon didn’t miss the way the men’s gazes darted in his direction after he spoke. They likely believed he would have taken his opening to get them in shit with their boss, as that was probably what they would have done to him.
Predictable.
“Good to hear,” Jett said.
Not saying another thing, Jett slid into the waiting car without a look back at Sargon or the other men. Sargon quickly closed the door behind the boss, and passed a look over his shoulder at the men. He cocked an eyebrow at them, still chewing on the piece of mint gum that helped to keep his mouth occupied instead of running more often than not.
The other two men didn’t speak.
Sargon was grateful.
Soon, he was in the backseat with the boss while Jett finished up a phone call, and one of the two men from outside slipped into the front seat to drive. Leaning forward, Jett muttered orders to the driver, and then slammed the partition between the front and back seats closed. It allowed for some privacy, but not a lot if the voices raised more than a murmur.
“You lied,” Jett said.
Sargon did not show the way his heart thundered at those two, seemingly simple words. Jett seemed harmless on the outside, and he was quite charming to those around him. Still, Sargon knew that was for show. Jett was as dangerous as the Obsidian blade Sargon liked.
“I beg your pardon?”
Jett’s dark eyes looked him over, and then he lifted a white eyebrow. “About my men—you lied.”
Calm settled back in Sargon.
“They’re a little sour over their lost comrade,” Sargon said, hoping to dismiss any concerns Jett may have. “I don’t blame them, really.”
“You know they run to me about every little thing you do,” Jett added.
Sargon chuckled, and looked out the window to hide his grin. “Oh, they do?”
“He won’t dress appropriately.”
“I dress fine.”
“Not like them,” Jett returned. “But frankly, I prefer you as you are because it makes you seem less like them, if you get my drift. No one suspects you are part of my protection, and it gives you another upper hand, Sarg.”
“You really need to stop using that nickname.”
“Not yet.”
Sargon si
ghed, and looked back at Jett. “What else do they whine about?”
“Nothing important, but I’ve let you know, so now you can do with it what you want.”
“Keep my eye on them, but that’s about it.”
Jett nodded once. “Petty grievances can sometimes make the bloodiest problems. Oh, and I have something for you.”
Sargon took the file Jett pulled from the black, leather case he always toted around. Flipping it open as the car finally pulled away from the Griffin estate, Sargon was surprised at the amount of information he found staring back at him.
Information about himself.
“You’ve found information even I didn’t know,” Sargon murmured as he looked over details of the supposed crash that killed his parents. Visa information that had allowed them travel into and semi-permanently stay in the United States. Details about their family in Iran, and who was left to contact from that group. “I don’t suppose this helped you, though, did it?”
Jett gave him a look. “No.”
The word was so dry, Sargon felt it scrape across his skin.
“I was adopted—not legally—by Mia and William Jones. They worried that should they file properly for me, I would be taken from them, or even my biological parents’ families would come for me.”
Sargon repeated the elaborate lie his parents had drummed into his skull over the years.
“Mmm.”
Sargon thumbed through another paper. “Problem?”
“Those names—Mia, William, and Jones—are some of the most common in the United States, I suppose. It makes it hard to dig in to their details, that’s all.”
Which was the point.
Or so his parents always told him.
Sargon handed back the file. “I welcome you to go ahead and look in to them all you want, Jett. There’s nothing to find. I am, and have always been since I was old enough to go out on my own, a transient. Nothing ties me down, and I don’t put roots very far into the ground in case I find myself stuck there. I don’t like to be stuck. I keep moving, and I only rest for so long before I go on again.”
“And that’s what this is to you?”
“This job with you?” Sargon asked.