I grin so hard my face hurts. Hell yes, he’s just as turned on as I am. And I made him that way.
“I think we should have sex,” I say, smiling playfully at him.
The door to our right creaks. “Oh, shit. Sorry, did I interrupt you?” Mong says, part winking, part giggling. “That was very direct, Hex, but in a good way. I think.” He gives me the thumbs up. “I’d rank it eight out of ten.”
Aran sighs and gently extricates me from him. His fingers linger on my arms like they can’t help it, which makes my dick very confused about whether to stay hard or calm down.
“Did you need something? Hex and I will be heading out soon,” Aran says sternly while discreetly adjusting himself.
Mong’s hair is a little damp, and he is wearing a T-shirt of Aran’s. It is the one that we gave him since he doesn’t have any of his clothes here yet, but despite that, a tinge of jealousy bubbles up in me. I want to be the only one allowed to wear Aran’s clothes. Period. An emergency stop by Mong’s cabin is thus required, or I might end up attacking him in his sleep so I can take back what belongs to my man and me.
Nodding, the addition to our conspiracy-hunting team crosses his arms. “I remembered something else. The girls I told you about. The ones who go with the VIPs once the service concludes. There is a backroom, behind the bar and kitchen. It’s where we keep the spare uniforms and the costumes for the themed nights. I think it’s where they wait until the rest of the staff leaves. So, if you let me go with Hex you next time he accompanies the Lynxes, I could maybe sneak him in back there?”
Three, two, one.
“No,” Aran declares in a tone that leaves no space for arguing. “This is too dangerous for a civilian to get involved. It would be safest for you to stay out of sight until this is over.” I am pretty sure he also abhors the idea of me serving as bait, but we have to uphold our image of professional secret agents for now.
“Okay, but… don’t you two work as security?” Mong challenges, pointing a finger at Aran. “You can’t exactly be in two places at once.”
“Hex can make it so the rosters don’t clash,” he argues back proudly, making my soul soar.
Mong looks like he wants to push back, but after a couple of seconds of deliberation, he seems to give up. “I guess. But it’s still riskier than letting me help. Besides…”
His hesitation as he averts his eyes and chews on his bottom lip makes me bristle. “Besides?”
“It might be nothing, but there was this girl… I met her the first day, and she reminded me a lot of my sister. We got kind of close, fast. She did room service for the VIPs, after dinner finished. Shitty hours, but double the pay. Anyway. I didn’t see her in the morning, before you kidnapped me, and we’d agreed to play poker with some of the other members of staff.”
My blood freezes, a sinking feeling lodging in my stomach like lead. “She didn’t show up?”
“It’s probably nothing, like I said. Night shifts really mess up with your body, so I bet she just went to her quarters and crashed from exhaustion.”
That makes sense, but for some reason the gnawing feeling doesn’t leave me. After the strange way Eleanor stood me up, hearing a similar thing happen to Mong strikes me as odd and raises alarm bells in my head.
“Eleanor, the woman we were meeting didn’t show up either,” I blurt out, causing Aran’s frown to deepen.
I know that he doesn’t fully trust Mong yet, but he can also be paranoid. Besides, sometimes the best way to get something out of a person is by giving them something in return first.
“Eleanor?” Mong echoes back, tapping his fingers against the lounge door’s frame. “Average height, wavy black hair and likes to wear red heels?”
I clap my hands. “Yes, that’s her! How do you know her? She’s Mrs. Lynx’s assistant, and we were supposed to have lunch today, but she didn’t show up. Left no note or anything.”
“Katy, that girl from room service I mentioned. I think they were hooking up… She was super excited to attend the party Eleanor was throwing… Did you see her there last night?”
Both Aran’s and Mong’s attention narrow to me. “Uh, I’m shit at remembering people, but describe to me how she looks like…”
Mong does, and I rack my brain to replay the faces I saw and the people I spoke to at the party. No one with Katy’s description is among them, but then he mentions that his friend carries her mandala print purse everywhere.
That’s when I remember her, the redhead with a big smile that Eleanor wouldn’t stop talking about once she got drunk. She went on and on about how excited she was that Mrs. Lynx had taken a special liking to her friend and that she’d been invited to the afterparty, which Eleanor also had to attend.
23
Aran
Afteroursecurityshiftsend, we spend the evening trying to figure out what it means that Eleanor stood Hex up the same way Katy didn’t show up for poker with Mong. There is some correlation between the two women showing up at the same party and attending the event afterwards, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their strange behavior is linked.
Mrs. Streiss doesn’t call Hex that night as we were expecting her to. Or the next two days, despite how excited she has generally been thus far to have his company. Eleanor doesn’t show up either. By the time dinner service begins on the third night, we are yet to make any progress on the girls who’ve been sleeping around with the VIPs. As it turns out, they are either off or have called in sick. The Lynxes have also been absent from dinner three days in a row, their table standing empty in the opulent hall.
I take a tray of champagne and glasses to the group of guests I’ve been serving tonight. They sit near the stage where metal poles have been installed so exotic dancers can perform for the audience tonight. I’ve recognized a lot of the VIPs on this cruise thanks to my disguise as Mong, though most of them leave before they can get sufficiently drunk, which has impeded my investigation.
