“IDs, please?” the server asked right after we put in our drink orders at the low table by the rail, the one with the most incredible panorama of city lights.
Arlo and Felix immediately reached for their wallets.
“Forgot mine at home,” I said apologetically, my heart already hammering in my ears. Idiot. I could have just asked for water.
As soon as the server left, Arlo and Felix just stared at me, and time seemed to stand still. “Don’t lie to us,” said Felix after a second. “You didn’t forget your ID, did you?”
I swallowed thickly. “No, I really?—”
“Bruh,” Arlo cut me off. “Relax. You think we care if you’re underage? We’ll order for you. I do it for my brother all the time. They never catch on.”
I nodded, breathing again, though even after I had a cocktail in my non-half-shattered hand, it didn’t prevent me from being consumed by the terror that every time I moved, someone would start wondering why I had so many calluses on my palm, or spot the cattle prod scars just below my shirt collar—a world away from the toned, moisturized, tea-tree-oil-infused skin of the two men across the table—and instantly know that my only role in a place like this should be scouring pots and pans.
The thing was, Ishouldn’tbe nervous. Not really. Like any born actor—or con artist—I was a natural observer. I knew people: their habits, their desires, their weaknesses. I knew how they would react in just about every situation, enabling me tothink three, four, five moves ahead, always. It was how I’d survived this long, and no one I knew was better at it.
But I’d only ever done it as a slave. When the time came to act, I acted—and reacted—as a slave would. As a good slave, or more often a bad one, but either way, as a slave, always. And now those survival skills I’d spent twenty years perfecting were exactly what—if relied on—were going to get me killed.
I swallowed, stuffing down the urge to run out of the room, down the stairs, and back to Langer’s condo, where I’d promise to be an exemplary employee and never question anything ever again. So what if Resi was defrauding the company and leaving Lemaya and the other girls to be raped, violated, and God knew what else? They could handle themselves, and?—
Suddenly, my attention was drawn to someone—not to a slave this time, though. To a girl in a cream-colored lace minidress—backless, like one lodged in my memory from what now felt like very long ago—and wedge sandals, sitting cozily in the corner, leaning on her elbows, twisting a glass stem between her manicured fingers. Endless, bouncy curls just a shade lighter than brown, whose texture I could still feel flowing like soft ribbons between my rough hands. It wasn’t her, of course. I could see enough of her face to know she was ten years older than Louisa, at least, with a narrower, more angular face. But her moonstone eyes still swirled under the hanging lanterns, and she sat across from a tall, equally well-dressed man, his features in shadow. The two spoke intimately but not secretively. And not in sweet nothings, either. About something that mattered, clearly, both to them and to the world. Something important.
Sometimes it works out.
From where I sat, though—so deep in pain and danger and deception I couldn’t see any way out—I couldn’t fathom how.
But she was happy, this girl, this angelic messenger from a kinder universe. And though I couldn’t see the man’s face, Ifigured he must be, too. How could he not be, with a girl like that?
“You know that chick?” asked Felix, glugging his second cilantro-lime-and-something-stupid-infused tequila cocktail, demanding my attention back.
I shook my head. “Wish I did,” I said, hoping it sounded suggestive instead of wistful.
“Eh, not my type. I don’t need that much to grab onto,” he said, setting his glass down to pornographically mime the soft curves of her body. “I like them tiny. Fragile. Like they might break if you drop them.”
Fucking hell. If I got through tonight without jamming a broken martini glass up this son of a bitch’s nostril, I should officially be declared a saint. “And what if they do break?”
Felix grinned. “I like that even better.”
“Remind me again,” I said, seizing the opportunity. “Have you met Tresa Hahn? Max’s head of R&D?”
“Never,” he said. “But from what you’ve told me, she seems to prefer playing with her own kind.”
Actually, I was pretty sure Resi preferred playing witheverykind. “Fuck if I care, anyway,” I replied with a knowing laugh. “Just as long as she’s willing to share, right?” I laughed along with him.That’s right. Keep chuckling, dickhead. I’ve got you where I want you.“And what about Keith Wainwright-Phillips? His new partner? What do you think of him?” On a roll, I thought back to the spreadsheets. Likely these guys were too low-level to know anything about what Corey and Resi had been up to on the financial fraud front, but it was worth a try.
Felix chuckled tipsily. “Idon’tthink of him. Dude was a CEO like a million years ago, wasn’t he? Kind of went nuts and lost it all, from what I heard. Langer tells him to jump and he asks how high. But hey, who am I to question it?”
“Pretty sure Max knows what he’s doing,” I said with an air of confidence and a large swallow of alcohol.
But I’d been too confident. Felix paused. My words hung in the air. We’d both heard it. The alcohol, all the toxic masculine talk, had lowered my guard. My vowels had become too long, my consonants too sharp. My accent was lying right out on the table, naked.
“Where did you say you grew up, again?” Felix asked, eyeing me from behind his martini glass.
“Right here.”
“Funny,” he said, tipping back the rest of his drink and snapping his fingers at the server for another. “You don’t sound it.”
Fresh beads of sweat had broken out on my face, and since the lights were dim and the temperature had dropped twenty degrees since sundown, there was no blaming it on the heat. “Well, you know, I studied abroad,” I said, groping for an explanation thatprobablycouldn’t be debunked by a quick internet search. “Backpacked around Europe. I’m a sponge like that. I pick things up.”
The food arrived, thank fucking God, and we all turned our attention to our plates. I’d already cursed myself for not better observing the eating habits of free people—fuck if there hadn’t always been a million more interesting things to pretend not to be looking at during my masters’ dinner parties. Gingerly, I picked up a fork.
