Page 29 of Take Her

And he’d always been keen to differentiate himself from the “trash” we’d both come up with. The second he could afford a fitted suit, he’d gotten one, and he had no truck with piercings or tattoos. He had no need to show off his warning coloration to those of his own kind—he was too busy ingratiating himself with his betters, flashing their particular mating signs of navy, gray, and black. Then he made sure important construction projects ran smoothly as he bought up chains of the mom-and-pop car washes via the shell corporations I created for him, creating chains of financial ownership so intricately complicated—and me making sure each individual stake was so small—as to not be worth the energy in tracking. Drugs came in, when drugs were good—then guns, when small warlords in Africa decided they were going to dump weapons. There was always some idiotic skirmish going on somewhere, and in the good ol’ US-of-A there was always someone looking to buy.

Things were sold, and then the cash was filtered through the complex apparatus I had created, until it rose up to him, practically distilled. I was like an alchemist of money, turning people’s personal sorrows into gold.

As long as you weren’t too greedy—didn’t dip into government coffers or contracts, and you understood that an illegal dollar in was not the same as an actual spendable dollar out—it was more like thirty-cents if you wanted to play things safely—you could do it for decades.

Just like we had.

You could even make yourself into a respectable businessperson along the way, whose opinions and advice was welcome amongst his peers.

So I watched her through the secret cameras again, feeling like I had in the panic room at the farm, curious and somewhat horny, trying to figure out which of our movements had attracted the FBI’s attention. The Frazetta thing was no big deal; we just wanted in on their casino lease—but so did fucking MGM, and I guaranteed the FBI wasn’t crawling up their ass.

So—why?

And—what?

What could one beautiful, terribly sexy little girl with a forbidden moth tattoo do to me?

Other than remind my dick it was alive?

I got a message on my personal phone:

I can meet today. Usual place. Lunch?

I felt a Cheshire-cat like grin spread over my face as I texted back:

Yeah.

I strode out of my offices and Corvo like I had someplace to be—partially because I did, but also because I was interested in seeing what it’d do to Lia.

She’d panicked.

It was lovely.

Her pulse jumping at her throat, her wringing her own wrists like she sometimes did, and the rapid breathing that came with knowing she wasn’t going to get her own way.

If Lia was a moth, then surely I was a spider, and I liked to see her squirm.

When I made it outside, I ducked into an alcove along Corvo Enterprise’s façade and hopped onto the camera system with my phone. I watched a distressed Lia pull out her phone—I couldn’t see the number, the screen was tilted away from the small camera I had installed in one of the framed pieces of art behind her, but her mood was clear—she was animated.

And angry.

At me for abandoning her?

Or for putting her, however briefly, off my trail?

She thought about dialing someone, then realized what I’d been trying to tell her about surveillance, and switched to texting them instead.

Clever girl.

Then she frowned at the phone until she got a response and started running out the door after me.

I hopped through the cameras expertly to keep her on-screen until I saw her trotting through the lobby and exiting the building itself, where she looked from side-to-side, but couldn’t see me.

Surely the FBI would have told her to be a little less obvious?

Then again, she was young. Uncertain.

So harmless I might almost feel bad about crushing her when it came time.

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