Page 8 of Cruel Lies

"Sorry, I don’t drink," she grumbled from beneath the hood of the fancy sports car she was working on. Her voice was muffled by the hood and the environment’s sounds around her, but something about it felt vaguely familiar. Perhaps I’d run into her at a late-night gas station run. Or maybe she’d been at the grocery store when I was. Even more likely was the thought that I was imagining things.

Probably that last one.

Because I knew I’d never seen this girl before in my life.

"Oh, well, neither does Annie from payroll, but she’s going, so maybe you two could?—"

"Not interested, Tony," she hissed, her temper flaring at his persistence. "Thanks for thinking of me, though."

Tony either didn’t know when to take a hint or was completely oblivious to anything outside of the yes he was so obviously looking for from her. "Hannah, you never go out with any of us. Don’t you think it’s about time you had some fun?"

The dead silence after his words made my skin crawl. I’d dated before, had plenty of women come and go in my life, to know that a silence like that was one you ran from. Far away, as fast as you could.

"Tony’s about to die," I muttered to myself, chuckling a bit at his impending doom. "Here lies a stupid motherfucker, who couldn’t take no from a woman and crossed the line."

The telltale slam of the hood of the car was enough to make me instinctively prepare to flee, but I steeled myself as my inner voice reminded me I was not the one in the line of fire this time.

"Tony," she began, all the pleasantry drained from her voice. "This is my job. Iworkhere. I chose this job because I don’tlikedealing with people. The last guy who pressured me into something is resting peacefully beneath a bed of dirt. So unless you’d like to join him, I’d fucking back off. Okay?"

I peeked an eye open to see her smirking at him, a very large ratchet in her hand, hoisted like a weapon prepared to strike. She looked like she one hundred percent meant what had just come from her lips, and if Tony’d been a smart man, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him piss himself.

But Tony wasnota smart man, as evidenced by his fearless doubling down.

"Aw, come on, Hannah. We all know you’ve never killed a man. That old story doesn’t work on me."

He took one step forward, like most predators do when they’re trying to figuratively or literally back a woman into acorner. But he didn’t count on this woman stepping forward to meet him, tipping that ratchet against her shoulder in mock relaxation.

"If you don’t believe I killed him, you’re more than welcome to find out. Keep pushing it."

This was ayes,in Tony’s addled mind. I was beginning to wonder if the exhaust fumes had gotten to him over the years, working in this career field.

Tony was not one to be deterred, apparently. He’d never met a woman he couldn’t persuade. Or, in his case, likely bully into the answer he wanted.

"Come on, Hannah," he whined, that pathetic sound men made when they thought fake pandering would work on a woman. "Everyone wants you to come with us, and you’re Ronnie’s favorite?—"

Hannah lifted that tool from her shoulder and pointed it at Tony, the tip of it landing square in his sternum. "I said no. There’s two letters in that word, and since graduating high school is a prerequisite for this job, I assume you learned two letter words, and their meanings."32 Her eyes narrowed, and I smiled despite myself. "No."

I was stunned—or really not, considering the progression of this conversation—that he seemed to ignore the weapon in his chest and shoved a step forward, closing the distance between them to nearly a foot. "Okay, listen, I was trying to be nice, but if you wanna play that stuck-up bitch card, Flagg?—"

Her foot moved so fast I would have missed it if I’d blinked. She nailed the prick right between the legs, watching him go to his knees with a prideful look of triumph on her lips. Tony gasped for air, crumpling into the fetal position, hands clutching his dick—or what was left of it, thanks to that well-placed kick of hers.

I heard an older gent yell out in their direction from the other side of the bays.

"Everything okay down there in bay three, Flagg?"

She smiled widely and chuckled, still staring at Tony’s limp and now crying form on the floor. "Yeah, Ron. Just squashing a few cockroaches over here. We really ought to spray for these pests, you know. Big John’s been skimming the pond for this scum lately."

Ron’s gnarled laughter echoed as he turned back to his work. "Okay, Flagg. Just don’t kill anyone."

My jaw hung open at her brazen independence. I wasn’t used to interacting with women who could hold their own against a man. If we took her on in the open, on her own turf, we’d need to be prepared. She wasn’t likely to go down without a fight.

Nash would just fucking love that.

I watched her for the rest of the day, meandering about to get a good view of the shop itself and the surrounding layout. Around dusk, Ro bumped into me behind the alleyway where employees parked their cars and tossed something wrapped in foil at me with a frown.

"You forgot to take a break for lunch, Angel," he pointed out, his brows furrowed. I swore this man would mother hen over Nash and I until he dropped dead, likely from elevated blood pressure.

I unwrapped one end of the foil and inhaled the lovely scent of street food—a veggie burrito, likely from the corner vendor. He served a small variety of shit, but it was always guaranteed to be fucking amazing.

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