Page 64 of Strangers in Love

“By the time I got back to the door, Bruce was at the base of the stairs, waiting for me.” Cain peeled half the label from the bottle. “We could hear people yelling, and we knew you were heading back to the alley, so we decided to draw as much attention away from you two as we could.”

It was good to hear. It’s what I would’ve done if the situation had been reversed, and I was glad to hear that I’d had the right measure of the guys.

“Dez and Fever had the same idea,” Cain continued. “We all went for the back exits. Probably took out a dozen more guys before we got to the fence. It took about a quarter-hour to lose them, then another twenty to find a place to hunker down.”

“Where was it?” My question was less because I was curious and more because I wanted to delay having to decide how much of the truth I was going to tell Cain.

“Remember how Bruce talked to the staff at the hotel?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, one of the bellhops, or whatever the hell they’re called here, told him about a ‘secret poker game’ for high rollers. It was held in the backroom of this store, and it went all night.”

I laughed and shook my head. “And here I was, feeling guilty for being in the hotel when you guys were holed up in some shitty abandoned factory or something.”

Cain grinned. “I told the boys you’d be jealous when you found out we were playing cards and drinking all night. Flirted with some pretty women, too. You would’ve loved it.”

For a moment, I flashed back to one of the moments I’d been above Aline, moving inside her, my eyes locked on hers. Would I have traded that for the sort of night Cain was talking about?

I didn’t really have to think about it to know the answer. No. I wouldn’t have.

“We left around four or five,” Cain said. “Enough time that we could take a roundabout way to get to the plane and make sure we weren’t followed.”

“Did you break even?” I asked with another laugh.

“Dez and I did. Fever lost fifty, and Bruce came out a hundred ahead. Not so much either way that anyone would think we were anything other than stupid, drunken Americans.”

Smart. Not for the first time, I had to acknowledge how much Cain’s intelligence was responsible for the success of his company. Even if I didn’t end up working for him, I’d need to take pointers if I wanted to do something similar.

“Now, what about you guys?” Cain glanced behind me, I assumed, at Aline. “She a handful?”

“That’s one word for it,” I said dryly before going into a rundown. “Finding her was just good timing on my part, honestly. That little hallway I went down wasn’t a dead end. It led to another one that went parallel to the one you took. I’d just gone around the corner when I saw a man shove a woman into a room and then go for his gun.”

I explained it all. The number of men I’d killed. How Aline had tried to go back for the others, forcing me to carry her to the alley rendezvous. He laughed at that, and I figured I’d find it funny soon enough, but not yet. That hard head of hers had caused us problems that could’ve been avoided if she’d just done as I’d said.

I moved on to our arrival at the hotel, the ruse I’d used after I’d spoken to him, and then finished it up with a partial truth. I admitted to having fallen asleep and Aline leaving the room without me waking, but I didn’t say that I’d fallen asleep in bed with her after we’d had sex. From there, it was all truth, from the man in the courtyard at the hotel up to the point we’d arrived at the airport.

“Damn.” Cain shook his head. “Freedom’s headstrong, but I’d always thought her baby sister was quieter, mousey. Librarian type.”

Neither of those were words I would’ve used to describe Aline. Not when I could still hear her calling out my name when she came.

“Guess she takes more after her sister then,” I said casually. I finished my beer with one long sip. “Hey, while we’ve got some time, mind if I pick your brain about the agency?”

Cain’s expression turned shrewd. “You thinking of asking for a job?”

The man was perceptive, making me like him even more. “Yeah, I’m thinking.”

“I’d be glad to have you.” He grinned. “What do you want to know?”

As I asked my first question, I wondered if he’d still be glad to have me if he knew I’d fucked Aline. I really didn’t want to find out.

Forty-Four

Aline

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

I sighed and closed my eyes. This wasn’t the first time Freedom had asked the exact same thing. It wasn’t the second or third, either. I’d lost count around five or six. Pretty much, some form of the question had been woven into our conversation from the moment she’d answered her phone.

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