Page 41 of Wicked Tricks

“What’s your favourite out of all the businesses you own?” I leaned forward, acting interested.

He poured himself a drink, and some into my glass with a smirk on his face, “I own a lingerie store that my sister runs,” he said, his eyes flickering to my chest. I pursed my lips to suppress a smile, and quickly snapped out of it as he leaned back into the booth, watching me darkly with a satisfied expression on his face as he sipped his red wine.

I cleared my throat.

“So, what else-”

“What about you?” he cut me off.

I raised my eyebrows.

“What about me?” I gave him a wide eyed innocent look.

“Why are you still at Lilith’s if you’re not a dancer?”

I took a long glug of my wine, considering whether to lie to him or not. I knew that it was probably useless, and that he probably knew everything already.

“I create and sell identities and help people with document forgery.”

His eyes widened for a moment, shocked by my brutal honesty. I decided that if I seemed like I was being honest with him, the more he would open up to me. Plus, what I did at Lilith’s was no secret among the underworld.

I was the best at it.

The weapons were the secret - so I wasn’t technically lying.

“Impressive, how do you do that?”

I shrugged, “I’m good with computers and Photoshop.”

I decided to leave Livie’s connection to the operation out of it, just in case.

“So, what? Like for people to use in finance fraud and scams?” he rubbed his chin, frowning as he focused on me.

“Sometimes,” I said, “or immigrants wanting work, people wanting divorces, and women wanting to escape abusive husbands - we create new identities and help them move.”

He nodded, deep in thought, “I thought you girls just scammed desperate men over there.”

I shrugged, “only the ones who deserve it.”

“Wow,” he scoffed.

“What? You haven’t seen the shitbags I help these women escape. The assholes we have to put up with on a daily basis. Including members ofyourfamily.”

He opened his mouth to respond but the waitress returned with our food. She placed a large plate of colourful vegetables in front of Antoni, and he thanked her, and a steaming bowl of noodle soup in front of me.

The brothy aroma hit as the steam rose around me.

It smelled like winter, and had a generous pile of rice noodles twisted into a perfect mound.

The almost argument faded as we were both distracted by the food. It was warm, and salty and everything that I had hoped it would be. It tasted like a warm hug in a bowl.

“I’m sorry you have to put up with that,” he said softly, “it must be hard to deal with after what you’ve been through.”

I nodded, still focused on my food.

“Wait,” I frowned, “what do you mean?”

I knew he would’ve done his research on me.

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