Page 3 of Ruling Scar
I know Ren Callahan by name only, but the moment I set eyes on the pretty, put-together woman I know it’s her. Glossy brown hair falls around her shoulders and her sharp black suit could’ve been styled by theVogueeditorial team. Her stiletto bobs up and down under her table and a cigarette hangs from her mouth.
The hostess doesn’t strike me as a woman who’d allow someone to smoke in the restaurant, but no one says a thing.
Ren holds up a menu.
It strikes me as odd that she’d actually eat despite knowing her business meetings are almost exclusively done out of Fujimori’s. She must not be self-conscious about eating in front of others.
She taps a picture. “Can I have this please.”
“No,” Abe replies.
“What, why not?”
“You’re going to eat two bites of it and then complain.”
“I will not!”
“Then you’ll feel bad for complaining so you’ll refuse to order something else and I’m going to find out later you stopped for pizza on the way home ’cause you were hungry.”
“I would never.”
“You’re a liar, Ren Callahan.”
“A lesser man would be dead for saying such a thing to me.”
He smirks. “Good thing I’m not a lesser man.”
He punctuates the sentence by banging through the door that leads to the kitchen. It doesn’t stop the conversation, though, since there’s a narrow cut-out along the wall, allowing the dining room to see a snapshot into the kitchen.
“You seem a little on edge, Abe.”
I keep my head down, my hair falling into my face, as I listen.
“I do not know what you’re talking about.” A pot clatters and there’s a flurry of what I think is Japanese.
The door opens and I feel the movement without looking up.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” A thick British accent asks. Peeking sideways, I see a blonde girl in a sweatsuit sitting down next to Ren.
“Abe’s mad.”
“Oh wow,” she sarcastically replies.
Ren snorts, chewing the end of her pen.
“And what the fuck’s going on with this?”
“Oh, you noticed the Akatov too?”
And to think for a second, my nerves had fizzled into the background. When I look up I spot both Ren and her friend openly staring at me.
The blonde wears a wary expression.
“Um. . .”
Ren nibbles her pen. “You okay over there, Akatov?”
“I had book club,” I mumble.
