Page 33 of Jump or Fall
His jaw tightened. The healing scar itched like hell, and his beard coming in only made it worse. But he wasn’t ready to scrape a blade across his face yet.
“Was getting help just a lie to get me down here so you could arrest me?” he snapped. “Aren’t they your buddies?”
“If I was going to arrest you, I wouldn’t have left you at the clinic.” Her expression darkened. “And no, they aren’t my fucking ‘buddies’.”
Interesting. An enforcer who wasn’t friendly to Silvers.
“No,” he gritted out. “I’m not a fucking Silver.”
After a quick look down at her tablet, she asked, “Why not? You worked with them long enough.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “What does it matter?”
Resting her chin on her hand, she fixed him with that same bored expression she probably had when answering his call. “You want me to help you find a place to live, and you think your history doesn’t matter? You worked with Silvers—shit, maybe you’re lying and youareone. DoI put you in an apartment next to a teenage girl who lives alone? Maybe you’re harmless, but I have to protect these people. They come before some guy who’s been watching people on cameras and might be the reason some of them are here.”
He pressed his palm against his scar to keep from clawing at it. Fuck, it was infuriating.
Kimmie’s eyes went to his cheek, her expression flat. Then without a word, she stood and left the room.
“Now what?” he muttered.
The door swung open again. Kimmie tossed something onto the table before reclaiming her seat.
A small jar of salve.
“Thanks.”
“I’ve heard the itching is a bitch.”
He applied a thin layer and exhaled sharply as the relief hit. “I told them ‘no’. That’s what pissed them off.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes. Monitoring the mundane crap people do day in and day out was already old. Following hot girls for them was too much.”
“Most guys would like to join a group with unlimited access to women.”
“I had no problems getting women. I just prefer it when they want my dick,” he countered.
He would have trouble now with his hideous face. But there were more important things to worry about—like getting out of the bug-infested whorehouse.
A hint of amusement flickered across her face. “What skills do you have besides watching people through cameras?”
“Programming.”
“You a hacker?”
“It’s how I got into Surveillance.”
She tapped her fingers on the table, considering. “We might have a job for you. Someone’s been selling a fake scar-healing serum in Eight, and we need to find out who.”
“People sell fake shit all the time.”
“This one’s killing people. It’s one thing to sell sugar pills, it’s another to give them poison.”
Hunting people down wasn’t something he wanted to get involved in again. He’d had his fill of invading others’ privacy.
Maybe he could work out a deal.
