Page 14 of Menace

He shook his head with a wide grin while the others sniggered.

The bastards, I just knew I wasn’t going to like the name they chose.

“Your new name is…Izelle Marais.”

I pulled a nasty face.

“Are you serious? That’s an Afrikaans name and surname. I can’t speak the language properly and my accent is terrible. There’s no way I can pull it off.”

“No one in Savannah is going to speak Afrikaans to you. What better way to hide you. If the fuckers check they’re going to see the name and because they know you don’t speak the language they’ll ignore it. It’s the perfect smokescreen to hide behind.” He explained reasonably.

I didn’t like it but I had to admit he was sort of right.

The glint in his eyes let me know he found my reaction funny. The ass.

“Pixie will be putting your fake profile on her Joburg studio’s website. When the time is right she’ll let it be known you’re transferring to the States to work at the studio in Savannah. Dom’s guy is already monitoring their systems and will let us know if they attempt to hack it. There was an attempt on the Cape Town studio’s servers but it was nothing serious.”

I couldn’t stop the shiver running down my spine even if I tried. They were looking for me and I knew they wouldn’t stop until they had me back under their control.

“So what are we calling you? Zelly? Izzy? Ellie? Zelly with the Belly?”

Rory’s teasing drew me out of my head.

Those nick names were horrible.

“Those are terrible, I don’t like it. And the name isn’t me, it sounds too fancy. I think I should have a more English sounding name. If you drop the Izelle name I’ll let you pick one of the names on my list.”

Putting my hands together as if praying I pushed out my bottom lip, making a sad face.

“Please, Asa, not that name. It’s awful and it won’t work with my Goth persona.”

He narrowed his beautiful blue eyes, staring at me, most probably trying to see if I was being serious.

I absolutely was.

“Give me your list.”

He held out a hand and I gave it to him.

Putting it on the desk in front of him he picked up a pen and started going through it, scratching out names as he went down the list.

I have to admit it was a bit long. Two pages long.

He circled a name then moved on down the list, turning the paper over and continued scratching out names. Finally he looked up, tapping the pen on the desk.

“I think our girlie has a point. While going through the list I had an idea. Our Goth girl is going to be Irish but obviously with no connections to me.”

He tapped a circled name.

“You have Delaney here as a name but it’s an Irish surname as well. I think we need a sexy name to go with it. Maybe the name of an old time film star like Harlow.” He tapped the pen a couple of times then wrote something on the paper.

“Harlow Delaney. How does that sound to you?” He asked.

“Harlow Delaney.” I repeated it slowly. “What about Harper Delaney? It seems to fit me better.”

“Harper Delaney, I like the sound of it.” Declan, or Dec as he was called, said. There were nods from the others, even Asa.

The name sounded fantastic.

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