Chapter 33
I lean out from behind the tree. “Psst! Belle!”
Damn. She doesn’t look out the window. “Belle!” I whisper yell.
After a few minutes of scouting around, I find a small pebble.
Please let this work.
When I toss it through the window, her head whips around.
Then her eyes widen.
I press my finger to my lips. Her eyes widen more. I make a motion for her to come to the back of the house she’s been sharing with Justice.
Which reminds me, I need to ask about that…
Not like I don’t have enough of my own problems.
Belle looks like she saw a ghost when she sticks her head out the open bathroom window. “Oh, my god. What are you doing out here sneaking around?”
Because that’s exactly what I’m doing.
I blow my hair out of my face. “I had to talk to you, and I couldn’t let the guys know…” I look around nervously. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah, Justice said he’s going to town, he said there’s a problem.” She grimaces and I wonder how much she knows. She glances behind her, then motions for me to come closer. “Can you crawl in the window?”
The windowsill is almost neck high. I know this because I had to jump down from the one in Beast’s bathroom. “I don’t know. It’s kind of high up.”
“Here, I’ll help you.” She reaches out and we clasp our hands together. Somehow, I manage to walk-climb up the wall and lean my torso into the opening.
Even though she’s holding my arm, I fall, very unceremoniously on the sink, then on my face on the bathroom’s tile floor.
“Girl!” she shrieks.
“Shhhh!”
She clamps her lips closed and helps me off the floor. “Where are your shoes?”
“Don’t even ask.”
“Okay, why are you sneaking around?”
I sigh and sag against the wall as I catch my breath. “Ralph sent someone to tell me I’ve been fired. And the guy said he’s supposed to replace me.”
She gapes, then turns beet-red. After fuming for a hot minute, she hisses, “That asshole.”
It’s a miracle I’m not bleeding after all the window antics. I wipe a smudge of dirt off my thigh as I make a face because of Ralph’s latest stunt. “You’re not kidding. Do you have any idea why he would do that?”
The color in Belle’s face turns kind of purple. “I’m gonna beat Pembrook’s scrawny ass.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s got a hotline directly to Ralph.”
A sinking feeling hits my bones. “What would he say to him?”
She taps her fingers on her thigh in a frustrated rhythm. “Hun, I don’t know how to soften this blow, so I’m just gonna say it. I have a suspicion that Pembrook told old Ralphie that you were knocking boots with Mr. Big-shot SEAL. I’m guessing that made Ralph go off the deep end because he was hoping to bone you.”
Bone ME?
I gape at her. My mouth even falls open as I let out a shocked sound. “No! And ick. That’s gross. Not, Lucas. I mean, Ralph.”
“That has to be what this is about. Otherwise, he wouldn’t do anything so rash. You hurt his itty-bitty ego.” And then she smirks. “Lucas, huh?”
My eyes widen. “Beast. Don’t call him that, please.”
She grins. I’m still in shock from her saying Ralph wanted to… ick. Just gross. “Are you serious that you think that’s what happened?”
“Serious as a case of head lice. I heard Pembrook crudely discussing you and Beast with Brian this morning when they were walking by the open window.”
Gulp.
That’s also gross. “That kind of makes me want to hurl.”
“Pembrook makes me want to hurl all the time.”
I’m still scratching my head over this news. “How would Ralph get someone here so fast?”
Belle scrunches her nose as if she’s just gotten a whiff of something foul. “Ralph’s a parasite, they multiply fast. But seriously, he’s got contacts all over this damned country. He used to work in the field before he glued his ass to a chair at headquarters.”
I close my eyes and think about smacking myself. “Crap, girl. I’ve really done it now. I can’t believe I was such a fool.”
Her eyes get a sly slant to them. “At least tell me the sex was worth it.”
Belle’s expression makes me worried. She looks like she might grab me and shake the information out of me any second.
I bang my head a few times against the wall behind me. “Oh, it was good?—”
“Good?!?” she whisper-hisses. “Honey, that man left ‘good’ behind when he was fourteen. He’s gotta be an animal.”
It’s official. I’m flaming with embarrassment. My core is also clenching at the memory of how big Lucas really is.
With an excited wiggle, Belle laughs. “I just got all the answers I need. Any second, you’re gonna be a puddle.”
I groan and bang my head some more. “Okay, he was… exceptional.”
She scoffs and manages to look totally offended. “That’s a word for fine wine. Not sex with a tattooed badass with eyes like razors. I mean, come on. It’s got to be so much better than exceptional.”
I glare at her until it feels like I’m going to pop something. She’s not going to let this go. I can see it in the set of her chin.
“Okay! He was a pussy-wrecking sex god. There, are you happy?”
A devilish grin takes over her entire face. “Camile, my friend. That’s worth getting fired over.”
“No, it’s not!”
Unfortunately, there’s an internal debate about that statement between my pussy and my brain. Somehow, despite the flood of sex hormones gushing through my veins, my one remaining brain cell prevails. “As good as it was, it wasn’t worth wrecking my whole life over.”
Her grin slowly vanishes when she sees my distress. Her tone gets soft. “Oh, babe, I’m sure that something will work out. You’re going to find another amazing job, where you don’t have to deal with bone-heads like Ralph and company.”
Now my throat is stinging and my muscles are turning to ash. This can’t be happening. All because of dick.
“I worked so hard my whole adult life to get here.” I sigh and drop my forehead into my hand. “It’s far worse than anything I can even explain.”
There’s a shuffle of feet, then a rustle of clothes. She sits on the floor beside me. “Try me.”
I shake my head. “It’s complicated, and some of it—I really can’t talk about right now.”
There’s no way I’m telling Belle that by losing the FamFind job I’m going to cost my real employer a fortune.
But the worst thing is I’m sealing my fate. I’ll never work in the intelligence business again. You can’t get fired for having sex on the job and have any respect in the trade.
PCI was my one chance in.
I stare at the wall across from me until I can hardly breathe.
My career is done.
Gone.
All the dreams.
“I’m so screwed.”
She bumps my shoulder. “I’m sorry. Ralph is a jerk, if that makes you feel better. You’ll be better off working for anyone else. And I mean, anyone.”
Speaking of the jerk… “Do you know some guy named Tom? That’s the guy that Ralph sent.”
She stiffens and snorts. “Yeah. I know him. Scumbag.”
“He’s the messenger, and supposedly also your new boss.”
She pushes up from the wall, climbs to her feet, and stands in front of me with her fists on her hips. When Belle assumes this stance with that expression, she’s as immovable as the Statue of Liberty. “Oh, no. He’s not my boss. I quit!”
I blink at Belle, equal parts proud of her and dismayed. “But you love this job?”
“It’s a job. That’s it. I hate Tom far more.”
Wow. She’s serious about this. “What would make you say that?”
“For starters, he likes to hit women.”
I’m confused, and I hope I heard her wrong. “Hit or hit on?”
But Belle’s eyes turn murderous. “Hits. As in with closed fists.”
My stomach drops. “That’s horrible.”
“Second, he conned his ex-girlfriend into giving FamFind a bunch of money which I know never got used for what she thought it was going to be used for.”
My heart starts to pound. My vision becomes hyper-focused. “What else do you know?”
A creaking sound makes us freeze. Belle mouths silently, “Justice!”
The creak turns into the definitive sound of the front door opening and closing.
I hold my breath as she rushes over to flush the toilet. As the water swirls and gurgles, she mouths, “What now?”
Justice calls from the other room. “Belle, we’ve got to roll. Step on it. Camile is missing, we need to help Beast find her.”
Her next silent missive is accompanied by her eyes popping so wide they have to hurt.
Oh shit!
I offer her a grimace and mouth, Sorry.
I climb off the floor and tug her to me so I can speak in a whisper. “Look, I need to take care of something, and I don’t want them caught up in this. Can you…cover for me? I’m sorry, I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t absolutely critical.”
She gives me a fierce hug, then straightens her shoulders. She’s such a badass, and I know that even more after what she says next. “Us girls gotta stick together. Be safe, Camy.”
Then she walks out the door and closes it behind her.
I almost throw up on the spot.
Oh, my god. The creek is rising, and I’m standing on a rock in the middle.
Now Belle is an accomplice in my deceit.
My lungs are burning, and I’m soaked in sweat, by the time they finally leave the cabina a couple of minutes later.
I’m left alone with my racing thoughts.
Lucas is literally going to explode. At the very least, he’s going to handcuff me to something very heavy.
Christ.
For half a heartbeat, I consider telling him everything. They could probably help me get to the bottom of this before I could snap my fingers.
But then I remember my oath.
I’m sworn to keep my covert job secret.
No, I can’t tell him.
I have to follow through on this. I can still fulfill my mission, even if I have to go rogue. Especially now that I know Belle knows more than I suspected.
I just need some more time to pull the pieces together… That means I need the space to do it.
Lucas will be breathing down my neck.
When this is all done, I’ll make everything right with him.
As right as it can ever be.
But in my heart, I know that he’s not the kind of man that forgives someone for being deceptive.
That’s the blow to my heart that makes my knees weak as I wait in Justice’s bathroom until I’m sure everyone has left the complex.