2. Chapter 2
Evan
How can someone act so nice and be so fucking evil underneath?
Frankie O’Rourke, the owner of O’Rourke’s Pub, was not at all how Evan had imagined these past seven years.
Hunched down on their stool, Evan’s half-mast gaze trailed Frankie across the room.
She was about a hundred times more attractive too.
The fading picture Evan had stuck to their prison cell wall, and then in their wallet, hadn’t done the evil bitch justice.
Nor had the week of surveillance Evan had done before moving onto phase two of their plan.
Seeing her up close and personal was an entirely different feeling from watching at a safe distance.
Sitting there while Frankie shamelessly flirted with them had Evan wanting to jump up and throttle the woman. What kind of professional leaned all over the counter with their cleavage on display? That had been unexpected—both the distracting visual and Evan’s traitorous body.
Does she seriously not recognize me?
It had been what Evan was banking on all along. Really, they should be relieved they hadn’t been found out, but the realization of Frankie’s utter self-involvement was a bitter pill to swallow. Did she have no remorse for what she’d done?
“Hey, you want another?”
Evan blinked out of their daze, sat straighter in the seat, and took in the guy waiting expectantly behind the bar.
Andy Chaffey, twenty-six years of age, originally from Newfoundland, lives with his girlfriend Claire across town, and began transitioning as soon as he was of age.
Evan held back the sly grin itching to break free.
Social media was a fountain of information if you knew how to dig for it.
“Erm.” Evan was already thinking about how they could stretch the allotted funds while in Vancouver.
But there was a price to surveillance. They couldn’t very well loiter without spending more.
Hopefully, their work wouldn’t last longer than a couple of weeks, and then their contact back home would send them a plane ticket to get the fuck out of Dodge.
Evan gave Andy a slight nod. “One more won’t hurt. ”
“For sure. I’ll whip you up another.” Andy’s smile was friendly enough, and from what Evan had seen in the last week, he seemed too good to be working for the likes of Frankie.
That went for the rest of her staff. Frankie’s bar manager, Sloane Miller, was one of the sweetest women Evan had ever met.
They had spoken to her a handful of times in the last week, always when Frankie wasn’t around, and Evan genuinely liked her.
If they weren’t there for revenge, Evan might have been tempted to stick around and get to know Sloane on a deeper level.
Andy returned with Evan’s drink, and they thanked him before casually glancing around the pub again.
Sloane was at a table with her friends, drinks and food all around, and looking so happy that a pang of jealousy hit Evan.
It had always been that way for them, even as a kid chasing after their older brother and his friends.
Evan had never fit in the way most people did.
They’d always been on the outside looking in, desperately wishing they could turn on the charm like their stepfather and brother were able to.
Conning someone took a social intuition Evan lacked.
And yet Cecil expected them to do exactly that with Frankie. Con her, and then …
Fuck . Evan swallowed hard, tilted their glass back, and finished the drink in one gulp.
Pulling out the wallet that their brother had given them for their fifteenth birthday, Evan traced a chapped thumbnail over the worn leather.
It was old and frayed, much like Caleb’s jacket Evan now wore.
It didn’t fit them as well as it had Caleb at twenty-three.
Years ago, Caleb would joke about Evan hitting a growth spurt one day, but besides their chest enlarging in a way that gave them dysphoria more times than not, and their hips widening slightly, not much else had changed on their body. Well, except for the hair.
Maybe that’s why Frankie didn’t recognize me.
If shaving their head was all it took to throw a bloodthirsty hound off their trail, it was probably a good thing Frankie had fallen out of her previous line of work.
“Where can I find the washrooms?” Evan asked, placing a twenty-dollar bill on the counter for Andy when he walked past once more.
The bartender swiped the bill up and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Thanks, b’y,” he said, and Evan grinned as his Newfoundlander accent became more evident as he said the slang word.
It was pronounced like “bye”, but as far as Evan could tell from their time eavesdropping, it meant the same thing as “friend” or “mate”.
“Washroom’s ’round the corner and down the hall a bit. ”
“Thanks, man.”
Evan slipped off the bar stool and past Frankie, circling the pub without her noticing. Watching the confident way she interacted with customers set Evan on edge. Frankie O’Rourke was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And that meant no one was safe.