2. Archer
Chapter 2
Archer
S ilver must have lost his fucking mind. First, he calls to ask me for a favor that could put me and my entire family in danger, and now he sends some random, borderline irritating, injured woman to my apartment.
I told him, I told everyone , that I was done. I was out. I don't want to be bothered. I don't want to be acknowledged or talked about or even thought of.
If I were a better man, I'd kill myself and get it over with, but someone has to manage the family’s finances and be their tech person, and I don't trust any of them to do it. August, maybe, the eldest among us, only he's too busy running his own empire to learn the ins and outs of what I do. I don't want them to fail because I got a little down.
So, I made them a deal—I'd continue to run things, I'd continue to hack, as long as they left me alone.
It's been three years and still, no one can fucking grasp that I don't want to be bothered.
They knew it, Silver knew it, every person in our industry from here to the West Coast knows to leave me the fuck alone.
But they want my help because they know I'm the one to get shit done. Silver asked for the favor because I was the only one who could hack into the Manor's security. And he must have sent this woman to my doorstep because he knew I'd be the one to keep her safe .
I cringe at those last few words, my heart icing over at the truth. I can't keep anyone safe, let alone some stranger I know nothing about.
I study her rain-soaked face, the bruises concealed under the red hair sticking to her cheeks.
"I can't help you," I tell her honestly.
Her hand presses firmly against the door. "I have nowhere else to go."
Chewing on the inside of my lip, I do something unexpected and step out of the way, giving her space to enter. I don't know why I do it, why I give in, but something about the look in her eye tells me it's my only option. "Let's talk about this inside."
Her face softens in the slightest as if she's as surprised as I am that I gave in.
I shut the door behind her, closing us into my apartment, the area feeling strangely too small suddenly. This is wrong, I shouldn't have just invited a random beaten woman into my apartment. What if the cops come? I don't know who's working this shift and don't want to deal with bribing someone to put this all behind me.
It's then that I realize the screen on my computer is still lit up. I march over, leaving her at the door, and hit the button to turn on the screensaver. My task can wait until I don't have an audience to finish.
"Were you watching porn?" she asks, the question and the cadence of her voice catching me off guard.
"No." I shake my head, way too seriously, and turn toward her. "I was working."
She glances around, almost skeptically taking things in. "What do you do?"
"I'm in tech," I respond with the generic answer I give most people who ask because it doesn't usually prompt any follow-ups.
"What does that even mean?" She focuses her attention on me, and I hate the way it feels like a giant spotlight just appeared out of nowhere in my dimly lit apartment.
Even from the distance between us, her eyes are bloodshot and droopy. She wasn't lying about being exhausted.
I slide my phone off my desk. "You said Silver sent you?"
The woman crosses her arms over her chest, one bigger than the other, telling me there's some type of bandage under the oversized sweatshirt she's wearing. Her outfit makes her seem even more frail than she already is, like she's a kid playing dress-up in their father's clothes. But that's the point, isn't it? To maintain some level of anonymity when you're on the run.
"Yes." She clears her throat. "Why do I get the feeling you had no idea about this?"
"Because I didn't."
She licks her lips and nods. "Ah. Okay. Well, that explains your response." She draws in a breath and tucks a strand of stiff hair behind her ear, displaying her discolored cheek even more.
Whoever hurt her wasn't messing around.
It's not your problem , I remind myself. She isn't your problem .
But isn't she? She is standing inside my apartment.
I dial Silver's number and press my phone to my ear. "I'll get to the bottom of this." The line rings, and rings, and rings some more before his voicemail picks up. "Give me a call when you get this," I say onto his machine. "It's urgent." I don't bother telling him who it is, because if what she's saying is true, Silver more than likely was expecting my call, which tells me he purposely didn't answer.
That's probably why he didn't inform me of any of this to begin with, because he knew I would shut it down before it even happened. I would have insisted he find someone else, I would have gone somewhere and not been home, I would have done anything to avoid the awkwardness of whatever the fuck is happening right now.
"He didn't answer," she says, and I can't quite make out if it's a question or a statement.
I tap my phone against my chin and consider my options. I want to tell her that I don't want her here. That I don't want anyone here. I want to insist that she leave and find someone else to help her. I want anything other than to deal with this.
Why can't people understand and respect that I want to be left alone? What's so hard with respecting boundaries?
When I left the life three years ago, I thought I made it clear, but apparently fucking not.
Couldn't Silver have asked quite literally anyone other than me? Why couldn't he have helped her? Clearly, her situation was dire enough that he sent her away, which begs the question, who is she running from? And why? But if I start asking those questions, I'll start to uncover a reality that I cannot escape from, and if I don't want to be involved in this, then I have to stay out of it.
Not. My. Problem .
"Are you just going to stare at me or are you going to say something?" Her tone is snarky and makes me regret answering the door.
I fold my arms over my chest and lean against my desk. "I'm trying to figure out what to do."
"Well." She sighs and slides one arm out of the strap of her backpack. "Are you going to kill me?"
"What? No. Of course not." Not tonight, at least, but I don't mention that part. If she keeps getting on my nerves, I might.
But anyone who knows me knows that that's not true either, because even though I'm involved in illicit activities, I would never hurt her. Not after everything I've been through. I sigh as I realize that’s exactly why Silver sent her to me.
"Okay then." She drops her backpack onto the floor near the door. "Then it's settled. I'm staying."
I kick off the desk and stand upright. "Wh-what? I didn't say that. You can't stay here. I could be an axe murderer, for all you know. Didn't anyone ever tell you it's dangerous to knock on random stranger's doors at night?"
She places her hand on her hip, jutting the thing out dramatically, and that gesture alone is enough to show me her true personality, not the one masked by the desperate pleas for a place to hide out. "You're not a random stranger. You're Silver's friend, which by extension makes you my friend. And friends let friends crash when they're homeless and in need of help. So tell me, Archer , are you going to kick this friend out?"
The way she says my name grates at me in equal parts satisfaction and utter annoyance, and I hate that I can't quite figure out which is more.
"We are not friends," I tell her, very matter-of-fact.
She shrugs and steps away from the borderline disgusting bag she left behind. She extends her hand. "Archer, London. There. Now we're on a first-name basis. That must be a step toward friends, right?"
I glare down at her, envisioning picking her up and carrying her back out of my apartment and outside. "How did you get into the building?" It suddenly dawns on me that she shouldn't have been able to.
She rolls her eyes. "I just did. Now shake my hand like a gentleman."
Reluctantly, I slide my hand into hers, noting just how fucking small she is in every way. A slight pang stabs me in the heart at the idea that someone could have abused her to the condition she's in now.
"Don't look at me like that," London says.
"Like what?"
"Like I might break."
Our hands, still locked together, linger between us, filling the awkward space. Finally, I release her and return my arms across my chest, the sensation of her skin on mine burning even in the absence of her.
"If you don't mind," she continues without letting me respond, not that I planned on it anyway. "I'd really love to take a shower." London tilts her head in both directions. "If you could just point me…"
"Right. Yeah." I march across the room, grab her bag from where she left it, and head toward the bathroom. "Restroom is through here. Uh, there're towels in that closet in there. Use whatever you need to. Do you, uh, do you have clothes to change into?"
Her face tenses, only just slightly, before she says, "No."
Whatever she was running from was so bad that she couldn't even properly prepare. I'm surprised Silver would send her off like this, but perhaps he didn't have a choice.
"I can get you something to wear," I find myself saying, unsure of why I'm entertaining any of this. "And while you're showering, I'll phone Silver again."
Her brows pinch together. "You'll phone him? What are you, elderly?"
"Whatever." I don't know why everything she says annoys me, but it does, and the sooner I figure out what to do with her, the better. I'm not meant to have other people around. It's better when I'm alone. I pause before I shut the door behind me and close her in, and nod at her arm. "Does that arm have a cast on it?"
London brings her arm toward her chest like she's weirdly protecting it. "Maybe. Why?"
"Because I don't think you're supposed to get them wet. Do you need to cover it or something?"
"No."
I gawk at her for a long minute before giving up. "Okay then." Dropping her bag into the bathroom, I leave her to find something of mine to wear. Given her visible injuries, I should probably stick to something baggy and comfortable. I quickly settle on a black t-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants, snatching a pair of new boxer briefs just in case she needs something to wear under them.
Standing in the doorway, I watch her examine herself in the mirror. Her hazy gaze trails the finger she runs over her sunken cheek and peels the stuck hair off her face. Even battered, she's frustratingly beautiful and makes me wonder who could have treated her like this. Maybe it was an abusive partner or knowing Silver was involved, it could have been a boss of some type. Regardless of who it was, it doesn't change the fact that she's here now, and the sooner she gets cleaned up, the sooner she'll be gone.
"Here are these," I tell her and offer her the clothes. "The boxers are new, fresh from the wash. I didn't know what all you needed."
London comes over, her gait slower and rockier than it was earlier. I hadn't realized she was struggling so badly with walking until now. "You're nice for a grump," she says, taking the clothes from me.
"I'm not a grump," I blurt out even though she's not wrong. "And I'm not nice," I add.
"Whatever you say, grump." She's awful feisty for someone asking for help from a stranger. Clearly, she knows the people Silver hangs around with are criminals. I mean, Silver himself is a notorious fixer. Surely, she's not stupid enough to get too cocky with the wrong people. But maybe that's why she's in the condition she is—she mouthed off to the wrong guy.
I regret the thought immediately. I don't care what she said to anyone , man or woman, she didn't deserve what happened to her. I shouldn't, but a strong desire to figure out who hurt her washes over me, but I swallow it down and turn around, leaving the bathroom and trailing back into the openness of the living area.
Running my hand through my hair, I tug it back and off my face. "What are you doing, Archer?" I whisper.