Chapter 9
nine
. . .
Mia
I wake lazy, leisurely. It’s late. There’s a ray of sun slashing the bedroom in two. It’s been a long time since the sun’s shined on me here in Halo City.
Armin.
He’s the reason I’m not waking up scared, why I’ve gotten enough sleep, why I’m fed, and watered.
He’s always been good at keeping me, like a plant, or a housecat.
The effects of the morphine have finally subsided.
I shake one leg free of the blanket and stretch it up towards the ceiling to check out the wound on my heel from being dragged.
Not bad. Everything’s starting to heal. I lift up the edge of the bandage on the inside of my arm to peek underneath, and for once it doesn’t look like a medical nightmare in there.
I listen for him, in the office or the bathroom, but I don’t hear anything. I smell freshly brewed coffee, though, so he can’t be far.
It’s been a nice vacation from reality, but I’ve got to end it. I’ve got to pretend to crawl out of the gutter with some sob story or another for Harvey, and pray he doesn’t see through it and slit my throat on the spot.
Work is work. No way around it. I’m an FBI agent, not a trad wife.
I pull myself out of bed and slip into the robe he brought me, cinch it tight around these ridiculous satin pajamas.
Gone are the terrycloth days of East Greenwich.
Armin’s using his lottery winnings more these days, and it shows.
He pins it on Halo Protective, but I see through him.
He’s worming his way into my life through consumer spending, like with the SUV he gave me back at his cabin.
It’s a sweet gesture.
Any woman would kill for a sugar daddy like Armin. Kind. Gentle. Skilled, in bed and out. He’s even taken to cooking for me, something he didn’t know how to do back at his cabin.
I wonder if he’s learned just for me.
But there’s no way to give in to his charms, no way to be together, besides an occasional drink and the occasional fuck. Not now. I have a job to do. And I’d be fooling myself into thinking there was a future for us after the case, after Harvey’s behind bars.
And anyway, Armin’s in love with a sex worker named Mia, who doesn’t exist.
I push the memory out of my mind, when I cried into his arms, and he held me, and stroked my hair. I pretend that wasn’t me, not any version of me, real or invented.
It was hormones, I tell myself; fatigue, a morphine side effect.
There’s no such thing as love for an undercover FBI agent.
I wander into the kitchen, finally pain-free enough in my heels to walk normally for the first time since the Assistant DA had me nabbed off the street. Is his shitty little hitman still on the hunt for me, or did they turn their attention elsewhere? I open up my phone to scan the headlines.
Sixth Body Turns Up at Pier 27
Halo City’s Worst Crime Spree in Years
I wonder who Manning pays over at the paper to phrase things like that. Or maybe Harvey takes care of that one, keeping the press quiet in Halo City. Pretending dead women just ‘turn up.’ And shutting down any focus on the men who put them there.
The rest of the article is a meandering, bullshit word soup: half retrospective on crime in Halo City, and half improvised speculation on what new tech the Halo City cops might unleash.
Clever. Harvey’s got a hand in that too. I saw the contracts when I broke into his office back at the club in Victory Mills. Nothing more lucrative than funding and inciting both the crime and the punishment.
I read to the end to see which of the girls they put in the harbor instead of me. The article doesn’t say her name.
‘Another local prostitute,' they say.
And nothing more.
I slam my phone down on the kitchen counter.
I grab the Moka pot off the stove top and empty it into a mug Armin’s left out for me, next to an avocado toast and an acai bowl.
He has no idea what I eat, so this week has been a parade of trendy foods.
I suppose he researched them on social media.
I pick at the coconut shavings on top of the smoothie bowl.
It’s sweet of him, and I hate that too.
I seize my cup of coffee and wander over to the window to peek out between the blinds.
Armin’s out there, leaned up against his armored SUV. His broad shoulders sure do fill out that suit. He’s taking his Halo City bodyguard work seriously, flannel days behind him. And he looks good: his dress shirt pulls taut over all those muscles underneath. A pang of desire hits me deep inside.
I’ve got to get out of here. I’m in Halo City to put Harvey away, not to hop on Armin’s dick as many times as I can.
Though would one more round hurt?
An SUV pulls up, slow. One that I recognize. My heart races.
Harvey’s.
My hand slips, and the coffee hits the floor in one splash, splatters my legs. My blood runs cold.
The SUV’s window slides down, and I catch an unmistakable glimpse of Harvey’s driver’s face. My heart beats ragged inside my chest.
He reaches out. He hands an envelope to Armin.
And he drives away.
I lean hard on the windowsill, weak all over, and I scan Armin’s face, trying to find what I missed. It makes a lot more sense that Harvey had gotten to him during those long, low-paid years when he was a small-town sheriff.
I search for the monster inside.
But I can’t find it.
All I see is the man I shouldn’t love.
It’s worse than a compromised identity. I have to get out of here. Now.
Armin opens up the door of his own SUV and I breathe a sigh of relief. I can’t face him again. At least now I won’t have to. I’ve got time to get it together and escape.
But then he slams the door shut and turns, empty-handed. He’s only dropped the envelope off.
He’s on his way back inside.