Chapter 3 #2
The humor suddenly disappeared from the man’s expression, and when he leaned in closer to me, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on ends. This wasn’t a flirtatious lean, this was a lean that said he was about to drop a serious hammer.
“I just did you a huge favor, grift—”
“Stop calling me that,” I hissed between clenched jaws.
He arched a quizzical brow. “It’s what you are isn’t it?
” That question stopped me in my tracks.
Ice filled my veins and chest, so cold it nearly stopped my heart from beating and my lungs from drawing breath.
All I could do was sit there mute as he continued.
“Saw you boost that prick’s wallet,” he revealed quietly, only loud enough for me to hear.
“I have to admit, you’ve got some serious skills. ”
Oh God. He saw me. I couldn’t breathe.
He kept going. “You’re good. Probably one of the best I’ve ever seen, and if it makes you feel any better, there isn’t another person here who has a clue.”
I was going to be sick. “Are—are you a cop?”
“Not a cop.”
Well, that was a relief. Except . . . “Then how—”
“Like I said, there probably aren’t many people better than you.
I just happen to be one of them.” To prove his point, he slid my wallet across the bar.
He’d managed to get into my purse and snatch my wallet without me even knowing.
“That’s why I knew the moment you spotted the watch on that guy’s wrist. And it’s also when I knew I had to step in, because you were about to make a huge mistake. ”
My throat suddenly felt like it was packed with sawdust. “What-what do you mean?”
“That guy you nearly robbed? Let’s just say he’d have no problem coming after you to get back what you took. And he’d make the process more painful than you could probably imagine.”
I highly doubted that. Thanks to those guys my dad had swindled, I had a pretty good idea how criminals reacted to being taken for suckers, but that didn’t mean this stranger’s words didn’t cause my skin to prickle with goosebumps.
If what he was saying was really true, thanks to him, I’d dodged a serious bullet.
The last thing my family and I needed was two sets of bad guys coming after us. One was terrible enough.
My curiosity now well and truly piqued, I leaned in closer to the handsome—and possibly insane—guy, and whispered, “Who was that dude?”
“Alex Markoff. Not someone you need to know, trust me,” he answered cryptically before a cunning smirk took over his handsome expression.
“Says you,” I mumbled sullenly over the rim of my cocktail glass before sucking more of my drink back.
“Think about it. How’s a guy like that afford a watch like the one he was wearing? The answer to that is, not in any good way. You’re lucky I came along when I did.”
The shiver of dread I’d felt a moment ago was relieved by his get-out-of-jail-free card.
“Lucky isn’t quite the word I was thinking,” I snarked before narrowing my eyes in suspicion.
“Why did you come along when you did? And how do you know so much about a guy who’s “supposedly””—I added air quotes for effect—“such a bad guy?”
“Like I said, I came along to save your ass, and I know about Markoff because it’s my job to know about him.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a cop.” Everything he was saying made my head spin. I didn’t get a cop vibe off this man, but how he was talking made it seem like he was some sort of law enforcement. At the thought of that, the cash I’d just stuffed into my bra began to burn my skin.
“I’m not,” he assured me. “I just occasionally work with them.”
I arched a perplexed brow. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
He reached around into his back pocket and pulled out a business card. The thick cardstock paper was an attractive slate gray color. The logo on the front was simple, a pair of Greek letters in a bold black font.
“Weston Scott. Alpha Omega,” I read.
“You can call me West.”
I ignored him and kept reading. “Private investigation and security?” I looked up at him, no less confused than I was a second ago. “So you, like, install security systems or something?”
One corner of his mouth hooked up, and I wanted to smack myself for thinking he looked damn good when he smirked or smiled. “Not exactly.”
I was officially done with this whole messed up, disastrous night.
Snatching up my glass, I threw the remaining three quarters of my drink back in two big gulps, instantly regretting it when the vodka burned all the way down my throat and pooled deep in my belly.
There was a reason shots were so small. Large quantities of booze were not made to be chugged.
“Oh, that was a mistake,” I wheezed out.
“Jesus. Everything north of my bellybutton is on fire.” I coughed as tears brimmed in my eyes.
“It’s like I just drank a glass of lava. ”
And this was why I could never successfully seduce a man. This was the real me, here. A walking, talking, dumpster fire.
“You good?” Weston asked.
I greedily snatched up the glass of water the woman behind the bar just slid over and sucked on the straw like my life depended on it, drinking down half the glass before the flames in my chest, throat, and stomach were finally doused.
“Yeah,” I sputtered and cleared my throat.
There really was no coming back from this.
My night was officially shot to hell, I’d made a complete ass out of myself, and now I’d burned off the lining of my stomach.
It was time to call this whole thing a wash.
Standing from my stool, I snatched up the wallet the jackass had taken from my purse and flipped it open.
The fact that everything inside was exactly where it was supposed to be surprised the hell out of me, but I was determined not to show it.
He’d lifted my wallet to prove a point, not to steal the piddly amount of cash inside.
Good to know. Pulling out a few bills, I stuffed them into the bartender’s tip jar before jamming it and the business card back into my purse.
“So, this has been swell and all, but I’ve had all the fun I can handle for one evening. Have a nice life, buddy.”
With that, I sauntered out of the bar with my back straight and my head held high, silently hoping I didn’t trip on my heels and fall face first onto the marble tile. Because that was exactly how my night was going.