Solomon (Club Sin #6)

3. What Is This? Tom Fucking Clancy?

what is this? tom fucking clancy?

Solomon

S carlett wakes me after three and a half hours. She gives me her watch, since mine was taken, and then lays down and rolls over. She's asleep within seconds, as only an operator can fall asleep.

I stretch my muscles as best I can in the shelter, forcing myself awake.

Mostly, I think about Scar, everything we went through, and how things ended. I mean, I fucking died. Not my fault. But she seems to be harboring a hell of a grudge that I wasn't actually dead and never contacted her. What was I supposed to do, though? I'd stopped officially existing the moment I joined the CIA's off-book kill unit. So when I "died," she was the only one to miss me. The rest of the unit was dead already except her and me, and our CO wasn’t the type to shed tears that I wasn't coming back. I woke up in a strange place and was told I was starting over and could have no contact with anyone from my previous life. I thought I was doing her a favor. I figured she'd get over me and move on.

I never did. I couldn't. I loved her. But she wasn't ready to hear that—I almost told her that day in Caracas, but I pussed out. It wasn't the time. Maybe it was, but I was too goddamned scared of her not loving me back. So I didn't say it, and then I took six slugs to the chest and never saw her again.

Why stir up the old hurt? Let her believe I was dead. I never thought I'd see her again, so I tried to move on. I did. I really fucking tried. But no matter how many of the girls down in Hel I slept with, none of them ever stirred more than a little affection and sexual relief in me. Not exactly shocking, I suppose, considering I was paying them for sex and didn’t even try to get to know them on a personal level beyond idle pillow chat. Except Violet, but that’s a different story.

Mainly, the problem was that they just weren't Scarla. They didn't know me. I wouldn't let them; they wouldn't want to. Not really. Not the real me. Even my brothers don’t know the real me.

Dawn comes, and Scarla's three-and-a-half hours of sleep finds her waking up on her own.

She looks at me. "Let's move."

I nod, and we wiggle out of the crawlspace beneath the fallen tangle of trees. I fill in the Dakota pit and create a mess of branches and dirt where we'd been, so it looks like we were never there. Within ten minutes of Scarla opening her eyes, we're gone down the trail.

Such as it is, at least. We're way off the beaten path, so our trail is merely us winding and weaving steadily northwest toward what we hope is the Colombia-Brazil border and something like human civilization.

Several hours of exhausting hiking later, sweating, panting, hungry, and irritable, we crest a ridge and come out onto a road…

That’s occupied by a cluster of armed men standing around a battered, muddy old SUV, sharing cigarettes and a plastic liter bottle of something that's not water. They see us, we see them, and then all hell breaks loose.

I drop to one knee, sling my rifle up, and crack off half a dozen rounds in their direction. Scar puts down a pair of three-round bursts as well, and the men scatter. We both dropped two, but there are at least four more—it was hard to get a head count before the scrum started. I scramble back down the ridge with Scar beside me as bullets whizz overhead, automatic weaponsfire rattling.

"We gotta get that jeep," Scar hisses at me. "I'm fuckin' sick of hupping my ass through this fuckin' jungle."

"On it," I say. "Cover me."

"Sol—goddammit." She crawls after me as I shimmy on my belly back up the slope to the crest of the ridge, peek over, and see that the SUV has been temporarily abandoned.

I put a round into the brush in front of the jeep—It's not an actual Jeep brand, but we tend to call any SUV found in the wild a jeep. A shout follows my exploratory shot, and a flurry of long bursts sends a hail of rounds over my head.

"You can't just run over and take it, Sol," Scarla snaps. "You'll get your ass killed…again."

"No shit, Sherlock," I snap back. "So fuckin' cover me."

"While you do what, exactly?" she asks.

“This." I lurch onto the path and sprint as hard as I can for the brush behind the jeep. As I get closer, I recognize the SUV as an old-as-fuck Nissan Patrol—like a Toyota FJ40, and almost as good. Almost. Whatever—it's wheels.

I dive into the underbrush as bullets buzz and snap—too damn close. Shouts follow me, and bodies stomping through the brush after me. I can only hope Scarla takes the hint.

I crawl parallel to the road, away from the SUV, hearing my pursuers close behind. I come to a downed log, slink over it, and then rotate to put my barrel over the log. Wait—wait.

One, two, three, four—five. I'll take it. I open fire, putting a slug through the leg of the rear-most tango, sending him screaming to the ground. I rake my fire forward on full auto—half the rounds go high and wide, of course, because fuck full auto. But it does what I intend: injures them. For good measure, I put a few more slugs into non-lethal areas. The bullet wounds won't kill them immediately, so I’m keeping my oath if they can't get help fast enough, that’s not my fuckin' problem.

God, this no-kill oath is a pain in the ass sometimes. Hard to remember when the bullets start flying. The instinct is to put down headshots.

With our pursuit bleeding onto the jungle floor, I run back for the road, finding Scar in the Nissan, engine idling, waiting for me.

"Took you fuckin' long enough," she mutters as I climb into the passenger seat.

"Oh, fuck off. That was, what, three minutes?"

She snorts. "And the Sol I used to know would've dropped 'em all in one."

"Yeah, well, things change. People change." Probably a good time to tell her about my oath. "One thing that's changed is this." I show her my tattooed-over brand—the broken arrow.

"The fuck's that supposed to mean?" she asks. "Broken arrow, like the nuclear code thing?"

"Not exactly." She's not gonna like this. "I don't know where to start, honestly."

She glances at me, eyebrow arched. "That's ominous."

I snort. "Not ominous. It's just kind of a story."

She laughs. "Well, Sol, good thing we have several thousand miles of Amazon to cross while you tell me."

"Fuck, fine." I scrub my face and then trace the raised lines of the brand. "It's not just a tattoo."

She brushes my hand away and feels the brand with her fingertips. "You tattooed over a fucking brand? Who branded you?"

“That's where the story comes in. It was a choice I made."

She shoots me a very thoughtful side-eye glance. "And I'm guessing it has something to do with why you ghosted me—literally?"

"Ghosted you," I echo. "A pretty on-the-nose way to put it."

"Just tell me the fucking story, Solomon. Quit hedging. Jesus."

I frown at her. "Is it me, or are you pricklier than ever?"

"Fuck you. Tell me the story, asshole."

Yeah, not me—she's pricklier and more pissed off than ever. Which is saying something. But I imagine it's probably my fault.

"So, Caracas. I took six rounds—four of them hit my vest, which absorbed the worst of it, but still broke most of my ribs since the fucker was right fucking there."

She scrubs her face. "I see that moment over and over again, every fucking night, Sol. You were point. The whole fucking city was on fire, it seemed like. Riots everywhere. Crowds skirmishing with police, military pouring in, separatists, cartels, fucking everyone was trying to get a piece of something that day. And there we were, eight fucking Americans on an off-book op with lousy intel."

I can tell she needs to talk it out, so I let her. "Lousy intel plus a massively unstable situation. Shit was changing by the hour."

"We fought our way across the whole damn city, door by door, block by block. We were nearly to the extract location. What, like two blocks away?"

"Barely that. I could hear the helo. But they were taking heavy fire from the street. They couldn't wait."

She nods. "So we double-timed it. You called a halt at an intersection. It looked clear. I was right behind you, and it was fucking clear. You gave the signal to move out, went around the corner, and that asshole popped out of nowhere and just fuckin'…unloaded."

"We couldn't see him where he was and where we were. He was in a doorway around the corner; I think he was trying to put a bead on a sniper or something."

"Yeah, some asshole was taking potshots at anything that moved. He wasn't very good, though." She laughs. "Whoever it was couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a fucking shotgun."

"Exactly. So I rolled out, and he was rolling out to cross the street at the same time. He saw me and I saw him. I actually fired first—I put three right in his fucking throat." My eyes close as I remember—I see it in flashes. "He was so surprised. How the bastard kept his feet, I'll never fucking know. But he did. I thought he was done. He had three fucking NATO rounds in his goddamned trachea. I let my guard down. That was all it took. He leveled his rifle at me and blasted half his magazine before I knew what was happening. I didn't even feel it at first—I thought he missed."

"So did I," she says.

"Turns out most of 'em hit me. As I said, the vest took four, but he was so fucking close I still took a lot of damage. Broken ribs, punctured lung. Another went under the vest—a ricochet, they told me, since it went in at an upward angle. Bounced off a rib, left a shitload of shards all inside me, and tore my liver all to hell. Super fun. The other hit my hipbone and went up the other way, nicked my kidney and the already punctured lung."

She shakes her head, glancing at me. "How the fuck did you survive that, Sol?"

"I shouldn't have. You put me on that helo. That's the last thing I remember is you and Donk throwing me into the helo. Donk was hit bad, and you were hit.”

She waves a hand. "Grazed my arm. It was nothing." She chews on the inside of her cheek. "Donk died about ten minutes after that helo took off. He knew he was dead, though. He was just fighting it off long enough to get you out."

I choke. "Fuckin' Donk, man. He was a beast."

"No one else like him."

"I remember seeing you. You grabbed my hand as the helo started to lift off. I…I couldn't figure out why you weren't coming with me."

"Wasn't room. Helo was already overloaded. I could pass for a local, no one else could." She shakes her head, huffing. "I wanted to go with you."

"I know, Scar."

"So. How'd you survive?"

"That helo wasn't military. Or rather, it had been hijacked, sort of. There was a medic on board, and he kept me alive. How, I don't fuckin' know. Some sort of medical miracle. Kept my heart beating and plugged the holes so my blood stayed on the inside, I guess.”

"Hijacked? Who the fuck could and would hijack a CIA helo in Caracas fucking Venezuela?"

"My boss. He has some sort of contact really fucking high up in the Pentagon. Someone feeding him intel on operators. People on the edge."

"Edge of what?" she asks.

"The shit. Burnout. Psych failure."

"You were solid, Sol. Don't try and tell me you were losing it."

I shrug. "I don't know. You and me…my brothers, losing Gabe in that mess in Kandahar…I wasn't solid, babe. I was a fucking mess."

"Gabe biting it really fucked with your head, huh?"

"In a bad way. It was so unexpected and so unnecessary. Should've been a quick raid, no casualties. Take out the target, exfil, easy. Done. But that fuckin' kid, man. I hesitated. Gabe hesitated. He wasn't even fucking nine, Scar. Nine . With a suicide vest. Gabe and I both hesitated and then the kid grabbed the deadman's switch and Gabe tackled him. Saved all of us. Wasn't anything left of Gabe to take home."

She reaches out and squeezes my knee. "I know. I guess I didn't realize how bad it affected you."

"I didn't want you to. I lied about it to the psych eval board. Lied about it to the CO. to you. The whole team. Yeah, yeah, I'm good, I'm fine. I was not fucking fine. I was wrecked. I had no business being on that op in Caracas. I was out of my mind, grieving Gabe. Losing myself in you. I wasn't focused. If I'd been focused, I'd have hit that shooter in the head, but I fucking missed, Scar. I fucking missed."

"He was your best friend."

"And I'm supposed to be a goddamned professional operator. We handle that shit and move on. I didn't handle it."

She doesn't answer right away. "It's done, Sol. You gotta let it go at some point." She glances at me. "On with the story."

"I woke up in a medical facility. No windows. Patched up and hurting like a motherfucker. Hurt to breathe, hurt to move, hurt to just fuckin' exist. I was in and out of consciousness for a while, and as far as I remember, no one ever came to visit. That's how I knew I wasn't in a government facility. It sure as fuck wasn't Walter Reed."

"I'm on the edge of my seat, here," she deadpans.

"Har-har-har. I'm not the storyteller Diego was, okay?"

She snorts. "Diego could turn picking up a burrito into a riveting story."

"No shit. Remember that story he told about the hooker and the muffin?"

She splutters. "I damn near cracked a rib laughing."

"Anyway. Eventually, a doctor came in. Didn't speak a lick of English or any language I know. Checked my vitals, went over my various stitches and incisions and shit, and left. More time alone. No TV, nothing. Not a goddamn thing to do but lay there and hurt and stare at the fucking walls and ceilings and try not to crawl out of my skin. The light never turned off. No way to track time. I coulda been in there days, hours, weeks, who the fuck knows. Probably a few days, assuming the doc checked on me twice a day. Also part of the fun, if they had me on any painkillers at all, it was minimal, just enough to take the edge off."

"That doesn't sound fun at all."

"Honestly, it was worse than what those FARC fuckers did to me. I'll take a good old-fashioned beating over being bedridden, bored, and in constant all-over pain any day of the week. I nearly lost my goddamn mind. Maybe I did, I dunno. I talked to you. I talked to Gabe. I swear to fucking God, I heard Gabe tell me to get my shit together—I heard his voice as clear as I hear yours right now."

"I've heard that can happen."

"It was trippy."

"So, at some point, someone showed up, I assume."

"Eventually, yes. A woman. A lot like you, as a matter of fact. Tall end of medium height, slender, hard as fucking nails. Latin origin of some sort, who the fuck knows what—she doesn't share. Calls herself Inez and says she has an offer for me."

"An offer?"

"She told me she worked for an individual who shall remain nameless, and he’s responsible for the fact that I'm still alive. He intercepted the original extract helo and replaced it with his own crew, including state-of-the-art mobile medical, which was the only reason I survived long enough to get to a hospital."

"Again, who the fuck can intercept CIA transport without the CIA knowing?"

"Right?" I shrug. "I still don't have an answer for that. He has seriously deep pockets and serious connections all over the world. And for some reason, he decided to put together a team of fucked up former operators." I growl, frustrated. "I'm not telling this well. Go back. The offer Inez presented was simple. Door number one, recuperate where I was long enough to stand on my own two feet and then take my chances out in the world. But the problem with that was I was listed as deceased, and because of my status as an off-book black ops operator, JSOC wouldn't recognize me or take me back. I'd died in Caracas, mission failure, no acknowledgment, yada yada yada. Plus, she made it clear, with very convincing evidence, that I had enemies out there. Evidence that what happened in Caracas was not an accident. It wasn't just bad intel."

This gets her attention. She jams on the brakes and stares at me. "The fuck are you saying?"

"I'm saying she showed me very convincing evidence that the op in Caracas was compromised. Someone wanted me dead, and they managed to make sure shit went sideways." I wait for the penny to drop.

"Meaning, someone on the inside." She frowns, thinking. "Someone at the CIA wanted you dead? What is this? Tom fucking Clancy?"

"Except I didn't and still don't know anything that would put me in the crosshairs of anyone powerful enough to pull that off. She didn’t know who, but she had enough dots connected that I couldn't ignore the possibility that she was right. If I tried to go back in, I couldn't be sure whoever had twisted the Caracas op wouldn't finish the job."

"There are only a handful of options, Sol,” she says. “Val Tomlinson, Chad McMaster, Albert Ridley…shit, what was Chad's direct superior's name? Kelly something."

"Kelly Kyle."

“Yeah, that bitch. Fuck, I hated her. Snooty ass bitch. Thought she shit roses and pissed rosé.”

I laugh. "She did give off that attitude, didn’t she?" I shake my head as Scarla drives onward again. "The only other option besides the ones you listed would be Admiral Harmon. Those five are the only ones who knew enough about the op to be able to fuck with it. Val told me that even the fucking White House only knew the barest outlines, so they'd have plausible deniability."

"And good luck proving anything. Those five are some of the most powerful people in Washington that no one has ever heard of. You'd have to have concrete proof to even make the accusation, and good luck surviving long enough to get that proof." She yanks the shifter down into second, shoves it up into third, then looks at me. "The other option?"

"Accept her offer. Which was, again, very simple. Remain officially dead. Cut all ties to my previous life, no exceptions. Take an oath and join the team her boss was putting together."

"A team for what?"

"She wouldn't say. I had to take the oath first."

"So, cut all ties, disappear from what little life you did have, and take an oath without knowing what you were swearing into?"

“Pretty much."

"What was the oath?"

"Once you're in, there's no going back; never take a life; loyalty to the brotherhood above all."

She accepts this in silence, staring straight ahead. "You swore an oath to never kill anyone?"

"I did."

"You're… you're fucking WindWalker, Sol." She looks at me. "By my count, you've taken out…what, seven, eight people so far, just on this little adventure of ours?”

"Didn't kill any of them. Choked out the guard back in the camp and wounded and disabled the rest. Now, that said, being wounded out here is as good as a death sentence, but that's not my problem. I didn't kill them. Not my fault if they can't get help fast enough."

"That's a pretty major handicap in this situation."

I laugh. "No shit. It's hard as hell to remember to pull back."

"Jesus, Sol. So…you took the oath."

"I did. At that point, all I knew was it looked a whole hell of a lot like someone back in Washington wanted me dead for reasons unknown. I assumed you thought I was dead. And if they wanted me dead and found out I wasn't, they'd use you to get to me. I know, you can take care of yourself. But…I was fucking dead . I did actually literally die—I coded twice, I was told. You watched me die. The safest bet seemed to let you think I was dead. I couldn't go back anyway. I was sick as a dog, Scar. It was gonna take fuckin' months to get back to anything like normal. So it's not like I could just go and hunt down whoever had it out for me. I couldn't even get out of bed to take a piss on my own, for fuck's sake. So yeah, I chose to let you think I was dead. And from what Inez told me, you'd never find out otherwise. That was the plan."

"We’ll get back to that. For now, keep going. Tell me about this brotherhood."

“Once I was healed enough to travel, which took three months of bed rest and PT, as well as several surgeries, she brought me back Stateside in a private jet. Out into the desert somewhere outside Vegas."

"And you still don't know what the job is at this point?"

I scrub my face. "God, I'm shit at this. No, she told me some on the flight across the pond. Her boss is a reclusive entrepreneur putting together some kind of ultra-exclusive nightclub in Vegas, and he wanted dedicated security. But the catch was he wanted very specific people. Guys like me, she said. Men who didn't officially exist, operators who were broken and fucked up. Men who wanted more than a life of being a ghost, only to eventually become a ghost with no one to mourn you when you inevitably take one to the T-box."

"Sounds pretty fucked, if you ask me."

"I guess it does, doesn't it?" I laugh and then sigh. "But the way she framed it…it appealed. I mean, I got recruited into the CIA in my sophomore year of college. Straight from Harvard Law to the Farm. From the Farm to a wet ops squad doing the CIA's dirty work in the armpits of the world. It was exciting. I didn't care about the money, you know? My brothers were all I cared about, and they had their own lives. I checked on them, you know. They got pulled into organized crime and had some good gigs going. They didn’t need me. So fuck it. I put everything into my career with the Company. Eventually, Chad roped me into the deep dark shit, and you know the rest. But…" I trail off with a sigh.

"After Gabe died, "she starts, knowing where I was going.

"Exactly. Gabe dying did something to me. Gabe was a top-tier operator. Stone cold, smooth as silk, fearless, and loyal as fuck. And when he died the way he did, it just broke something in me. And then Caracas? Losing you? I thought something was off about that op from the jump. I fuckin' knew it, Scar. I knew it. Inez's intel just confirmed what I felt. So…giving up the Company who had no qualms hanging me out to fuckin' dry? Yeah, no problem. Leaving you behind was fucking torture, but it was safest for you. You had a life. It was how I could protect you. I know, I know, you didn't ask me to. But I did. I had to."

"But…Sol. Nightclub security? For one of the best operators in the fucking world? Come on. That's like a Formula One driver taking a job driving cabs. Still driving, but not the same."

"I know. But it made sense. A quiet life, away from everything. Everyone. Stable, predictable, and safe. No more buddies dying next to me."

She sighs. "I guess I get that."

I laugh. "No, you fucking don't. Nice try. Anyway. We landed at some little airstrip in the middle of fuckin' nowhere, and she put me in a van. We made one stop—a safe house in the suburbs. The door opens, and who climbs in? My fuckin' brother, Silas. God, what a reunion. I'm the oldest, and I left home for Harvard the day I graduated. Never saw either of them again."

"Why not?"

"Chicken. It was just easier. I knew they'd leave home sooner than later."

"Your dad."

I nod. "My fucking father. The bastard. And I was right, they both ran away not long after I left. Wasn't much I could do for them anyway."

"So then…"

"So then me and Si trade stories—he was an assassin for a crime syndicate called the Cabal and got assigned a mark he refused to eliminate. An FBI agent he got a little too cozy with. That put him on the outs with his former employers, and there he was, taking the same oath as me. He lost track of Saxon at some point. So, Inez takes us out into the desert, and there he fuckin' is, my baby brother, Saxon, all grown up and running from his own shit, same as me and Si. Plus two other dudes, huge dudes. Former Spec Ops guys with tragic stories just like ours. All of us were recuperating from bad injuries. All of us should have been dead. None of us had a life to go back to. All of us had enemies who wanted us dead and would make sure we stayed dead if we showed back up in the land of the living. So we all chose the oath—the brotherhood."

"So this guy was putting together a private security team comprised of rejects from the Island of Misfit Toys?"

I laugh. "Pretty much. So, she gathered us around a little campfire in the desert and made a speech. 'You five men are the start of something,' she said. 'My employer knows your stories. He knows what it feels like to be at the bottom, staring your own death in the face. Nowhere to go, no up, just death. Well, he offers you a chance at something else. You're all warriors in your own way. I'll leave it to you to share your stories with each other, but suffice it to say that you have each faced death and stand here victorious. The question you have to ask yourselves now is whether a life of violence and death is the life you want. Step beyond the light of this fire and you know what will happen. Your enemies will hunt you down and kill you. There will be no quarter, no mercy. Choose that, and…well, best of luck to you, and may whatever god you believe in be with you.

"'Or, vow to be different. And by vow, I mean a solemn oath, here among men like yourselves. Take the iron and brand each other, if you choose this path. By doing so, you choose to join a new family. A new brotherhood. The vow is simple: once you're in, there's no going back. Never take a life. Loyalty to the brotherhood above all. You will work for my employer, you will live with each other in the home my employer will provide: a safe place, a bunker beneath the club at which you will work. That will be your life. You can't go back to your friends or whatever family you may have. Your old life is gone. If you do try to return to your old life, you will not be welcomed back, even if you do survive your enemies. You will serve each other and forsake the lives now behind you. If you so choose, step forward.'"

She's quiet for a while. "I never could understand how you can memorize shit the way you do."

I laugh quietly. "Eidetic memory. Anything I see, hear, or read, I remember."

She sighs. "I get it, Sol. There've been times I want to leave everything behind. So I get it." She navigates around a series of hairpins that take us upward. "So you branded each other?"

I nod. "Rev was first, and Inez branded him. He branded Chance, Chance branded Silas, then Silas branded Saxon, and Saxon did me. A few months later we got Kane, and then Lash. Once everyone's brands healed, we tattooed over them."

"What's the significance of the broken arrow?" She asks.

"It's what we are. Former tools of death, now broken. The cycle of violence is broken."

"What use is a broken arrow, though?"

I chuckle. "Had that same thought. I honestly wrestled with it for quite a while, trying to find an answer."

She downshifts as we round another hairpin turn. "And?"

"It's a symbol that the part of me whose only use or value is in my capacity for violence has been broken. I don't need it anymore." I roll down my window and adjust my rifle into a more comfortable position. "You can repurpose the parts of an arrow. The heads can be melted down and reforged into a tool. The shafts can become tools as well. The fletching can become bedding or pillow stuffing. Whatever. The point is that I am no longer merely a weapon to be pointed at an enemy."

She nods, glancing in the rearview mirror and then back at the road. “That makes sense, actually." A long pause. "So now you…what? Live in a basement under a nightclub in Vegas, work as a bouncer, and hang out with your other broken arrow bros?"

I snicker. "Pretty much, yeah. We work out, watch movies, play video games. We work the night shift since the club is open from eight p.m. to four a.m. And it's not just the bros anymore. It was for the first few years, which honestly was necessary. We all had to learn how to deinstitutionalize ourselves. We were all career military, except for my brothers and the Cabal functioned on a quasi-military basis."

"So, what? Chicks can be broken arrows, too?"

I frown, scrub my stubble, which is pretty much a beard now. "Hmmm, I don’t know. The women who live with us are all partners. Significant others. Rev met Myka first by accident, and that started a sort of chain reaction. Now, me and Lash are the last ones without a woman. They live with us, stay in the quarters with us, and work in the club. They haven't taken the oath, but they take the brotherhood seriously. They're all sorta fucked up in their own way, too; they're Island of Misfit Toys rejects themselves, just like us."

She eyes me. "What do you do about sex?" If I didn't know better, I'd think she was blushing, but Scarlett has never blushed once in her life.

"Well, there's always this," I lift my right hand. "But Club Sin is not just a nightclub. There's an underground fighting ring and an even more exclusive members-only section called Hel, H-E-L, that’s, um…well, it's a brothel."

She stares at me. "Really? A brothel?"

Let's just say that Scarlett has rather strong feelings about brothels, forced prostitution in particular—sexual slavery. I mean, anyone with a fragment of a conscience hates that shit, but Scarla especially gets pretty worked up over it. She's never shared specifically, but I assume personal experience is the unspoken context behind it.

"It's not like that, Scar. The girls are handpicked by the boss. They're there voluntarily. They lease their room at a flat rate—which happens to be a fraction of the rates charged anywhere else. They receive free medical care. We provide security for them. They choose their clients, they set their rates, and all we do is make sure they're able to work as they see fit safely. Any hint of disrespect to our girls is treated with the utmost prejudice. Motherfuckers have left on stretchers for talking back to the girls too harshly." I see the question in her eyes, so I answer it. "Those of us who have availed ourselves of their services always pay, even if the girls would give us an employee discount."

She's quiet for a while. "You have a favorite?"

I shrug. "Sure."

"Tell me about her."

"Why?"

"Curious."

"Bullshit."

"I am. I'm curious."

"Fine. But you gotta tell me about your boy toys."

She eyes me. "Deal. You go first."

“Her name is Violet. I doubt that's her real name, obviously. She's mixed-race, Hawaiian and Black. She was raised ultra-conservative religious and got into sex work as a kind of…reaction, I guess, to the way she was raised. She's attending UNLV, studying social work. She's doing sex work partly to pay for school and partly because she wants to. She enjoys the work. She charges a lot and is very selective about her clientele."

"Sounds like you've spent a lot of time with her."

"Eh, not a lot. But we do talk. She's a great listener, and so'm I. I care about her." I sigh. "It’s a weird relationship, to be honest. It's not platonic, but it's not romantic, either. Sort of like friends with benefits, but we talk about serious shit, too. I dunno. I haven't been to see her in a while, though. Or anyone.”

"Why not?"

I shrug and shake my head. "Not sure, honestly. I was starting to get confused, maybe? The serious talks were happening more and the sex less. And I think it was true for her, too, so I backed off. We both knew what it was and what it wasn't, and it wouldn't be doing either of us any favors if we let things get muddy."

"She got big titties?"

I cackle. "Scar. Come on."

"I'm serious."

"Why do you want to know that?" I turn to face her more squarely. "You're not fooling anyone."

She frowns at me. "What's that mean?"

"You can act like you don't care all you want, but we both know you do." She opens her mouth, but I talk over her. "I don't expect you to admit anything, Scarlett. We're not there yet. We don’t have to be. But don't play games, and don't bullshit me."

She blows out a rough, harsh breath. "It took me a fucking year after you died before I could even think about hooking up with anyone. A fucking year, Sol. A year of celibacy. You know what a raging bitch I was that year?"

I laugh. "Scar, babe, you're always a bitch."

She nods, points at me. "Exactly. Now multiply that by extreme sexual frustration."

"Oof. Bet your team walked on eggshells around you," I say.

"Very thin eggshells."

"I'm sorry, Scar."

She leans away from me. "Fuck you. Fuck your sorry."

"Scar—"

She shakes her head. "No. Shut the fuck up and leave me the fuck alone."

"Scarlett, we have to talk this out at some point."

Her hand blurs and the barrel of a pistol touches my forehead. "I said, shut— the fuck —up."

I hold up my hands. "Fine. Fine. Keep burying your head in the goddamn sand, then."

She puts the gun away and drives in silence.

It seems I have a lot of work to do before I can get her to admit how much she missed me. Shit, before I can get her there, I have to get her to express her anger at me—without killing me, preferably.

Maybe, eventually, hopefully, we'll get to the point where I can get her naked and show her how much I missed her.