Chapter 4
“Here you go, hon.”
A cup of coffee landed in front of Nala.
She blinked, taking in the sights of a family restaurant.
Surly women in pink aprons. Kids coloring on placemats.
Students attempting to study. It was a common sight, no matter where Nala traveled in the country.
Yet after what she had seen back at The Raven? Everything was extraordinary.
When Varen said she would take her out for coffee, however, this wasn’t what she had in mind.
Portland was teeming with coffee shops. You couldn’t throw a rock without landing on a barista’s head.
Fuck me. She realized how late it was. None of the cozy coffee shops would be open now.
A 24-hour family restaurant on the inner skirts of suburbia would have to do.
Nala vaguely remembered the hour leading up to this moment. After that sordid display of spanking revelry, they had to watch Lucian and Robin play with feather dusters and… a crop. A crop right against Robin’s ass. It was a spank-a-thon at The Raven.
All while Xan Ravenwood happily looked on.
What a blur that hour was. Nala could barely think about it without wanting to bang her head against the table and cry. Except she couldn’t. Not only was she in public, but Varen sat across from her, her suit jacket off and a skinny spoon stirring cream into her coffee.
“So…” she began. “I never really got your name.”
“Thank you for coming tonight, Varen. Nightingale.”
That’s what Xan said when sending them off at the end of the night.
“I hope you’ll join us again next week. Get to know us while we get to know you. Soon enough, we’ll know if you’re a good fit for our group.”
That was it. The only further communication they had before Varen ushered Nala out of the lounge and into a car.
“My name is Nala,” she finally said, hands wrapped around her hot cup of coffee. A typical drizzle lashed against the window beside them. Although the heat was on in the restaurant, Nala still took solace in the way the coffee made her palms burn. “Nala Nazarov.”
“Nazarov? That’s very… Russian.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
“Sorry.” Varen leaned back. “I shouldn’t have shared that thought.”
“Everyone thinks that, though. I’m a stone-cold Russian bitch.”
Varen didn’t say anything. Apparently, she was not a woman to banter. Nala had no idea what kind of woman she currently hung out with.
“So, Nala…” She sipped her coffee and waited for a waitress to walk by with plates of pie. “About what happened back there…”
The coffee cup shook in her hands. Eventually, Nala realized that it was her hands shaking. I don’t know what’s going on. What do I even say? Was she safe around this woman? “What do you want from me?” she finally asked. “I mean… why me…”
“I’ll be honest with you, Nala.” The way Varen said her name was so smooth and gentle that it almost placated her – and Nala was not the type of girl placated by anyone’s voice.
If anything, she didn’t notice it at all.
Yet there was a lot to notice about Varen.
She didn’t broadcast much, but she couldn’t hide her looks or the sounds she made.
No one was that good, no matter how much they desired to remain locked away from the world.
“I wanted into that club. I wanted to get to him as much as you seemed to. I don’t know why you do. You don’t know why I do. But I knew that going in on my own wouldn’t get me far. I had an invitation, but as you can see, it was more of a couple’s thing. If I wanted to hang around for several weeks,
even months, I would need to find a partner. Someone to pose as my girlfriend.”
Nala perked up. “Pose as your girlfriend?”
“You said you can’t act, but you might be a fine liar. If you can lie and pretend to be my girlfriend, then you’ll have access to Ravenwood at least once a week. Not always on the same day, but almost weekly.”
“That club was depraved.” Nala said it so off-handedly that it almost sounded like she talked about shoes or skirts. “I should have guessed that a man like him is into that sort of stuff.” She had no comment on the other people there.
“Yes, and I suppose you could say that this city is full of rich, depraved people. Like any other city in the world.”
Nala finished her sip and slumped in her seat.
“And you? Are you rich?” Varen had money, based on her suit and connections to Xan Ravenwood.
Honestly, that should have been enough to turn Nala away.
Far, far away. She didn’t mess with rich people.
Well, more like they didn’t mess with her…
they didn’t even know she existed in her tiny closet and at her shitty job working for a corporate donation center for the poor.
Varen still wasn’t fazed. Did anything rattle her? “I’m a tech entrepreneur. I develop and market apps. You might even use one or two on your phone.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
Oh, finally. She was fazed! “Excuse me?” That was the most shock to ever grace that woman’s face in a month, surely. “You don’t own a phone at all?”
Nala frowned hard enough to enjoy the shockwave through her body. “Fuck you,” she muttered, pulling out her dumb phone and plopping it on the table. “It’s old. I might as well not have one. It doesn’t do Wi-Fi and definitely doesn’t do data.”
Varen glanced at the flip phone. “You’re not into tech?”
“Not like you.” In another life, Nala would pack up and go live off the grid.
TV was boring. Computers were too expensive.
If she needed one, she would go to the library and do her research and job applications.
The NSA was watching her, regardless. “Look, I know what an app is. I probably have never used whatever one you created and made you rich. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It takes all types in this world.”
Varen shrugged. “I came into the money this past year, honestly. Ravenwood contracted my company to develop an app for him to personally use to manage his properties. The age of internal servers and websites is over. Everyone does everything on their phones.
Including run multi-billion dollar properties.”
“He’s a medical guy, though.”
“First and foremost. Don’t know if you noticed, though, he owns half of Portland and is making his way through Seattle. I hear he wants East Coast properties next.”
Seattle. Where his pharmaceutical labs were located. Where Tasha worked and lived.
And died.
The cup shook so much that it sloshed hot coffee on her hands. She didn’t notice.
“You okay?”
Nala focused on the woman in front of her. “Yeah, sure.” Lying. She couldn’t act, but she could lie her face off. “I’m fine. Sorry. It’s been a long night.”
They were silent. Just as well, for a horde of rowdy kids ran by carrying balloons and screaming for chocolate cream pie.
I hate places like these. Nala worked at one when she first moved to Portland.
A local eatery chain, which tested her patience to extremes she never knew she had.
Turns out I’m not a people person. She was fired when a customer complained about her demeanor.
All I did was pour ice water in his lap for telling me to smile for the umpteenth time.
Now she didn’t deal with customers at all. Praise the Lord.
“So, why do you need a fake girlfriend?” Nala would regret asking that.
Varen sucked in her breath, elbows straining against the table as she rubbed her face.
Fingers brushed through her silky dark brown hair.
Now it wasn’t so combed. Despite still inhabiting a taut ponytail, wisps of hair stood up on top of her scalp, making her look like a disheveled cubicle crony on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
That’s more the kind of person I like. You know, if I bring myself to care at all. People. Expectations. All that.
“Like I said. That club was for couples. I don’t have a girlfriend, though. I’m also not looking for one. So, if I’m going to be in Xan Ravenwood’s intimate circle, I need a girlfriend willing to play along.”
She snorted. “When I saw you sneaking around trying to get a gander at him, I took what was given to me. Sorry if it shocked you. Didn’t mean for that to happen. How was I to know what you did or didn’t know?”
Nala almost cackled. “Let me get this straight. You want to kiss this asshole’s puckered anus, so you need a fake girlfriend to get into his perverted circle. That’s rich. I also don’t know how that’s going to work, considering what kind of club it is.
I didn’t see any cocktails and chats about the horse races or even the precious Ducks.”
Varen studied her. “Asshole, huh? For someone trying to sneak in to see him, you really don’t like Ravenwood.”
“I’d rather eat crow.”
“I see. Go back, do you?”
Yes. We go back to my sister’s death. Nala wasn’t going to tell her about that, though. Not now. Not here. Not like this. “Let’s say he fucked my sister over and I’m a bit sore about it.”
She expected Varen to roll her eyes. To wave her concerns off and treat her like everyone else did when Nala expressed her disdain for one of the nation’s wealthiest people.
“What have you got against the guy? I hear he has a lot of charities and pours millions of dollars into cancer research! His personal money!”
That was if people had even heard of him.
For owning half of a city, most of its residents couldn’t tell Nala who he was.
Instead, Varen Lake regarded her with newfound interest. “Fucked her over how?”
“Enough to make me hate him forever.”
Nala drank her coffee and stared at the tacky carpeting. Dirt. Grime. Food particles and lint. The same Nala’s old restaurant always looked on a busy night of free pie and birthday parties. Now she was really going to puke.
“You must think I’m petty.”
Varen slowly shook her head. “Whatever you’re guessing about me… I’m not trying to get to him because I want to kiss his ‘puckered anus.’ I don’t like the man either. It’s personal.”
That got Nala’s attention. “How so? Business?” She snorted. “He fuck you over with money? Didn’t pay for his app?”
The woman sitting across from her did not smile. No. She frowned, so sour in countenance that Nala had to recall what she even said. She looked at Varen as if she had been purposely flippant.
“Let’s say he has a lot to answer for.”
This wasn’t someone sour about money. Or business in general.
This was personal, indeed. Yet like Nala wasn’t getting into her conspiracies about Tasha’s death, Varen wasn’t sharing her thoughts.
Probably a good idea. They barely knew each other.
The most intimate thing they had shared thus far was watching two women get cropped and spanked.
Nala shuddered.
“It sounds like we have a lot to gain from one another, Ms. Nazarov.”
Interesting. She pronounced it correctly, and not with a stupid flair like most people thought it funny to use…
as if she were some Bond girl ready to rip off her clothes and soak in the ocean.
“We both want access to him, for our reasons, but we need each other to do that. It’s probably our only way. That man is heavily guarded otherwise. Even when doing business with him, I only met with him once or twice. This was over months.”
Nala shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The booth screeched, the faux leather rubbing against her thighs. “I don’t know. That club was…”
“We probably shouldn’t discuss those details here.”
Varen gestured to the kids’ party going on a few yards away.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card and a pen.
Her handwriting appeared on the back of the card.
“Here.” She slid it across the table. “The address to my office is on that card. I’m available Thursday evening at six. Come up to my office and we’ll talk it over. Unless you have work or class?”
Nala shook her head. “I’m off work at three.”
“Then I hope to see you.”
Without a formal farewell, Varen slipped out of her booth and slapped some bills on the table. For their coffees and the tip, she said. It was well over the kosher amount. The waitress was looking at a $20 tip.
Nala stared at the wad of cash long after her new acquaintance left. She was far from home, with almost no money in her pocket and her ticket long expired. She needed a new one.
Her fingers plucked three bills from the pile of cash. When no one was looking, she pocketed them, feeling both guilty and shameless at the same time.
After the night she had, though? She wasn’t going to feel bad about doing what she needed to do. She had accessed Xan Ravenwood. She had seen what kind of life he lived. She wanted to throw up in the process, but now she knew.
As for Varen? She was convenient. Not only had she saved Nala’s back and neck, but she had gotten her into that club to begin with.
Nala saw the value in that. Besides… she wasn’t too bad to look at.
If she was going to pretend to be someone’s girlfriend to meet her vengeful end, Varen could at least be decent-looking and rich.
Especially if she offered to pay for everything.
Like a taxi. And coffee. And Nala’s bus ticket, even if she didn’t know she was doing that.
She briefly wondered if this was a trap. Maybe Varen was actually one of Xan’s cronies. Perhaps. Perhaps it was worth the danger to find out her true intentions.
“Let’s say he has a lot to answer for.”
What did that mean? Had Xan Ravenwood also ruined someone’s life in Varen’s world?
The real question was…
Did Nala care?
As long as her formless plan continued along its path, oh, yeah, she cared. The rage simmering in her stomach would have to dance with grief a while longer.
For Tasha. She would find out what Varen had to say. For Tasha.
Not those shining eyes of intrigue burning in Varen’s stoic face.
Not her strong arms holding tight onto Nala.
Certainly not for the look one recognized in her. The look of vengeance.
Nala didn’t need to know the details. She only had to show up and lie.
Entry 2
Infiltration was a success. I’ve gained access to Ravenwood’s most private realm and met some of his closest business associates.
On top of this, something most unexpected happened. I met a woman who I think will make a good partner in this endeavor. She also wants something bad to happen to Ravenwood. I can’t help but wonder if he too has touched her in the same heinous way he’s defiled me.
This woman is much younger than me, however, and I worry about her stability.
I have called her Nightingale and will call her this in my journal to protect her identity should anyone else read this.
I’m not sure Nightingale knows what she’s gotten into. I don’t think she cares, and that’s good enough for me.