“How’d you get them?” he asks, nodding his head at my face.

“Bully in middle school. Pretty fucked up kid that liked to play with knives,” I lie again, flashing a grin. And then I shrug. “The ladies seem to like them.”

He chuckles. “Oh, I bet they do. The young girls have always liked that—oh, what do you call it? Bad boy look?”

Before I can respond, a waitress approaches with refills of our drinks, the same glazed look in her eyes.

“Come here, sweetie,” Mark says to the girl, patting his hand on his knee for her to sit on. The wedding ring on his finger glints in the light, as if to shine a light on the fact that he’s a skeevy son of a bitch.

Addie won’t ever have to worry about that shit when I marry her, that’s for damn sure. She doesn’t even have to worry about it now. The only pussy I want wrapped around my cock for the rest of my life is hers.

The waitress looks at him like he’s merely an apparition. She’s looking through him.

Robotically, she sits on his lap, a toneless smile gracing her bright red lips.

Mark cuddles her closer, looking at her with a smarmy grin. From here, I can see his cock growing in his pants. Normally, I’m not one to judge another man’s dick, but when it’s hard for an abused girl and the tent is lackluster, well… that’s just disgusting on many levels.

He pulls her back directly onto his dick, gripping her hips tightly and guiding her ass to grind against him. I sigh, keeping my composure.

Carefully, I swallow the last of my whiskey and purposely set it on the edge.

I raise my nose in the air, sniffing dramatically.

“What is that delectable smell?” I ask aloud. Mark looks over to me, his grin growing, while I stare at the girl. “You smell delicious. Lean over, let me smell you.”

The girl doesn’t hesitate. We both lean towards each other, and once her body is hovering over my empty glass, I flick it.

The glass tips and it goes crashing to the black tiled floor. Thousands of glass pieces shatter, the sound ringing out loudly despite the heavy music in the room.

Chatter ceases and heads swivel towards the commotion.

Reminds me of high school when a kid farted in class, and the whole room went silent and stared at him until his face turned purple.

The girl jumps up, tiptoeing her platform heels through the glass as planned.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologizes, the first hint of inflection in her tone. “I’ll clean this up right away.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shout, glaring at her like she’s the one that knocked it over.

Her mouth falls open, and I stand.

“Come to the back with me,” I snarl, my eyes flashing with fury. She curls in on herself, while the other men snicker.

“Clumsy bitch,” one of the men mutters, looking at her the same way you would if you accidentally touched the week-old gum stuck to the bottom of your desk.

“I’ll be back once I take care of her,” I say directly to Mark.

He laughs heartily, enjoying the thought of an innocent woman being punished for something so trivial. The old fuck probably falls over once a week and needs LifeAlert to get back up. Asshole can’t talk about glass falling when he can’t even keep his body vertical.

I grab the woman’s arm firmly, jerking her against me and dragging her away.

She doesn’t fight too hard. Self-preservation is kicking in, fighting its way through the cloud of drugs in her system. But she has long accepted her fate.

As soon as I get her into a quiet room, I turn to her. She’s already dropped to her knees, her green eyes looking up at me with sorrow and acceptance.

She’s a beautiful girl, with bright red hair, grass-green eyes and freckles dotting her nose.

Something about her reminds me a little of Addie, and I nearly walk right back out and crush my fist in Mark’s face just for touching her.

“Get up,” I say firmly. She gets to her feet unsteadily, looking much like a baby giraffe walking for the first time.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” I say. Her brow puckers and she frowns.

“Sir—”

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

She stutters over the question. “Cherry.”

I shake my head. “Is that your real name or stage name?”

She rolls her lips. “Real.”

Her parents are really fucking unoriginal. Like might as well have a second child and name her Strawberry or Watermelon.

Anyway, besides the point. “How would you feel about getting a fresh start in life, yeah?”

Her eyes widen, and it seems like the prospect of escaping this one has some of the drug-induced fog receding from her gaze. But then she turns wary, and then resigned. Tears line the edges of her lids, and the sight will forever haunt me.

She looks down, seeming to collect herself. “I know what that means. I-I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize I was leaning that far down.”

“I’m not going to hurt or kill you, Cherry,” I cut in. “I’m going to help you, but I need you to listen to exactly what I say.”

She shifts on her feet, peering up at me through her lashes and bobbing her head frantically. I slip out the Bluetooth earpiece I had hidden deep in my inner suit pocket. All of my jackets have a special lead lining in them that deflects radiation. Meaning I can walk through any body scanner without the devices being detected.

I pop it in my ear, press the button that immediately calls out to Jay, and wait for him to answer.

When he does, I explain the situation. It takes fifteen minutes before he has a car ready to pick her up. In that time, Cherry tells me about her family. About her younger sister that has cancer and her poor single mother. She works this job to pay the medical bills, but she confesses that she doesn’t know if it’s worth it if she’s killed and the extra income stops.

She won’t ever have to worry about taking care of them again. Or being killed because of a broken glass.

Jay watches the camera feed and directs me towards a back door exit without detection.

I grab her wrist before she walks out of the door. The nondescript black sedan is waiting ten feet away, and the door already open for her.

“I know,” she says softly. “I don’t know your face. I’ve never seen you before,” she guesses.

I shake my head. “Cherry, you’re not going to a place where you’ll ever be questioned about something like that. You and your family will be taken care of and safe. I promise. All I ask is that you do something meaningful with your life. That’s all.”

A single tear slips from her eye. She hurriedly wipes it away and nods. Her brightened eyes shine with hope, and doing this shit, involving myself in the worst of humanity—it’s all worth it when I have a survivor look at me like that.

Not like I’m a hero, but like they can actually envision a future.

She stumbles off to the car, and I make my way back inside, making sure no one spots me.

“Jay, clear the cameras,” I say before taking the earpiece out and slipping it back in the hidden pocket.

The cameras will be spliced. If anyone reviews them, they’ll see me dragging a dejected Cherry into a room and us walking out separately.

It’s one of my specialties that I mastered and then trained Jay in. Taking parts of a camera feed and manipulating them to look exactly how you want them to, without even the best hackers being able to detect manipulation.

I crack my neck, and ready myself for a very long night of shooting the shit and becoming BFF’s with a fucking pedophile.

Chapter 21

The Manipulator

I ’m stewing.

Nana used to make this god-awful stew when I was young. It smelled like a dumpster fire and tasted even worse. My attitude is about as foul as that stew right now.