Deliverance

Chapter 2

This man really was not going to speak to me. For about half an hour, I had been incessantly chatting away while he stood against the wall, hands in his pockets, staring straight ahead while I got ready for our night out.

The plan for the night was to meet my best friend, Elena, at our favorite downtown destination, a two story, dark and seedy club called Deliverance. We'd been going to this particular hot spot since we got our fake IDs at 18 years old. We go at least once a week but on a good week may be there as many as three times.

Elena had been my best friend since we were in 6th grade when I saw her crying on the stairwell at school and decided to see what was wrong. I instantly felt protective over this curly haired, wide eyed 11-year-old girl as she sobbed to me about some boy who she was convinced liked her until she saw him sharing his sandwich at lunch with a 7th grade girl. She was devastated, and after I sat down and put my arm around her, we became inseparable. She'd been my ride or die since.

"You're going to love Elena. She'd super funny and smart and could got so hyper she's like a pinball, bouncing all around, especially on the dance floor. She keeps me sane though and definitely helps calm me down which should be good news for you because I can be a lot to handle. She's kept me out of quite a bit of trouble over the years and definitely kept me out of quite a few fights." I explained to Harry while sitting in front of my vanity putting on my makeup.

I'd decided to go with a understated smokey eye look and bright red lipstick. My light brown hair was straightened, and the top was pinned back, giving my hair a sleek and silky look. The caramel lowlights interspersed through the bottom half lent a subtle definition to an otherwise bland color, something I'd worked hard with my stylist to perfect. It fell down my back, landing a couple inches below my shoulder blades and swished as I moved my head from side to side, admiring myself. One of the bobby pins dug into my scalp a little so I scratched at it to adjust it. I considered redoing it so I wouldn't get a headache later but decided beauty was pain and left it.

So far, I had talked to Harry about the club we're going to, my favorite types of drinks to get, and told him about how Elena and I ended up with our fake IDs. He'd remained mute, even when I asked him questions about himself, and I'd admit, it was getting a little unnerving. I asked him questions about how he ended up working for my father and how long he'd been in the field as I knew he hadn't been with our gang long, but he refused to answer.

It's not that I knew nothing about Harry. It'd be pretty hard to accept allowing him to follow me around like this and trust him to keep me safe if I had no knowledge of his skills. His ability was fairly well talked about within our organization though. The first time I heard of him was a few months ago when my father came back from a trade, raving about how Harry single handedly saved the deal with minimal loss on our end. Apparently, the trade went sideways when some Tomlinson men showed up unannounced and tried to turn the deal sideways and make off with our contraband. The rumor was that Harry took out nearly all of their men with a single firearm while only one of our men sustained a serious injury. From that moment on, my dad seemed to trust Harry more than most of the men in the organization, and it seemed that he quickly rose through the ranks of my dad's men. For my dad to trust him with the job of protecting me, he must really trust Harry. My dad wouldn't entrust just anyone with my safety.

The rumors also included Harry's character trait of remaining silent to those around him. Some of the men said that they think he doesn't know English or couldn't speak because of some medical reason, but I knew he could communicate because he's involved with a lot of the deep planning for our business, and I think he's in most of my dad's big meetings. So he must speak to my dad, right?

I finished a last swipe of mascara before inspecting my face full of makeup. I thought it looked fairly good and the lines were smooth, just how I like them. I turned to Harry and said "how do I look?" His eyes traveled to my face and he looked at me for a few seconds before shrugging his shoulders and going back to staring at the wall. I wasn't sure how to take that, but at least he gave me some sort of response.