"One lie is enough to question all truths," -Anonymous
The boxing place is small and run down looking. I glance at my watch, this needs to be fast. I need to get to a meeting with my client.
The towering man, perhaps in his early forties, approaches me with a confused expression.
"How can I help you ma'am?"
I tuck my phone back into my purse,
"I'm looking for lessons. I'm quite busy so twice a week will have to work."
He looks me over, taking in my pencil skirt and blouse, my heels that make my feet arch at that painful angle.
"Why are you interested in boxing?"
I consider him for a beat and then arch a brow,
"I'm a woman in a city. The amount of cat calls I get a day tells me that I need to be prepared if one of them comes a bit too close for my liking."
It isn't a lie. It certainly isn't the whole truth, but it's enough.
He nods slowly,
"So you want self defense training."
I nod with him,
"That would be great."
He shrugs,
"Okay. It'll be $50 a class. I'd suggest we start with one class a week. Would you prefer a female or male trainer?"
That is a no brainer,
"Female."
He goes into the office and pulls out a card,
"Alright. What day works best for you."
I study my schedule on my phone,
"Wednesday evenings should work. How long would the sessions be?"
He scratches his moustache,
"Usually an hour and 30."
I grin,
"That sounds perfect."
I meet Tanner at the airport. His co-workers wolf whistle when they see me and I hate how it makes me feel like an object. Like a pretty thing that hangs off of his arm. I lean off of the cab and wrap my hands around his shoulders, leaning up and kissing him. It is quick and over before it starts. I ignore the way his lips are chapped. I ignore the way his excited chatter washes over me like a wave of sickness.
He grins at me,
"How have you been? I'm so craving some good old Chicago pizza."
I smile softly,
"Sure. Let's go grab some."
The pizza place is crowded. He wolfs down his slices, some of the marinara sauce gets on his polo shirt. I hand him a napkin. He chatters,
"We went surfing, I tell you it was crazy risky with the huge waves. I mean we could have drowned. Plus you know, in the Caribbean there are tons of sharks. It was crazy."
I can see golden eyes gleaming,
"Don't mistake me darling, I can kill you now."
I laugh, it is a short sound. Tanner's use of 'risky' makes me giggle. I can still feel the gun against my pulse point.
He looks up at me, wiping his mouth,
"What's so funny?"
I duck my head, hiding my smile,
"Nothing. I just remember when I tried surfing when I was a kid, I was shit at it."
He gives me a cheeky smile,
"I could teach you. I'm great at it."
His green eyes are filled with pride.
He walks me back to my apartment. I test the door knob and thank every entity that it is locked. He steps into the space and looks around,
"It has been literal ages since the last time I was here."
I shrug my jacket off,
"I guess."
He smiles,
"You have always liked that chic- modern look."
My hand traces my calf as I take off my heels and then I pause, my hand on my ankle. I can see amber eyes on me,
"Did you take them off to make me happy Eleanora?"
I kick the heels off, perhaps too violently. Tanner looks me over,
"I've missed you."
I smile back at him as I head towards my bedroom,
"I've missed you too."
He follows me, toeing off his shoes.
I pull out my case file and flip through it. It is a new case where I am defending Lisa Mortan, her lover is accusing her of abusing their daughter who is currently in a coma. She claims that he has been abusing both her and their daughter.
Tanner sits down on the bed next to me, scrolling through is phone.
"What are you working on?"
I flip through some of the evidence of bruises on the daughter's head and shoulders.
"You know I can't tell you."
He sighs and puts his phone down. There were fragments of her daughter's skin under her fingernails.
He leans back against the pillows,
"I was thinking."
He pauses for a moment before he continues,
"We should move in together."
My heart stops.
A fear flashes through me.
This is my space.
This is MY space.
I turn to a different page of the case file,
"What brought this on?"
He shrugs slightly,
"I never go to my apartment here. I'm paying for it, but it doesn't make any sense if I just pop in for a night's sleep every month or so."
Suddenly I want him out of my room. I want him out of my apartment.
The apartment that I worked for. That I don't just pay fucking rent for, I own.
I mean I am still paying off the mortgage, but I have made a huge dent.
I slowly close the file,
"That is a big step."
I can't seem to look at him. He smiles, hand reaching for mine and interlacing our fingers,
"We have been dating for years. I think this is what we need to do next."
I slowly let out a shaky breath,
"Can I think about it?"
He gives my palm a squeeze,
"Of course."
In the darkness of my room I feel contained. His arms around my middle feels like a weight. His snoring keeps me up.
What is this?
He is wearing a shirt with a hole in it, I always loved that shirt- it was snuggly and made him look adorably pudgy. He wanted to throw it out, but I insisted he keep it and wear it when he was with me. Now it is his favorite too. We even named the hole in it Greg.
Now the shirt feels scratchy.
I peel away from his embrace and make it downstairs. I go into my office and close the door, locking it behind me. I pull out the clear board I bought this week that flips over to be a wooden board and begin to put up the Davis Case and the Andrew Case on it, as well as what I have gotten from the mystery sender.
I go into the crawl space and grab the painting I had gotten when we went to Paris. It is a sensual oil painting of lovers. The dimensions are a little larger than the board. I get a screwdriver and hooks and begin to put it up on the wooden side of it.
I connect the different pieces of evidence with red thread.
I then start to look up security systems that I can get installed. I find one that needs both an eye scanned and ten finger prints. I write down the number and plan to call in the morning to get someone to come over and install it in my office.
I pull out my computer and hit play on what I had gotten from the camera.
I watch a dark gloved hand turn it on and then remove their hand.
It is a teenager or young male, Asian, with a tear drop tattoo on his cheekbone. He smiles and shakes hands with the old lady who admires her new window.
I then fast forward towards the end of it, looking for whoever picked up the footage. They were smart, it is the same kid, dressed all in black. It is dark, he must have broken into the poor granny's apartment to get the footage to send it to me. He downloads it with bright eyes and then places the camera back up.
Why put the camera back up?
Perhaps to monitor if I would follow their tip?
I track down the boy, he has a criminal record of a minor burglary when he was 14 and went to juvenile detention.
The only thing I can find of him is that he plays basketball at a local rink. It is on an Instagram post from a few months back.
I stand outside of the building, gloved hands deep in my coat's pockets. I watch the young men file out. There is excitement in the air that surrounds them, a youth in their step that makes me almost bitter. What happened to the days where if I let my grades slip was my largest concern?
He comes out in the second wave, among a group.
I fall into step behind them and call out,
"Hey, don't ignore me like that."
The group pauses and looks back. I must be quite a sight to see amongst their stained gym shorts, I stand out in my tailored clothing.
I fix my eyes on his and smile slightly,
"Tanaka Aito, I've been looking for you."
He grins and slaps one of his friends on his back,
"Ayyyy, I completely forgot you were waiting out here in the cold. Sorry about that,"
He waves them off,
"See y'all on Saturday."
One of them wolf whistles before they go on their way laughing. I tilt my head to the side,
"What did you steal?"
He looks slightly thrown off,
"What?"
I smile slightly,
"When you were 14."
Recognition flits across his face,
"How did you get your hands on my records?"
I take a step closer,
"I'm a lawyer."
He nods,
"I know. They said to look out for you."
A chill settles over me, I step closer,
"Who said?"
He grins, it flashes gold grills. A cheap choice,
"You gonna torture me? Cause if I'm keeping all my fingers then you aren't gonna know that answer."
This doesn't surprise me.
"They wanted me to find you on the recording. That's why you didn't remove the camera. So here I am. Now what?"
He glances at his phone,
"I'm hungry- you hungry?"
The restaurant is small and painfully empty. That might have something to do with the food looking suspiciously gross. He doesn't order anything and instead opens the Wendy's burger he grabbed on our way here. I look about the room,
"What is this a front for? Laundering? Drugs? Guns? People?"
He munches on a fry,
"If I said people would you bolt?"
I stand and shrug off my coat, folding it over the back of the chair before sitting back down.
"What is a 20 year old doing here?"
He unwraps his burger,
"It pays well. I get a free line of the good stuff every now and then. Makes the girls real excited too."
I lean back,
"What do you want from me? Why send me the videos?"
He takes a huge bite and makes a show of chewing.
"We aren't a big fan of the Grim Reaper."
My nonplussed look makes him smile,
"I bet you know him as Ace."
I swallow dryly.
"That name is already taken isn't it? By Greg Scarpa back in the 1990s- he ran New York."
He nods,
"You know your shit. Yeah- he didn't choose the name, people just started calling him that. He runs a tight ship, fucking ruthless, and has a trademark of suicides."
I already knew that,
"A trademark?"
He smiles, ketchup stains his teeth crimson,
"He doesn't like messy unless he has to be. He has some highly trained assassins who take out people and make it look like a suicide."
I gnaw on the inside of my cheek,
"And you not liking him involves me how?"
He sets the burger down,
"Listen miss- we ain't on good terms with him right now. We need him gone."
I don't move. For a 20 year old he holds his own well.
"Let me repeat myself- why does that involve me?"
He takes a long sip from his coke, I resist the urge of plucking the plastic straw from his lips.
"He ain't a good guy. A good lawyer like you getting mixed up with him, we get it, you are stuck in a bad spot. He has you trapped and we don't like seeing good people get taken advantage of."
They think I am some pretty, young fool. I might be a fool, but I am not some stupid, naïve idiot. The insult of his words sinks into me like a poison. Darting my veins with the rage of being underestimated.
"You can help me."
He smiles, it doesn't reach his eyes. I am suddenly far more aware of the eyes watching us from behind the counter of the restaurant.
"Yeah, sure thing. If you help us."
I lean forward,
"What do you want from me,"
"Information on him. Where he is at. What his plan is. What his weaknesses are."
I shake my head,
"You said you could get me out, getting information would require me to stick around."
His eyes gleam. I no longer see the kid that was laughing with his friends, drenched in sweat and starving for greasy food. There is a dangerous man before me. But he thinks I am a fool. And there is no greater advantage than being underestimated.
"We can do better than get you out. We can get him in."
I consider him,
"How long do I have to decide."
He eats the fries with a smack of his lips,
"Lets say 4 days. Why don't we meet back here."
It isn't really a question. I nod slowly,
"Okay."
A/N
This was a plot heavy chapter, cause we need to introduce the 3rd party. Hehe.
Happy Valentine's Day <3