Ten Thousand Lies (20 page)

“Are you nervous?” he asked, a quirky smile playing around his mouth.

“No,” I replied.
Not for getting a tattoo.
I loved being tattooed. The rush of endorphins, the buzz of the machine, and the sweet sting of the needles all created a form of therapy for me. Almost as though the heartache and pain I had experienced in my life could be owned by my flesh.

Within twenty minutes, Ricki drew an amazingly intricate piece. A delicately detailed cuff with gems and swirls, large yet feminine. I surveyed it while standing before the long mirror.

“What do you think?” he asked.

My eyes met his in the reflection, and again, I got the sense that there was something about his eyes that just wasn’t right.

“I love it.”

His smile lit me up from within, and I couldn’t help but smile in return.

“Right. Let’s do it then.”

Ricki

Even with the gloves on, I felt every warm beat, every twitch, every pulse of Jaime. She was letting me ink her,
mark
her, and it sent possessive vibrations coursing through me.

The tattoo was a design meant to show she was bound to someone, a stylized Claddagh ring around her wrist. It didn’t escape me that I was having such thoughts about her. For weeks I’d barely spoken to her, avoiding contact with her, all the while fantasizing about what it would be like to have her in my life as more than what we were to each other now.

Three hours later, Jaime bore
my
mark. Not once had she flinched, but she’d seemed to slip into a zone as I poured all the things I couldn’t say to her face into the ink she now wore around her left wrist.

“It’s beautiful,” she half-whispered as I cleaned it up.

“As are you,” I replied equally as soft.

Shocked, her China blues looked into my eyes, and her cheeks flushed. There was no taking it back, and even though a flush crept up my neck and into my face, I didn’t want to. I’d finally had the bollocks to tell her a sliver of what I thought about her.

Then, she shyly smiled, and things got uncomfortable in my pants.

Wrapping up her wrist, I willed my threatening hard-on to simmer the fuck down, and I was able to get that shit deflated by the time we stood up and headed out to the front of the shop. Ronen was behind the computer, clicking through shit on the Internet.

“So…I guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow?” said Jaime, pulling the strap of her bag across her chest.

“Looking forward to it,” said Ronen.

“You don’t want to go grab some food or something?” I asked.

“Xanthe wrote another three chapters over the weekend. We usually order in and read through them on Mondays,” she replied. “Tomorrow?”

The hopeful note in her voice made my blood effervesce.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

All week long, I had kept my cool in front of Jaime, encouraged by Ronen and Rex to take my time and let her get to know the real me, not the village idiot I turned into whenever she was around.

Friday came, and Jaime and I were behind the counter of the shop, laughing together at a website showing some photos of terrible tattoos, when Deo, the Viking Maori himself, sauntered in, with two guys dragging a huge package on a pallet on wheels behind him.

“Holy shit!” I crowed as I hurried to give the giant a man-hug. “You didn’t say you were coming
with
the fucking chair, mate!”

“I wanted to surprise you,” he replied, heartily clapping me on the back. “Well, you and Jaime.”

We both turned our attention to the gobsmacked woman behind the counter. Jaime looked quite cute today, and I’d told her so when I first saw her coming into the shop.

“Jaime, this is my oldest friend in the world, Deo Dahl. Deo, Jaime Hallowell.”

Coming around the counter, Jaime then threw herself into Deo’s arms. Laughing, the massive arsehole wrapped her in a huge embrace, igniting a furious jealousy within me.

“Um…do you two know each other?” I asked.

Pulling back, Jaime’s smiling face turned toward me. “I’ve met him a few times on Skype with Xanthe. This is the first time in person.” She gave him her attention. “You’re a helluva lot bigger in real life.”

Deo’s laughter boomed around the shop.

“Seriously, why would you being here be a surprise for me?” she asked.

“You said you wanted your hair dreaded.”

“Shut the fuck up! You’re going to do my hair?”

“If you like. I’ve got some ideas…”

The two of them rambled on about hairstyles, making me roll my eyes, before I directed the poor chaps with the chair to Jaime’s newly decorated station.

In the small room, we had slapped on a fresh coat of turquoise paint with a metallic gold trim and all sorts of colorful decor. Giving Jaime my shop credit card, I’d given her the time on Wednesday to go out and find shit to decorate her new space with. She’d saved all the receipts, handing them over with the card when she’d gotten back, showing me she hadn’t spent much money at all. I supposed she’d wanted to prove herself trustworthy.

The two guys started stripping the plastic film off the chair and got to work with assembling it.

“You guys need anything?” I asked.

“Nope,” replied one. “We’ve got you covered.”

“Right,” I grunted before walking out.

Deo was flirting shamelessly with Jaime in the front of the shop, and not wanting to murder the man, I took myself back to my office to simmer the fuck down. It drove me insane, how easy it was for others to engage with her. I wanted to engage with Jaime like that, tell her things that would make her blush, without having to piss myself in the process.

It was so fucking easy on the phone with her with an ocean between us. Why can’t I be bloody normal?

It wasn’t like she was a scary person. But, here I was, in my office, having a mild panic attack, because I was fucking terrified of making a complete arse of myself in front of her while simultaneously hating my best friend for successfully chatting her up.

Bringing her into the shop was a brilliant idea. With her always around, it was easier for me to open up. Each day, I was that much closer to revealing my feelings. I fucking wanted to tell her! More than anything, I wanted to march up to her and tell her she made each one of my days worth living. All the past hurt, the nightmares of hell, the thoughts of bloodshed would all vanish when I could lose myself in her China blues. When I was able to see her doll face, I knew there was good in the world still, and I could continue on.

Fuck it.

If Deo could tap into his monster-size nut sac and flirt with the woman, so could I. I wrenched open the door and made my way toward the sound of their laughter. Jaime laughed so easily.

As I emerged from the back, Deo threw a smile my way. “You busy later?”

“Uh, yeah. Ronen and I got some shit to handle after work.”

“All-nighter shit?”

“No. A couple of hours.”

Jaime was completely unfazed by this vague speech.

“I’ll be at their place when you’re done,” Deo told me.

“You’re staying with Xanthe?”

Deo’s smile got even bigger. “Too bloody right.”

Ronen and I had a stakeout. The Russians had arrived earlier in the week, and while we had a couple of guys watching them, it was best to do surveillance ourselves.

Mikhail Dimitriov, Nikolai Dimitriov, and Piotr Vasili. These were their real names. Ronen had spent nearly every night finding out as much as he could on these three. In the crime family they operated in, Mikhail was called the Knight of Mercy, which essentially meant he put anyone and everyone to ground after his brother, Nikolai, had tortured the shit out of them. Mikhail got the job done, and he was the one who was looking for us.

Piotr was the next in line for the godfather position in the Vasili mob family. Mikhail and Nikolai were his cousins.

With some serious digging, we found there
was
a shipment coming, but there was no actual cargo. Instead, a small contingent of Russian thugs who worked for the Vasilis would be waiting for us to show up. The equivalent to infantry, they were expendable. We believed all of this was to bring us out of hiding, and when we were supposed to show up to save some victims, we’d encounter this mob and be wasted.

Twats.

The Vasilis had no idea who we were or what we looked like, only that there were at least three of us, and we’d horrifically abused their guys before we let them die. They had no clue whom they were dealing with.

Sitting in the café across the street from the hotel where the Russians were staying, Ronen and I were enjoying a light dinner, looking like we were minding our own Ps and Qs. We had a clear visual of the front of the hotel, and like every evening, according to reports, the three men exited at exactly six fifteen. Ronen and I watched them head off toward the heart of De Wallen. We quickly paid our tab and left.

Every night, the mobsters would frequent the same sex club, Tiny Dancers. The owners were Russian and connected to the Vasilis.

Tonight, we were going to follow them in.

“Ready?” murmured Ronen as we headed up to the front of the club about ten minutes after the Russians had gone in.

“Aye.”

Inside the establishment was dark, the walls painted a blood red with black trim, a bit gothic in decor, with thumping hard music blasting. The air was rank with about fifty different types of perfume and cologne, acrid sweat, and scented candles lit in the hopes of masking the stench of oppressive sex.

“Welcome to Tiny Dancers, gentlemen,” said a woman wearing a thong and matching pasties on her huge tits. Her accent was Russian as she spoke English. “How can I help you this evening?”

“We just wanted to check out the bar and shit,” said Ronen in a New York drawl that had me fighting not to grin. “Is that okay? We really haven’t done anything like this before.”

The girl smiled. “Of course. You just let us know if there is something more we can do for you.”

“Oh, we will,” replied Ronen, a huge smile splitting his face.

She walked us down the corridor, hanging a left, and into an open space with a dance floor and massive bar. After she waved her hand at the bar, we thanked her and headed over. Glancing around, we didn’t see the fuckers anywhere.

Ordering a couple of whiskeys, Ronen and I sat in silence, just…watching.

“I’m thinking this is a waste of time,” Ronen muttered.

“Mmm,” I replied.

With the bartender at the other end of the bar and the music pounding, it helped us not to be overheard.

Ronen leaned in to speak in my ear, “We should bug the club along with their hotel rooms. Get the layout of the place. We’ve got the time. A few agents could have it done by Monday.”

I nodded.

“Chances are, these guys have a private room here and meet in the back. I bet they don’t even come in this part.”

Speaking in Ronen’s ear, I said, “We should have a few drinks. Leaving so soon might look bad.”

Ronen nodded. We ordered another round and continued watching. If for nothing else, we could just give the vibe that we were a couple of smarmy gits, too poor to afford to take a girl to the back but happy to watch the goods walk their arses around.

All I could think of was Jaime and those tight jeans she wore that begged to be peeled off. I wondered if she wore underwear. No perfumed naked flesh in here could generate the blood flow needed to make my dick twitch, but just the thought of Jaime in jeans could.