Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Do we? I don’t voice the question. I thought I had, but here I am obsessing over a woman that I barely know. I should be back home. Not sitting in the back of some shitty bar. The low beat of the music is making my head start to throb.
“What is it that you’ve found? I mean, you aren’t here to socialize so you must have some new information for me.”
“Fuck me. Finally you ask what she was up to on the computer.” Marco full-on smiles at my damn question. “How did you make it that long? You might have gone into the wrong profession. I bet you could withstand torture for hours.”
“I don’t think that profession pays as well as my own.”
“I suppose you are the one wiring me that money.” Two men come walking into the bar. Both Marco and I flick them a glance and dismiss them.
“Tell me.”
“She’s trying to find out who her parents are. She was looking up the cost of a private investigator and trying to do some research herself. I don’t think she’s ever tried to find them before.” I can’t help but wonder what has sparked this.
Why now?
“And?”
“I’m already working on it. Got the mother locked in, but the father hasn’t been so easy to find. But give me another twelve hours, and I think I’ll have it.”
“Is the mother going to be an issue?”
“Not for at least ten years.” I turn my head toward him, not understanding. “She’ll be up for parole then. Not sure she’ll get it. Can’t keep herself out of trouble. She’s a bit violent from what I can see in her records. She was before she went in and has continued that path on the inside.”
“Violent,” I repeat. The woman who birthed Rae is violent? It’s almost unbelievable. If it wasn’t Marco giving me the info, I might not believe it.
How could the woman who always has a smile on her lips be a product of a violent mother? Lately, though, that smile Rae always wears seems to be fading away. I know when someone is being fake.
“Why don’t you talk to her? You know, ask her on a date or something?” Marco suggests.
“Find the father. I want to know everything. And send me what you have on her mother” is my only response to his suggestion. “I don’t care. I will spare no expense to get what I want,” I say before he can tell me that what I’m asking for is going to cost me. “Why do you even keep saying that? You know what I’m worth.”
“'Cause it annoys you. You’re a hard man to get a reaction from.” He smirks before he stands, disappearing through the bar. I’m sure he’s not going far. Part of his job, after all, is to keep Rae safe. At least when I’m not around, which is starting to become almost never.
He’s wrong, though, about one thing. Raegan can get all sorts of reactions out of me without even trying.
6
Rae
“You’re first out tonight,” my boss Jake tells me as he tops off a beer to hand one of the customers at the bar. We’ve started to slow but not by much.
“Really?” I always have to close, and I know it’s not because I only work two days a week here. It’s the fact that Susan is really bad at it. She’s on the lazy side, and that’s why she’s also stationed at the left corner of the bar, which is less busy. On my side, I not only serve people at the bar but I pick up tickets the girls ring in. Jake always puts me here on the nights I work because he knows I can handle it. Plus, I’m friendly.
“Yep,” he chirps. “You can count out.”
I glance at the time. It’s still a bit early for the first round to go, but I’m not going to point that out. Not tonight, at least. My feet are killing me, and my bed is calling my name.
“Thanks,” I tell him before grabbing my crap to take to the back and count out my money to divvy out the tips, and see what might be owed to me from the ones left on credit cards.
“Did you hear?” Cara asks as she makes her way into the back.
“Hear what?” My ears perk up. Cara hears, sees, and knows all. If you want to know any of the gossip around here, she’s got it.
“Ben is selling this place.”
“Don’t start stirring shit up,” Ben shouts from his office. Damn, he’s got good ears. A second later, he appears in the hallway, making his way toward our break area where we girls always hang and do our end of the night counts. “Just because I sell the place doesn’t mean anything is going to change with the staff.”