“Dead serious.”
“Yours?” Her tone warned him not to lie. The bouncers shifted behind him, ready to move if she demanded it.
Ash paused. How to answer that? This whole situation was his fault. But if something happened to him, Hope would pay the price. “My sister. She’s sick and I need help getting her, well, help.”
Something flared in her eyes and Ash knew he’d chosen correctly. He’d passed the first test. Maybe, just maybe, he’d get what he wanted from the Jack tonight.
“And you want the Jack to help? Rather than, I don’t know, a clinic? Or your corporation?” She gestured at his jacket.
“The Jack may be our only hope.” That was nothing but truth. “I don’t think there’s anything the clinics can do. And the corporation?” He shuddered and shook his head. “I already owe them enough.”
All true. He owed the Tremaine Corporation plenty—and one of these days he’d figure out how to make them pay.
She stared at him for a minute. He met her gaze and didn’t flinch. He didn’t go so far as to let her see everything he was, but enough for her to judge his sincerity. Whatever she saw in his gaze seemed to convince her.
“Come back later, right before closing. The Jack will see you then.”
How the hell could she know that? He considered the possibility that she really was psychic. Dismissed it almost immediately. Still... “How do you know?”
“You said it’s an emergency.” As if that explained everything. She jerked her head at the bouncers and after a few grumbles, they melted back into the main bar area.
When she turned away to help another customer down the bar, Ash grabbed his drink and tossed back the rest of it. The whiskey burned on the way down, but he didn’t care. Couldn’t care.
He’d set something in motion tonight. Something big. He hadn’t done that in a very long time. It felt good.
Chapter4
Two hours later,Taryn slipped into an alley on the other side of town and cleared her mind. Or tried to. She kept thinking about the strange interaction with the man who knew about the Jack but didn’tknowthe Jack.
She kept circling back to his story, the one that didn’t quite gel for her. She shook her head. That was a worry for later. Right now, she had to focus on the job at hand. Weeks of planning had gone into the next few hours and she couldn’t afford to screw it up.
Ignoring the creepiness of the dark alley, Taryn breathed through her mouth to avoid the stench and hurried through the space. She kept to the side of the narrow corridor, walking quickly.
Glass crunched underfoot. She looked down and grimaced. Slivers of glass caught the dim light of her phone and twinkled. She panned the light a few feet to either side. Tiny glass vials lay scattered amongst the other trash.
Vyne, the latest street drug, came in little vials like that. Rumor had it that the high was so intense, so addictive, that you might as well be dead after the first dose. True death came later, when your veins turned green, the side effect that gave the drug its name. Taryn had never seen it—she didn’t allow that shit in her bar—but she’d heard too many stories floating around to ignore it.
None of that was what drew her out tonight. She sought a different commodity.
From the end of the alleyway, Taryn watched the cluster of women and girls on the street corner. In the distance, the bright lights and neon signs of downtown Seattle glowed, but here on the edges of the city, the lights were duller, the shadows deeper.
Her gaze landed on the youngest woman and her lips tightened. She looked to be barely into her teens, but had to be closer to sixteen based on the information Taryn had received. The others looked older, probably due to the harshness of life on the street rather than actual years. One of the women noticed Taryn and tipped her head slightly.
Taryn nodded back. Her stomach churned and she took a deep breath to settle herself. She couldn’t afford nerves.
She pulled her jacket’s zipper down far enough to show a hint of cleavage. The black synth-leather she wore was reinforced with lightweight Kevlar. It would stop small-caliber bullets and some stun weapons, while providing her with more freedom of movement than thicker materials would. If she was successful tonight, she’d need to move quickly. Everything she wore was well-made and expensive-looking and intended to give the impression of a wealthy woman out for a good time.
A hot pink wig covered her dark hair to draw attention away from her features. Her heels might look high, but that was an illusion. They were as sturdy as the boots that corporate security teams wore.
As ready as she could be, Taryn stepped out of the alley. She put a wiggle in her walk as she approached the youngest girl. “Hi,” she said in a breathy voice.
The other women stepped back a few feet, giving Taryn room to negotiate.
Fear flickered over the girl’s face before a mask of boredom slammed down. “Hi,” she parroted. “You looking for company?”
Her tone aimed for sexy, but all Taryn heard was fear. This was the part she hated. “You free?”
The girl pasted on what Taryn assumed was supposed to be a coy smile, but it looked frightened and distorted. “Not free, but negotiable.”
