Looking at him with disbelief, I repeat what the court case said about me and what more than one officer accused me of. “We sold and transported drugs.”
His head moves back and forth, weighing his response before spitting it out, “Yes and no. We do those things, but in our own way that leans slightly more ethical.”
“That doesn’t make any fucking sense,” I mutter, my headache returning with a fucking vengeance.
He sighs, “Yeah, it’s complicated. But we kept kids away from the shit by doing what we do. In order to find the worst of the worst, we’ve had to fit in with them.”
Burying my head in my hands, a sob sits at the back of my throat. I’m so confusedall the timelately. I’m wandering around in a world I don’t recognize in abodyI don’t even recognize. Everything around me is a mess.
And now, I’m learning that I not only kill people and peddle drugs, I also use my drug peddling to find people to kill.
“Look,” Skyler suddenly appears by my side. “Maybe the memories will start to come back.”
Jesus Christ, I hope not.
“What if they don’t?”
He sinks to his haunches, grabbing my drink to refill it before returning to the desk. As he pours, one side of his lips lifts in a smirk I can hear more than I can actually see, “We’ll make new ones.”
I groan in both pain and annoyance.
His chuckle lands like a rock in my stomach. “Let’s start with the easy stuff. I’m Skyler Beltran. You’re Cormac Fomori. We own Balor Industries. You’re the founder and brought me on a couple years later.”
“And then this,” I gesture around us with my free hand, the other digging into my eyes with my thumb and fingers.
“It started with getting Balor into a few bars and liquor stores, the usual stuff,” he explains. “Then when that wasn’t quite lucrative enough, we branched out. Ren Faires, charity functions to get our name out, and eventually, bars owned and operated silently by us. This one is my little kingdom.”
“Your kingdom?” I laugh without humor.
“Yes,” he continues, ignoring my sarcasm. “We decided a few years back that we needed a direct line to all the low lifes around us. Just picking them off one by one wasn’t getting us anywhere. So we built our own little city of debauchery, one the masses knew about, and one that guaranteed us a direct line into everyone’s dirty little secrets.”
“How?”
He looks at his watch, “Ooh, sorry, Fomori, we are out of time for the Mingle reintroduction tour for tonight. I have a bar to run.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
He shrugs, throwing back another large glass of the dark red liquid, wiping it from the corner of his mouth with his elbow. “Go home? Or go scope out the dancefloor. See if Brigit is around.”
“Brigit?” I finally look up at him and see the exact moment his face turns into a too-blank slate, trying to hide a reaction from me.
“Yeah, Brigit Danaan,” he repeats. “That’s her name. She’s a regular. Both upstairs and down. She was just here maybe a week ago?”
“Doing what?” I find it hard to believe someone so kind-looking was involved with anything like what we apparently have been up to.
“What else?” he laughs. “Watching thefights.”
“Fights?”
He groans in annoyance, “Oh, my God, no more questions. I have to go get ready but I swear, we’ll go over more next week sometime. I’ll make a whole fucking powerpoint and everything.”
A PowerPoint of our criminal enterprise?
I find it hard to believe someone would do something so fucking ridiculous.
Without waiting for me to agree, he leaps off his perch on the desk, opening a door behind him. Just before disappearing into the dark hall beyond, he points back the way we came. “Go mingle.”
“That’s stupid,” I laugh. Astupid, cliché thing to call a bar.
