His bouncing back and forth between topics unnerves me. His cavalier attitude about the first time I ever took someone's life just segueing into what to call a drink leaves me feeling sick.
"You're being so... normal about it. Like murder and booze are just another day in the life for you," I comment, scratching the back of my head.
He barks out a small laugh, "I hate to break it to you, man, but itisjust another day in the life for us. Taste testing alcohol and discussing ournextmurder was sometimes what we did during a day shift. But, if you wanna get technical, that wasn't murder. It was self defense. What we did afterwards is murder."
"What did we do?" I'm almost afraid of the answer.
"I'm so glad you asked, Cormac," he grins. "We took down his whole operation. That was our first real foray into this whole vigilante thing. It's where you learned you like carving them up and I like putting their sins on display for the world to see. You slice, I expose."
"And that's how officer what's his name found us?"
Another annoyed groan escapes him, "Ugh. Steele. Yeah, he was like three steps behind us on an investigation and got there just in time to either turn us in or turn us into his bitches. But even he knew it couldn't go on forever. Hopefully him being on our asses is a thing of the past now that you've been caught and it would be too public for him to be seen even speaking with you."
"How did you manage to stay out of prison when..." I'm not sure how to ask this since I have no idea what actually happened.
He shrugs, "I wasn't too worried. I knew we had cleaned up the cases immaculately, left behind no trace. And towards the end, you were little more than a recluse so I hardly saw you. They could barely tie us together since we manipulated the official documents of the business to keep it all separate. Ididthink you'd stay locked up, but that's because I thought you'd probably lose your shit and killsomeone just trying to escape. And then..." he gestures in my general direction, "this."
Thisbeing my complete loss of every memory containing him and anyone else who might have been involved.
"What about the tattoos?" I ask. "Where did they come from?"
He shrugs, "Don't know. Honestly, I was just as surprised to see them as you are now. I know the bat was first. You were having a complex about the scar on your neck ruining your sparkling, handsome facade. At that point, we were already garnering a reputation for being a silent killer that came and disappeared in the dead of night, bleeding people dry. The bat wasn't exactly a stretch from there."
My phone alerts me to Brigit's front door opening, and, against my attempt at having better judgment, I have to look.
The view from her main entryway brings me right to her, overlooking my beautiful little obsession as she bends down to pick up a delivery dropped right to her door.
"Are we back to stalking?" Skyler asks, peeking over my shoulder. "I thought maybe you'd graduate from that now that you've actually earned her attention."
Shoving him away, I remember his other drunken confession that he knew I was following her the whole time. "I'm not stalking. I'm just keeping an eye on her to make sure she doesn't turn me in."
The look on his face makes it clear he believes my bullshit even less than I do.
"Shut the fuck up."
"I didn't say anything," he stands from the chair, stretching like we actually just finished a hard day's work and didn't just lounge and drink for an hour. "What is cutie patootie Brigy up to?"
I shouldn't humor him. It would only encourage his ceaseless tormenting. "She just got a delivery."
"Another slutty dress?" his brows bounce with cartoonish salaciousness. "I'm not fighting this weekend so you'll have to be okay with someone else being her source of entertainment."
"You're not fighting?" I raise a brow.
He shakes his head, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair, and sliding into it. "I don't fight when Stella's gone. Wolfy can do a lot of the upstairs managing when necessary, but he isn't quite ready to do it all without me."
As Brigit begins unboxing her stuff, Sky squints at my screen, "Huh."
"What?"
"That's from the same security company we use at Mingle," he points at the small logo on the box. "Looks like Brigit's trying to lock your ass out."
No, she's not.
I watch carefully as she frantically opens boxes and searches through the instructions. She'd been pacing across her apartment for the last few hours since she got home. Cleaning and recleaning her kitchen counter. Checking her watch. Checking her phone. Checking her computer before slamming it closed. Something has scared her.
And there's not a chance it's me.
If she were afraid of me, she would have been doing all of this the other night, the second she got home. Or last week or the week before that.
