She grins at this. "Oh, I know. I've made a career out of listening to my gut."
"Sounds like the start to an interesting conversation,” I say, “considering what I know about your father."
She frowns. "Not sure what you mean by that."
I wave her off. "Forget it for now. I haven't seen any signs of our pursuers, so I think we're good, but I want to keep putting miles between them and us.”
She exits the car and heads into Kohl’s. To my shock, she emerges barely twenty minutes later with a big plastic bag in one hand. Yet, instead of returning to me, she heads toward Target next door.
"Really?" I say out loud.
I'm less annoyed, however, when she comes back to the car with her purchases, pushing a red Target shopping cart—jeans, socks, underwear, a 3pack of T-shirts in black, white, andgray, a black hoodie, a ballcap with the Yankees logo, and a pair of sneakers all from Kohls; From target she got snacks, an emergency medical kit, a case of water bottles, and a case of Diet Coke.
I watch her toss the items into the back seat, return the cart to a corral, and buckle back in beside me. "Not gonna go that far, huh?"
"There was a sale, so the clothes were all like fifty percent off, and the last time I wore these jeans, I apparently left cash in my back pocket." She shrugs. "That was actually kind of fun."
I look at her, bemused. "What was?"
She gestures vaguely at the stores. "That. Shopping like that."
"Not following."
A sigh. "I'm embarrassed to explain."
I snort. "Brys, I think of all the people in the world, I'm best positioned to understand what you might mean. I once bought an entire company just so I could fire one person.”
She laughs. "You did not."
"I did. I went into a store in Dumbo, and one of the employees was incredibly rude. Even for New York."
"That's really saying something," she mutters."
"Exactly. Instead of complaining to the management, I bought the company with a single phone call while standing in front of the woman who insulted me. Signed a few documents via email, and fired her on the spot. And then got her blacklisted from everywhere I knew in all of New York."
"Damn. She must have really pissed you off. That's some next-level vindictiveness."
"I've never been of the mind that the customer is always right," I say. "It's a toxic mindset. Idobelieve the customer should be treated with respect; however, this woman was snarky, sarcastic, and rude. When I called her on it, she got in myface, called me names, and was generally just a massive bitch. So yes, I taught her a lesson."
"Sounds valid to me." Brys reaches back, twisting in her seat, opens the case of soda, and snags one, opening it with acrack-hiss. "I don't shop like that," she says after taking a sip. "Just…go into stores like that."
I cover my amused smirk with a hand. "So then howdoyou shop?"
"Personal shopper. Private offerings from my favorite designers brought to my home or office.”
"And for plebeian things like food and non-clothing essentials?"
"Delivery service. I send them a list of what I need, and someone gets it, brings it to my place, and puts it away while I'm at work."
I shake my head. "I see."
She eyes me. "You were a billionaire, as you like to point out. You're telling me you just went into a department store and bought your suits off the rack at Macy's?"
"God, no. My tailor came to me. But I do enjoy spending money, and I'm quite good at it. So I do, in fact, go shopping. I like twenty-four-hour supermarkets. I do my best shopping at three in the morning when I've got the place to myself."
She frowns at me. "Sorry, I just have a hard time picturing you pushing a cart through the aisles of a supermarket."
What I'm not saying is that since I'm technically dead—Caleb Indigo is dead, and Jakob Kasparek legally vanished long, long ago—I have to be extraordinarily careful about appearing in public. Caleb Indigo was a public persona. My face is out there—Jakob was less public, being who and what I was. During the years I was building Club Sin and recruiting my Arrows, Inez handled almost everything I needed from out in the world, allowing me to stay hidden in my penthouse above the club.But then things got spicy, Pugli and that fucking bloodthirsty monster Mercado sent men to assault my home, and I had to go on the run.
