Chapter 4
“Here you go, hon.”
A cup of coffee landed in front of Nala. She blinked, taking in the sights of a family restaurant. Surly women in pink aprons. Kids coloring on placemats. Students trying to get studying done. It was a common sight, no matter where Nala traveled in the country. Yet after what she had seen back at The Crow’s Nest? Everything was extraordinary.
When Vincent said he would take her out for coffee, however, this wasn’t what she had in mind. Portland was teeming with coffee shops. You couldn’t throw a rock without landing on a barista’s head. Fuck me. She realized how late it was. None of the cozy coffee shops would be open now. A 24-hour family restaurant on the inner skirts of suburbia would have to do.
Nala vaguely remembered the hour leading up to this moment. After that sordid display of spanking revelry, they had to watch Lucian and Robin play with feather dusters and… a crop. A crop right against Robin’s ass. Apparently it was a spank-a-thon at The Crow’s Nest.
All while Xavier Crow happily looked on.
What a blur that hour was. Nala could barely think about it without wanting to bang her head against the table and cry. Except she couldn’t. Not only was she in public, but Vincent sat across from her, his suit jacket off and a skinny spoon stirring cream into his coffee.
“So…” he began. “I never really got your name.”
“Thank you for coming tonight, Vincent. Nightingale.” That’s what Xavier said when sending them off at the end of the shows. “I hope you’ll join us again next week. Get to know us while we get to know you. Soon enough we’ll know if you’re a good fit for our group.” That was it. The only further communication they had before Vincent ushered Nala out of the lounge and into a taxi that he paid for.
“My name is Nala,” she finally said, hands wrapped around her hot cup of coffee. A typical drizzle lashed against the window beside them. Although the heat was on in the restaurant, Nala still took solace in the way the coffee made her palms burn. “Nala Nazarov.”
“Nazarov? That’s very… Russian.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
“Sorry.” Vincent leaned back. “I shouldn’t have shared that thought.”
“Everyone thinks that, though. I’m a stone cold Russian bitch.”
Vincent didn’t say anything. Apparently he was not a man to banter. Nala had no idea what kind of man she currently hung out with.
“So, Nala…” He sipped his coffee and waited for a waitress to walk by with plates of pie. “About what happened back there…”
The coffee cup shook in her hands. Eventually, Nala realized that it was her hands shaking. I don’t know what’s going on. What do I even say? Was she safe around this man? “What do you want from me?” she finally asked. “I mean… why me…”
“I’ll be honest with you, Nala.” The way he said her name was so smooth and gentle that it almost placated her – and Nala was not the type of girl placated by a man’s voice. If anything, she didn’t notice it at all. Yet there was a lot to notice about Vincent. He didn’t broadcast much, but he couldn’t hide his looks or the sounds he made. No man was that good, no matter how much he wanted to keep locked away from the world. “I wanted into that club. I wanted to get to him as much as you seemed to. I don’t know why you do. You don’t know why I do. But I knew that going in on my own wouldn’t get me far. I had an invitation, but as you could see, it was more of a couple’s thing. If I wanted to hang around for several weeks, even months, I would need to find a partner to bring with me. Someone to pose as my girlfriend.”
Nala perked up. “Pose as your girlfriend?”
“You said you can’t act, but you might be a fine liar. If you can lie and pretend to be my girlfriend, then you’ll have access to Crow at least once a week, when that group meets. Not always on the same day, but almost weekly.”
“That club was depraved.” She said it so off-handedly that it almost sounded like she talked about shoes or skirts. “I should have guessed that a man like him is into that sort of stuff.” She had no comment on the other people there.
“Yes, and I suppose you could say that this city is full of rich, depraved people. Just like any other city in the world.”
Nala finished her sip and slumped in her seat. “And you? Are you rich?” He definitely had money, based on his suit and his connections to Xavier Crow. Honestly, that should have been enough to turn Nala away. Far, far away. She didn’t mess with rich people. Well, more like they didn’t mess with her… they didn’t even know she existed in her tiny closet and at her shitty job working for a corporate donation center for the poor.
Vincent wasn’t fazed, yet again. Did anything faze him? “I’m a tech entrepreneur. I develop and market apps. You might even use one or two on your phone.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
Oh, finally. He was fazed. “Excuse me?” That was the most shock to ever grace that man’s face in a month, surely. “You don’t own a phone at all? In 2015?”
Nala frowned hard enough to feel the shockwave through her body. “Fuck you,” she muttered, pulling out her dumb phone and plopping it on the diner table. “It’s old. I might as well not have one. It doesn’t do Wi-Fi and definitely doesn’t do data.”
Vincent glanced at the flip phone, possibly from 2005, 6, 7…. “You’re not into tech?”
“Not like you, apparently.” In another life, Nala would pack up and go live off the grid. TV was boring. Computers were too expensive. If she needed one, she would go to the library and do her research and job applications. The NSA was watching her regardless. “Look, I know what an app is. I probably have never used whatever one you created and made you rich. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It takes all types in this world.” Vincent shrugged. “I came into the money this past year, honestly. Crow contracted my company to develop an app for him to personally use in order to manage his properties. The age of internal servers and websites is over. Everyone does everything on their phones. Including run multi-billion dollar properties.”
“He’s a medical guy, though.”
“First and foremost. Don’t know if you noticed, though, he owns half of Portland and is making his way through Seattle. I hear he wants east coast properties next.”
Seattle. Where his pharmaceutical labs were located. Where Tasha worked and lived.
And died.
The cup shook so much that it sloshed hot coffee on her hands. She didn’t notice.
“You okay?”
Nala focused on the man in front of her. “Yeah, sure.” Lying. She couldn’t act, but she could lie her face off. “I’m fine. Sorry. It’s been a long night.”
They were silent. Just as well, for a horde of rowdy kids ran by carrying balloons and screaming for chocolate cream pie. I hate places like these. Nala worked at one when she first moved to Portland. A local eatery chain, which tested her patience to extremes she never knew she had. Turns out I’m not a people person. She was fired when a customer complained about her demeanor. All I did was pour ice water in his lap for telling me to smile for the umpteenth time. Now she didn’t deal with customers at all. Praise the Lord.
“So why do you need a fake girlfriend?” Nala was going to regret asking that, but something needed to change the pace.
Vincent sucked in his breath, elbows straining against the table as he rubbed his face. Fingers brushed through his combed dark brown hair. Now it wasn’t so combed. It stuck straight up in places, making him look like a disheveled cubicle crony on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. Nala contained a smile. That’s more like the kind of man I like. You know, if I bring myself to care at all. Men. Expectations. All that.
“Like I said. That club was for couples. I don’t have a girlfriend, though. I’m also not looking for one. So if I’m going to be in Xavier Crow’s intimate circle, I need a girlfriend willing to play along.” He snorted. “When I saw you sneaking around trying to get a gander at him, I took what was given to me. Sorry if it shocked you. Didn’t mean for that to happen. How was I to know what you did or didn’t know?”
Nala almost cackled. “So let me get this straight. You want to kiss this asshole’s puckered anus, so you need a fake girlfriend to get into his perverted circle. That’s rich. I also don’t know how that’s going to work, considering what kind of club it is. I didn’t see any cocktails and chats about the horse races or even the precious Ducks.”
Vincent studied her. “Asshole, huh? For someone trying to sneak in to see him, you really don’t like Crow.”
“I’d rather eat it.”
“I see. Go back, do you?”
Yes. We go back to my sister’s death. Nala wasn’t going to tell him about that, though. Not now. Not here. Not like this. “Let’s say he fucked my sister over and I’m a bit sore about it.”
She expected him to roll his eyes. To wave her concerns off and treat her like everyone else did when Nala expressed her disdain for one of the nation’s wealthiest men. “What have you got against the guy? I hear he has a lot of charities and pours millions of dollars into cancer research! His personal money!” That was if people had even heard of him. For owning half of a city, most of its residents couldn’t tell Nala who he was. Then again, most of those people were high most of the day.
Instead, Vincent Lane regarded her with newfound interest. “Fucked her over how?”
Nala looked away. “Enough to make me hate him forever.”
She drank her coffee and stared at the tacky carpeting. Dirt. Grime. Food particles and lint. The same Nala’s old restaurant always looked on a busy night of free pie and birthday parties. Now she was really going to puke.
“You must think I’m petty.”
Vincent slowly shook his head. “Whatever you’re guessing about me… I’m not trying to get to him because I want to kiss his puckered anus. I don’t like the man either. It’s personal.”
That got Nala’s attention. “How so? Business?” She snorted. “He fuck you over with money? Didn’t pay for his app?”
The man sitting across from her did not smile. No. He frowned, so sour in countenance that Nala had to recall what she even said. He looked at her as if she had been purposely flippant.
“Let’s say he has a lot to answer for.”
This wasn’t a man sour about money. Or business in general. This was personal, indeed. Yet like Nala wasn’t going to get in her conspiracies about Tasha’s death, Vincent wasn’t going to share his thoughts. Probably a good idea. They barely knew each other. The most intimate thing they had shared thus far was watching two women get cropped and spanked.
Nala shuddered.
“It sounds like we have a lot to gain from one another, Ms. Nazarov.” Interesting. He pronounced it correctly, and not with a stupid flair like most men thought it funny to use… as if she really were some Bond girl ready to rip off her clothes and soak in the ocean. Or whatever they did. “We both want access to him, for our own reasons, but we need each other to do that. It’s probably our only way. That man is heavily guarded otherwise. Even when doing business with him, I only met with him once or twice. This was over months.”
Nala shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The booth screeched, the faux leather rubbing against her thighs. “I don’t know. That club was…”
“We probably shouldn’t discuss those details here.” Vincent gestured to the kids’ party going on a few yards away. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card and a pen. His handwriting appeared on the back of the card. “Here.” He slid it across the table. “The address to my office is on that card. I’m available Thursday evening at six. Come up to my office and we’ll talk it over. Unless you have to work or have class?”
Nala shook her head. “I’m off work at three.”
“Then I hope to see you.”
Without a formal farewell, Vincent slipped out of his booth and slapped some bills on the table. For their coffees and the tip, he said. It was well over the kosher amount. The waitress was looking at a $13 tip.
Nala stared at the wad of cash long after her new friend left. She was far from home, with almost no money in her pocket and her bus ticket long expired. She needed a new one. Now.
Her fingers plucked three dollar bills from the pile of cash. When no one was looking, she pocketed them, feeling both guilty and shameless at the same time.
After the night she had, though? She wasn’t going to feel bad about doing what she needed to do. She had accessed Xavier Crow. She had seen what kind of life he lived. She wanted to throw up in the process, but now she knew.
As for Vincent? He was convenient. Not only had he saved her back and neck, but he had gotten her into that club to begin with. Nala saw the value in that. Besides… he wasn’t too bad to look at. If she was going to pretend to be a man’s girlfriend to meet her vengeful end, he could at least be decent looking and rich. Especially if he offered to pay for everything. Like a taxi. And coffee. And Nala’s bus ticket, even if he didn’t know he was doing that.
She briefly wondered if this was a trap. Maybe Vincent was actually one of Xavier’s cronies. Perhaps. Perhaps it was worth the danger to find out his true intentions.
“Let’s say he has a lot to answer for.”
What did that mean? Had Xavier Crow also ruined someone’s life in Vincent’s world?
The real question was…
Did she care?
As long as her formless plan continued along its path, oh yeah, she cared. The rage simmering in her stomach would have to dance with grief a little while longer.
For Tasha. She would find out what Vincent had to say. For Tasha.
Not those shining eyes of intrigue burning in Vincent’s stoic face.
Not his strong arms holding tight onto her.
Certainly not for the look Nala recognized in him. The look of vengeance.
She didn’t need to know the details. She just had to show up and lie.