Sloane comes and sits at the table opposite me; the cloud of perfume she brings with her is a little overbearing but not surprising in the least. Julio’s girls are heavy handed with everything—makeup, tans, tits, the whole nine yards.
“She wasn’t there,” Sloane informs me. “She’s going to be back tomorrow afternoon, in time for the party.”
“Oh.” That’s not great, but not terrible either. We can still make our plan work. Sloane looks troubled, though.
“What’s up?”
She runs her thumb across her lower lip, staring at me. I’m about to tell her she’s making me really fucking uncomfortable, when I realize no girl has ever made me feel fucking uncomfortable. I’m damned if I’m gonna admit something like that to her.
“I’ve been thinking about something. And I don’t want you to get mad.”
Well that is a fucking charming opening to a conversation. I sit back in the chair, putting the gun down on the table. She glances at it, and then takes a deep breath. “I want to know if you’re clean.”
“Wha—if I’m clean?”
“Yeah.” She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. “Y’know. We’ve had a lot of unprotected sex, and I want to know that you’ve not given me some disgusting or life-threatening disease. You’ve slept with all these hookers and—”
“Whoa, what the fuck?” I’m replaying the last words to come out of her mouth, trying to process them. “I’ve slept with all what hookers?”
Small knots of muscle jump in her jaw as she clenches down. I’ve made her angry, but then so fucking what? She’s made me angry, too. Her eyes are blazing when she says, “I thought you were always honest with me. You can’t tell me you haven’t slept with a lot of women.”
“I have slept with a lot of women, Sloane. But I’ve never fucked a hooker.” She lets out a snort that says she doesn’t believe me. “Sleeping with someone for money is not something that attracts me. At all. Everyone I’ve ever slept with has been more than willing. Yourself included.” I can feel my temperature rising, but I can see it happening to Sloane. Her cheeks have turned a bright red.
“Oh, really? So I lost my virginity in a hotel room in the dark to a complete fucking stranger because I wanted to?”
“You—” I bite back what I really want to say. Fuck! That night. That night’s gonna haunt us for fucking ever. “I’m not sorry for that, Sloane. I didn’t force you, and I didn’t pay you.”
“No, but Eli was supposed to. He was supposed to tell me where my sister was, that was the payment, but then again you killed him before he could do it. So you’re right. I guess I didn’t get any sort of recompense for bleeding for you.”
She jumps up from the table, physically shaking with rage. I follow after her, taking hold of her arm. She spins and slaps me; I’m expecting it and I let it come. I deserve that one. I probably deserve a whole lot more from her. I let myself feel the sting, waiting to see if she’s got more coming. She just stands there, shaking.
“If I’d have found Alexis a lot sooner if you hadn’t interfered, Zeth,” she whispers. The accusation’s clear in her eyes; she blames me for Alexis being trapped here for the last two years.
“You wouldn’t have found her. He didn’t have the information to give to you, Sloane.”
“That’s bullshit! I went into that office. I found Eli sitting there with a goddamn letter opener sticking out of his chest. And I found the file he had on Alexis! It was right there in his filing cabinet, except you’d taken all of the information out of it! Why! Why did you do that?”
I’m doing my best here, but I don’t have a great track record with anger management. Only what they taught me in prison, and that didn’t ever really help. Fuck it, though. She wants to rehash this? We can rehash this.
“The file didn’t have anything about Alexis in it, Sloane. It was all you. Eli had all your personal details in there. He had photos of you at work, in your car. At home.” I let that last part linger between us for a moment, letting all the connotations develop in her mind. Her eyes are bright and shining, but the information seems to have taken her aback.
“Me? What do you mean, photos of me at home?”
“I mean photos of you in the shower, in bed, walking around naked. He had video files of you fucking touching yourself, Sloane.”
“What?” Her voice is a whisper. The horror on her face…
Fuck.