SEVEN
Garrison
I watchedDess cradle her hot chocolate. She seemed totally unaffected by Talon’s relentless front of hostility. I’d seen people crumble under one of Talon’s mere stares. This woman was a mystery, that was for sure.
I cut in again, tired of participating in a game that she seemed all too good at playing. The only reason we continued this good cop, bad cop routine was her reaction to me. Talon’s threatening accusations didn’t seem to get under her skin, but my gentle questioning did. I could see the way I unsettled her.
It was easier to get a read on how honest a person was being if their emotions were off kilter. I still couldn’t quite pick apart how much of her story was true. I thought I’d caught flickers of genuine distress and shame in her expression, but was it a fraction of a larger trauma she was trying to suppress or a sign that she wasn’t really all that affected?
“Where do you live in that neighborhood?” I asked. “One of us could go to your house and gather some belongings for you. If your boyfriend is as useless as it sounds like, I’m sure Talon or Julius could handle him just fine.”
Dess scoffed, revealing nothing but mild distrust behind her storm gray eyes. Right now, they resembled steel—sharp and clear.
I had to cut through that steel in whatever way I could—subtle but penetrating, the way I always worked a job.
“You think I’d give away my address to four total strangers?” she asked, looking around and meeting everyone’s eyes before turning her gaze back on me. Cold. Detached. Unreadable. Blaze shifted in his seat across from us but kept his mouth shut. He knew not to interrupt a gambit once it was in progress.
Talon stepped forward with the air of menace he gave off so easily, but I put out my arm, stopping him in his path. “Enough.” I stepped around the island closer to Dess, my body language poised to be open and inviting. “We just want to help you, really. Even that lout does. But if you’re still not comfortable, I totally get it. I’m not going to push.”
Reverse psychology was absolutely a thing. In my experience, most people who’d balk at a direct question found themselves spilling the beans as soon as you told them they didn’t have to answer after all, as long as you framed it right. Especially women, who were so often programmed to please.
Not Dess.
She stayed silent, her muscles stiffening as she turned her mug of hot chocolate in her hands and then took another sip. I couldn’t suppress the twitch of my cock as I watched her savor the liquid, her tongue darting out to swipe the last traces from her lips, her expression briefly relaxing with apparent delight. She looked so damn sexy relishing the offering I’d made for her.
I shut down that twinge of attraction, just as she flipped the script.
“How about you explain why you brought me to your apartment instead of the hospital,” she said, arching an eyebrow.
I didn’t allow anything to show on my face. “Were we not allowed to be concerned?”
“I’m pretty sure a normal concerned person would have taken me to the emergency room.”
Talon smacked his hand down on the island. “Now you’re complaining about being here? You made it pretty fucking clear that you wanted nothing to do with any hospital.”
“I think I also made it clear I wanted to be left alone,” Dess shot back.
I held up my hands. “You can’t expect us to leave a woman who’s fainted from her injuries lying at the edge of the road. We’re not some kind of psychopaths. Whenever you need to leave, the door’s open to you. Hell, we can take you to the hospital after all if you want.”
Years of practice allowed me to smooth out the edge that wanted to creep into my voice. What kind of game was she playing with us? It was starting to feel like one, and I didn’t like that at all. I was supposed to be the one who ran the games around here.
How the fuck would this look to Julius and the other guys if I fell on my face in the one job they’d given me today?
Dess adjusted her stance on her stool again, and I noted the drooping of her eyelids. I’d slipped a sleeping pill into her mug—she’d blame her growing exhaustion on the accident. The more physically helpless we could keep her, the easier it’d be to hold her here while we figured out what she was really up to without giving away that we wouldn’t actually let her walk out the front door.
As soon as she figured out she’d essentially been kidnapped, most of my usual strategies would become useless. You needed to generate a certain amount of good will to con a person.
“I’m still thinking about it,” Dess muttered. It’d clearly taken some effort for her to speak clearly. The pill was kicking in fast now.
I cocked my head with a sympathetic vibe. “You’re looking a little wiped. You are still healing from that crash. If you need to—"
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
I raised my arms in a gesture of surrender. “Again, what you say goes. You know yourself way better than the rest of us do.”
The line of bullshit I spoon-fed her didn’t seem to loosen her guard in the slightest. The good cop, bad cop routine had gotten us nowhere. The kindness that I tried to show her hadn’t had any effect on her.
For the first time in nearly a decade, I had no idea how to get a true read on a mark. She admitted nothing with her words or glances, other than a few tiny details that would give us no advantage.