“Alright. Here is what is going to happen. Finn is going to show up, and he’s going to be brash and no-nonsense, barking questions and expecting honest answers. Which you are going to keep it together and give to him because he is the only way you won’t end up in front of a judge over this.”
“Okay.”
“Alright. Then we are going to leave here, go back to my office, and you are going to have your fingernails scraped and cut. Then you are going to take a shower and change into clothes my secretary gives you. I am going to take these,” I said, gesturing toward her, “and give them to Finn to get rid of as well.”
“And from there?”
“From there, we have a lot of shit to discuss.” She opened her mouth to question me, but there was the sound of a car door out front. “That’d be Finn.” I could hear the van doors opening and closing and the dog barking, and then the footsteps inside the house. “Take a deep breath. And don’t get offended by him. He’s in work mode.”
Then Finn walked in.
THREE
Aven
I don’t know what I had been expecting Quinton Baird to be, or even what I expected a ‘fixer’ to be, but I guess the best descriptor that came to mind was older. I expected him to be much older, seasoned, world-weary.
And while this man spoke like he had been around the block a time or two, and was maybe a bit jaded as a whole, he wasn’t old. While it was hard to tell these kinds of things past the mid-twenties, I would put him somewhere in his late thirties.
Of all the things I maybe could have pictured him to be, stupidly good-looking wasn’t one of them.
Yet there he was. In my bedroom. Spreading his gorgeous all over.
He was tall and wide-shouldered, hanging the dark suit he had on perfectly. His tie was pulled, though, like he had been in the getup for too long, and was getting sick of it.
His body might have been impressive under the material covering it; it was hard to tell aside from clearly having a flat stomach. But his face, oh yeah, that was where the hotness came into play.
He had a strong jaw with at least two day’s worth of stubble, chiseled cheekbones, black lashes surrounding deep brown eyes. His hair was cut somewhere between short and average, black, and a little mussed to match his suit and tie.
I probably shouldn’t have been noticing things like how good-looking he was, given the circumstances. But it was right there in my face almost as soon as he came into the room.
Maybe my brain was trying to focus on nice things – like his face – instead of ugly things – like the body surrounded by blood at the foot of my bed.
His voice had something special too. Smooth, but with an odd, gravel-filled edge. It slid over you, blanketing you with comfort, then forced its way in somehow as well.
And he was here.
That was maybe the most insane part of it all.
He was here.
In my home.
Telling me he was going to fix my situation.
After his office told me that my kind of cases were a no-go.
As I ripped off my nightgown, and dragged on my new clothes, I figured that maybe I was only their kind of case now that I didn’t have a stalker anymore; I had a dead man in my bedroom.
Ugh.
Even that thought made my empty stomach twist painfully, a wringing sensation that made me wonder if I was about to need to rush to the bathroom to dry-heave to make the urge to vomit go away.
In the end, though, I held it together.
I wouldn’t pretend that had anything to do with my actual strength. I would be willing to put all that credit right at Quinton Baird’s feet. It was thanks to the calm, collected, and mildly commanding tone he used to relay how things stood, how they were going to go, and what was expected of me in the process.
Surprisingly little.
Which was good, because I was pretty sure I was in shock. It was the only way to explain the odd numbness I was feeling as there were footsteps up my stairs, and then another man entered the room.
This one looked nothing like Quinton who was clearly the boss of the operation, which was maybe why he dressed to match the part.
Finn was as tall as Quinton and just as wide across the chest, but he was dressed simply in a black tee, black work pants, and oddly simple black knock-off Chucks. His features weren’t quite as chiseled, but had an almost rugged look to them, which was maybe thanks to the full dirty-blond beard that matched his hair that looked in need of a trim.