Dirty Law Read online

  “My line of work is…unique,” Law replied, ever the inscrutable one.

  I scoffed. I was starting to believe him; how dumb of me. “Your line of work?”

  He eyed me incredulously and repeated my words, almost annoyed. “Yes, my line of work.”

  “As a fucking political puppet?” I couldn’t help my response. I wasn’t a seasoned liar—unlike the company I kept—so it was hard to keep my tongue in check.

  Law craned his neck to the side, eyeing me with confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  I fingered my gun again, in case things were about to get ugly. “I know what you do, okay? I know who you work for and I know why you’re out with me. Stop pretending.” I pushed my gun against my purse, so the outline was visible. “And just so you don’t get any funny ideas.”

  He eyed my gun, less than impressed. “What are you talking about?”

  “You have your reasons for needing the drug stopped,” I repeated the words Law had said to him icily. His face went ashen, just for a moment, before he narrowed his eyes on me.

  “What have you gotten yourself into?” Law asked.

  I shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  By the time our conversation lulled, the sun was coming up, and people were walking by. We were still in the alley. I had one hand keeping him at a distance and the other on my gun. We had gotten nowhere. I didn’t believe him one bit but then why, why, why…

  Why was there a sliver of hope nestled like a shard of glass inside my heart, telling me that he might be for real?

  Because what was all that stuff about “his line of work”?

  And why did he seem so confused when I called him a political puppet?

  In the end I came to no conclusion about Law either way. He could have been evil incarnate, or he could have just been a regular asshole—an asshole who pays the tab, opens the door for me, and offers to drive me home.

  But still an asshole.

  An asshole I let drive me home.

  I told myself it was because if he was going to try and slither his way back into my life, then I was going to do it first. I was going to go black ops, rogue, whatever the name, and slither my way right back. I would understand everything about him and ruin him from the inside out.

  My fear, though, was that none of that was true. My fear was that I was weak, tired, and a little drunk, and that I let Law give me a ride home because my feet hurt. My fear was that I was not a rogue, that I was just plain old Nami DeGrace.

  When we reached my apartment, Law tried to open my door for me.

  “I can open my own goddamn door,” I growled.

  “I was being a gentleman.” I scoffed at that, shoving the key into the lock and slamming the door open so it ricocheted against the wall. Raskolnikov, hearing the loud noise, jumped from wherever he had been laying his lazy ass and proceed to bark and hop all around us.

  “Raskolnikov. No,” I said, the lack of enthusiasm evident. I walked past Raskol-the-jumping-bean and placed my keys on the table. A small, nearly microscopic part of me was smiling at Raskol’s guard dog attempts. He was tiny, but he was mighty.

  “Could you say something, please?” Law asked. “He’s biting my leg.” I turned around to see Raskol using Law’s pant leg as a chew toy.

  “Oh, bad boy, Raskolnikov. Don’t. So bad.” I shrugged and continued, “I guess he won’t listen to me. Sorry. Maybe you should go.”

  Law glared before bending down and picking Raskol up. Instantly Raskolnikov went from an angry chomping monster to a happy licking beast. He gave Law a furious kiss on the cheek.

  “I think he likes me,” Law said before setting him back on the floor. Raskol proceeded to run around the room about fifty times.

  “Traitor,” I muttered as he passed me on his sixtieth lap. Turning back to Law I stated, “He’s just lulling you into complacency before he strikes.”

  Law raised an eyebrow. “He’s very scary. What’s his name?”

  “Raskolnikov. Raskol for short.”

  “Like rascal?” Law asked, quirking an eyebrow as Raskol zoomed by.

  “No, like Raskol. What the fuck did I just say?” I was getting sick of playing nice with the could-be-vile sycophant. I didn’t want to spend time deciphering his true intentions. He’d had a meal with him; that was all the proof I needed that Law was no good. Why had I nearly forgotten that? It was long past time he left, and since Raskol had done a poor job of getting him to go, it was my turn.

  “I think it’s time you get the fuck out of my apartment,” I snapped.

  “What is your problem?” Law asked, walking farther inside. “I’ve been nothing but nice to you, even after you punched me in the face and told me to fuck off!”

  “Yeah, apparently you can’t take a hint.” I reeled. “I know who you work for so stop pretending!” Law took another step and I shoved his chest. Like hitting an oak, it did nothing to sway him.

  Law eyed me and my hands, confusion marring his stupidly perfect features. “I work for myself.”

  I laughed. Maybe the liquor had affected me, or maybe I was drunk on anger. I’d known I shouldn’t get drunk. It was easy to take advantage of a drunk person, but the liquor calmed my mind. It erased the memories that surfaced like dead limbs. My words were coming much easier now, too. It felt like they were slipping from my mouth like water down an iceberg.

  “Stop acting like you don’t know who I am!” As I backed away from him, I tripped over my couch. I fell onto the floor, Raskol’s dog bed bracing my landing. “Even if I could believe you don’t work for him—which I don’t—you know who I am!”

  “A crazy lady?” Law asked, taking a step toward me. He offered his hand to help me up, but I smacked it away.

  A little wobbly, I stood up without his help. Counting off the names people had called me on my fingers, I spat them back at him: “Whore, slut, liar!”

  Law opened and closed his mouth. For a moment he wasn’t a handsome albeit dirty prick, he was a fish out of water. Eventually he asked, “Who do you think I work for?”

  I’d had it with him. I’d had it with the deception and games he was clearly playing. Whatever sick, twisted ending he had planned for me, I wanted it to happen now. I wasn’t prepared, but I was sure I would never be prepared. You can try as you might to prepare for an earthquake or a tsunami, but the fact of the matter is, it’s still devastating when it hits.

  I opened my mouth and prepared for my earth to be rocked. “Mitch Morris!”

  Four

  “As in Senator Mitch Morris?” Law asked.

  My fist was clenched at my side and my other hand felt empty. My .22 was about a foot away, nestled in the purse I’d dropped angrily to the ground. I wanted to lunge for it, but that would be too obvious. Still, I felt so exposed and helpless. I’d laid all my cards on the table and now I was without any extra chips. I really didn’t know what to expect from Law.

  I was sure he was working for Morris. Sure that Morris had hired him to do something with me. Kill me? Maybe. At least Morris wanted me silenced, of that I was pretty certain. Still, I wasn’t sure how much Morris had told Law. Perhaps Law had no idea what Morris had done to me.

  I nodded in response to Law’s question, waiting for the incredulity and hate to flow. Six months before, when the rape was still fresh and I was still naive enough to think people would believe me, I had learned the hard way that most didn’t respond well to finding out their beloved senator and prominent church leader was a rapist. Instead they chose to believe I was a whore. A slut. A liar.

  “Wait…” Law took a step away from me. I was used to that too. It was as if after finding out what had happened to me, I became tainted. Plagued. Like my terrible “lies” would spread to them too. “A couple of months ago there was a news story—”

  “About an intern who tried to smear Morris. Called him a rapist but turned out she was an alcoholic whore? A slut. A liar. Yeah. That’s me. Nami DeGrace.” Only it wasn’t me. After the rap
e kit, I went to the media. They laughed in my face.

  I thought that would be the worst of it, but then the police reported me to Morris. I woke up the next morning to a fleet of news reporters on my lawn. I guessed I had gotten what I wanted. They reported my story, but it wasn’t mine. It was twisted, tawdry, and it annihilated me.

  What the police did was completely illegal of course, but who was I going to call? The police?

  The news reporters wouldn’t leave. They were calling me the new Monica Lewinsky (and those were the nice reporters). Others called me whore, slut, and liar.

  I got hate mail. I got death threats.

  I couldn’t go to class.

  I dropped out of school.

  I didn’t leave my house for months. I lived off the small inheritance I had from my parent’s death until it ran out. Then I applied for nightshift jobs until someone hired me. It was simpler to work at night, under the cover of darkness where I wasn’t easily recognized.

  Like I was a vampire or some shit.

  While the lab wasn’t my own, it felt like it. I was the only one who worked the graveyard shift. I had my own key, an entire facility to myself, and I left before anyone on the morning shift arrived. It was peaceful and uncomplicated.

  The only time I went out in the day was to occasionally spy on Morris. Or to get a coffee…but look how that turned out.

  “There are no words to describe that douche hole. Maybe cock knob.” Law paused as if thinking seriously and then said, “Perhaps Satan’s twat.” Law shook his head. “Still not right.”

  I coughed. “Excuse me?”

  Law rounded me. Despite numerous self pep talks and online rape recovery groups, I still crumbled when a tall figure came at me. I flinched, expecting to be beat up. Law probably thought I was lying, just like everyone else, and was going to teach me a lesson. I’d received numerous letters and emails delineating what people were going to do to me…but Law just passed me and went into my kitchen. The breath I was holding released.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, my voice still shaking a bit.

  Law opened my fridge. “You got a beer?” Raskol bounded in after him, because any time someone was in the kitchen it meant something was in it for him.

  “Uh… I have whiskey,” I replied, hoping the confusion I felt wasn’t obvious.

  Closing the fridge, Law turned his assault on my cabinets. “Even better.”

  Returning with a bottle of whiskey in tow and Raskol hot on his heels, Law sat down on my coffee table and took a swig. “Tell me everything.”

  It felt like ice had been poured over my head. I stared at Law, unblinking, for what seemed like hours. He took slow slips of my whiskey (my good whiskey), and watched me carefully. The realization of what was happening didn’t occur quickly. It came slowly, like the tide rising over the sands of my own mind.

  “What? No.” I raised my hands, shaking them as I tried to regain some control. Tell him everything? The last people I had told everything to were the police, and that had backfired tremendously. I still had no reason to trust Law. The fact was I knew nothing about Law other than he worked for Morris in some capacity. I was already being an idiot letting him inside my home. And letting him drink my only good whiskey!

  “I can help,” Law said.

  I kicked my heel against the back of the couch, the pain clearing my mind. “By reporting me to Morris? Look, you can tell him I’m done, okay? I won’t do anything any more. He’s made his point.” And he had. Clearly I was in over my head. I just wanted justice, but this wasn’t some comic book. When people like me try to get justice, people like Morris send Law. If I kept going, I would probably end up dead.

  Some days that felt like the best option, but most days I knew better.

  “What are you talking about?” Law asked, coming to sit by me. “Why would I report you to Morris?”

  I eyed him, feeling hate and loathing seep out of me like sweat. “Because you work for him. Don’t fuck with me.”

  “I don’t work for Morris.” Law looked at me as if I were speaking in tongues. He leaned forward, just enough that I could smell him. He smelled good, if I was being honest, like wood and campfire smoke and something else…something rich that I couldn’t quite place. Trying to put space between us, I stood up and walked to the other end of the room.

  “That’s bullshit,” I said. “So you can go ahead and stop talking right now. I know you work for him. I saw you two together and I heard everything.”

  “I don’t know what you heard, Nami,” Law said, taking a step toward me. I immediately stepped backward, tripping over a pair of shoes I’d left out. I hated this, absolutely hated it. I wanted to stand tall and not let Law bully me, but goddamn I was so afraid.

  It was a visceral response now. I didn’t get to make the decisions any more. I didn’t get to choose to stand tall. The minute Law stepped toward me I cowered. Fear wasn’t a choice; fear was my constant state of mind.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Law said, his voice lower and calmer, as if talking to a frightened cat. Maybe I was a frightened cat. I felt ashamed and embarrassed.

  “Whatever,” I said, turning my head so I didn’t have to look at him. “Anything that comes out of your mouth is a lie, so you can go ahead and stop trying.” And why was he trying? Was Morris so obsessed with me that he’d hired this actor to lull me back into a false sense of security? Well, I wouldn’t be lulled. I would never, repeat: never, let myself be vulnerable again.

  Law touched my chin and I jerked it away. Taken aback by his sudden advancement, I stumbled back and fell on my ass. “What the hell do you want with me?” I screamed so loud Raskol barked.

  “I don’t want anything,” Law said, sounding nonplussed. “I’m just trying to explain myself.”

  “No need!” I said, scrambling to my feet. “I know who you are and who you work for.”

  “Oh yeah?” Law said, aggression starting to tinge his words. “Tell me then, Nami, tell me how you know so much about me.”

  “I heard you talking to Morris. I know you work for him. I know you’re just as bad. Did he hire you to keep an eye on me? I don’t fucking care. Get the fuck out of my house before I shoot you!” I lunged for my .22 and pulled it out of my purse before Law could stop me. Law didn’t even try to stop me, though. As I aimed the cannon at his head, he merely cocked his own in slight amusement.

  “Have you even shot a gun before?” Law asked, a slight smile playing on his lips.

  “Get the fuck out of my house, Law. I won’t be raped again,” I growled, adjusting my finger on the trigger. Law’s eyes widened. I wanted to believe he was finally taking me seriously and starting to fear my trigger finger, but I doubted it. In the short time we’d known each other, my gun had been on him multiple times and he’d never batted an eye. If I’d had to bet money on what rocked Law’s calm, almost callous demeanor, it would have been my accusation.

  “What?” I demanded. “Don’t act like that wasn’t the plan, Law. You’re Morris’s lapdog. He hired you either to fuck me or groom me so he could do it again.” Law’s jaw ticked, anger evident on his face. I bit my own lip, fear crawling down my spine. Was this it? Was he going to make his move?

  “You know nothing about me,” Law growled, stepping forward so his chest was pressed flat against the gun. I swallowed.

  I kept the gun steady, pressed against the fabric of his shirt. “I’ll shoot you before I let Morris get me again.”

  “Good.”

  “W-what?” I stuttered, having not expected that reply. “Did you hear me? I said I’ll shoot you—”

  “Good,” Law repeated. Stepping even closer, Law pushed me flat against the wall. The muzzle was buried in his chest but I wasn’t naive enough to think I held the power in the situation. “You should shoot anyone who threatens you. Including me.”

  My eyes widened. I stared into his hazel eyes, looking for a clue to the game he was playing. Nothing. He was locked tight. All humor from be
fore had vanished. His jaw was clenched, the five o’clock shadow looking less sexy and more menacing. I swallowed.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, voice small. Law stepped back and I sucked in all the oxygen I hadn’t known I was missing.

  “I don’t work for Morris.”

  I scoffed. Yeah right. Law grabbed my chin and pulled my gaze to his. “I do not work for Morris.”

  I tried to yank my chin back but he held it firmly between his fingers. Giving up momentarily, I asked him the questions that had been plaguing me since our first encounter. “Then why were you with him? And why are you following me?”

  “I work for GEM, a company that handles politicians like Morris. As for you…” Law dropped my chin, his gaze going cloudy. A few minutes passed and I wondered if he was ever going to give me his excuse. Just as I was about to call him on his bullshit, Law spoke. “I already told you why I came after you.”

  “Because of my face?” I laughed bitterly. “Because you’ve seen my ‘look’ before? Really? I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “Believe what you want, Nami,” Law replied, voice hard like granite. I turned away so I didn’t have to battle with his intense stare.

  “I will. And I choose to believe you’re a liar.” I returned my gaze to his, clashing my glare with his for a good two minutes until he said, “I’ll prove you wrong.” I blinked, caught off guard.

  Law didn’t give me a chance to respond. He walked out of my apartment, leaving the door open as he went. I followed his trail, watching him leave in simultaneous resentment and awe. I only closed the door when I was sure he wasn’t coming back.

  Curled in a ball, I sat on the floor of my living room for hours after Law left. I had my red fleece blanket wrapped around me and Raskol slept inside, oblivious to the bitter reason for the warm cocoon. I was wrecked and warped after Law, not sure what to believe or feel. I wanted to believe Law was good, not because he looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine, but because I was so utterly and desperately lonely.