Page 46 of Convict's Game

Including what I was supposed to be doing today. I headed downstairs to where Cassie had arranged to meet me. She was the best. When I told her I couldn’t sell sex anymore, she gave me a new job. I was failing hard at that, too.

In the skeleton crew’s office, she waited on the boss’s chair behind the desk. She bounced up, all five-foot-nothing of her. “You’re here! We’re going to have so much fun. I have two new targets for you.”

She rounded the desk to perch on the other side, a tablet held out. I took it and hid my wince at the names on the screen.

Cassie was a killer. A tiny, vicious pocket psychopath who was as deadly as she was adorable. The skeleton crew already had an enforcer in Shade, who took out the crew’s enemies and also created a list of prison releases, picking off the ones who’d hurt women and children and didn’t repent their sins.

Cassie liked their style. She’d decided that her role was to rid the city of rich men who were equally abusive but who’d never been caught for it. Or who’d paid their way out of trouble. I loved that. I loved that she’d wanted my help.

I’d wanted to love the work, but I didn’t. The more I did of it, the more my skin crawled.

She gave me names, and my role was to research them to find addresses, work schedules, whatever I could get. If they were customers of the warehouse’s brothel, I’d talk to the women who’d been booked by them to get any other feedback that could help Cassie’s take-’em-out scheme.

She called it fun, but it meant hours of staring at the faces of rich businessmen and hearing stories about their dark deeds.

Cassie didn’t know, but it triggered me so hard, sometimes I couldn’t breathe.

These people were the worst. Entitled, wealthy sons of bitches who took what they wanted and didn’t give a flying fuck about who they hurt. Girls like me. My inner teenager was a cold, wobbling jellyfish, on the edge of her nerves from bad memories and BS I didn’t want to recall.

It had started creeping into my dreams. Even sleep wasn’t safe.

It didn’t help that half my job involved rattling around the internet, and I was shit with technology. My phone? No problem. Trying to manage files and piece together information to give to Cassie on the tablet? It gave me the panics. I’d madea friend who helped me learn the basics, but messaging her every time I couldn’t remember which app was which or where a download disappeared off to was awkward as fuck.

Cassie chattered on, bright and excited. “This dickhole needs to die first, so see what you can discover about him. Does that sound okay?”

“Perfect, bestie,” I lied.

No way I’d ever make her feel bad about my fucked-up head.

She left me to get to work, and I trotted back upstairs. My thinking place was a room off the brothel—I had barely left the nightclub after coming back from the hospital with my ruined throat—and I set my sights on my hideaway.

Across the brothel’s receiving room, I waved to friends then ducked my head to avoid eye contact with clients. In the changing room, I threw compliments out like confetti for great tits and perfectly slutty costumes, then locked myself away, the familiar sounds of sex in nearby rooms creating the backdrop to my turmoil.

First, I messaged my helper, Lovelyn, a girl who’d come to the warehouse on business of the non-sexy variety, and with whom I’d struck up an unlikely friendship. She was the kindest person I’d ever met, and her instant reply softened my heart.

Lovelyn: Whatever you need, I’m here for you. Want me to stop by?

Dixie: I’ll try myself first then let you know.

Lovelyn: You can do it! I believe in you.

Carefully, I typed the first name Cassie had given me into my browser. It brought back a sixty-something man in an expensive suit, some city banker rumoured to have a taste for preteens. Icouldn’t even look his photo in the eye. It was like my trauma had linked my attack to what had happened to me when I was a girl and resurfaced all my anxieties.

I moved on to the next, but the same thing happened. My hands began to shake, so I mistyped his name. This was hopeless. Panic inducing. I shut down the tablet and stared across the room to a mirror on the far wall. Shame crowded me. If I couldn’t work for Cassie, what could I do?

Mirror-me had no answer. She never did, judgy cow.

I ran my gaze over my body. I used to do it by routine because I’d needed to make bank from my butt. I’d paid a lot of money to be perfect. My nose never had that cute turn up until a plastic surgeon added it. My tits were stunning and worth every penny I’d paid to make them round and weighty so much they even turned me on.

Except no man wanted a damaged sex doll.

The skin-coloured plaster across my throat hid the scar from my attack. I touched my fingers to it, ensuring the edges were stuck down. I didn’t like seeing it and sure as shit couldn’t wear it proudly.

Yet in the light of the room, the bandage was almost invisible. I twisted back and forth, checking how bad it appeared. I had on ripped jeans with a pair of red heels. A tight scarlet shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves and a scooped neck, the outline of my tits and a couple of inches of my belly showing.

I’d put on a little weight since getting hurt, but maybe I didn’t look that bad?

My platinum hair was up in a ponytail that swished when I moved. I’d kept my makeup light, nothing like what I’d wear on the floor, but making the most of my features.