The safe house was not at all what Brandon had expected.
Instead of a grimy motel room or a squalid apartnt, Baby Doll led him to a pristine, minimalist loft in a sleek, anonymous high-rise overlooking the city’s financial district. The furniture was sharp and expensive, the lights recessed, the windows floor-to-ceiling glass.
He stood in the middle of the vast, empty living room, feeling like a smudge of dirt on a perfectly clean white surface. He was still in the sa clothes, streaked with warehouse gri and the supposed stepmother’s blood. Baby Doll, by contrast, had already moved into the space as if she owned it, shrugging off her tactical jacket to reveal a simple black tank top.
"Shower," she said, pointing down a hallway. "You’ll find clothes that fit. I’ll order food. Then we talk."
He didn’t argue. The hot water felt like a baptism, pouring away the night’s gri and the sticky feel of blood on his skin. He scrubbed furiously, trying to wash away the sickening image of the iron bar connecting with the woman’s head. But the image was burned into his mory, a permanent installation.
After multiple kills he was still not comfortable with killing, it felt like a neccesity, a job he hated but had to do.
When he erged, he found a set of dark, soft sweatpants and a plain gray t-shirt laid out on the bed. They fit perfectly.
He found her in the kitchen, unpacking containers of Thai food from a paper bag. She’d already changed into a pair of black leggings and a loose-fitting sweater. She looked... normal. A woman having a late-night dinner.
"Whose place is this?" He asked as he sat opposite her. The city lights glittered behind her, a galaxy of distant, indifferent stars.
"A client who’s no longer in a position to need it," she answered, pushing a container of pad thai toward him. "Eat. You’ll need your strength."
He ate chanically, the flavors muted by the adrenaline still coursing through him. The silence stretched, filled only by the clink of their forks. It was a strange, intimate dosticity, a fragile truce in a brutal war.
"You’re not what I expected," he said, breaking the silence.
She paused, a fork halfway to her lips. "And what did you expect? A desperate streetwalker? A ditzy blonde who could be bought with a few thousand dollars?"
"The na," he said. "’Baby Doll’. It was a mask."
"It’s a brand," she corrected. "People hear what they want to hear. See what they want to see. It makes them predictable."
"So this," he gestured around the loft, "is the real you?"
"This is a tool," she countered smoothly. "Like the na. Like the gun. Everything is a tool, Brandon. You’d do well to rember that."
He stared at her, wanting to peel back the layers, to see the core of the woman sitting across from him.
"So, what’s the plan?" Brandon asked, pushing away the last of the noodles. His appetite was gone, replaced by a hollow, driving need for action. "You said you could help get her. How?"
Baby Doll leaned back, crossing her arms. "First, we establish the rules. One: You do what I say, when I say it. No questions, no improvisation. You step out of line, the file goes public. You understand?"
He gave a tight, reluctant nod.
"Two: This isn’t about grand, romantic gestures. It’s not about winning her heart. It’s about breaking Levi’s. We create a vacuum, and you step into it."
"A vacuum?"
"Lyse loves him. Or she thinks she does. People don’t love ideals, Brandon. They love what they see. We change what she sees. We make Levi unworthy of that love."
A dark thrill went through him. This was the language he understood, a language of destruction and power.
"How?"
"A campaign of whispers," she said, her eyes gleaming with a strategist’s fire. "We make it seem like Levi’s finances are built on a house of cards. That his family’s old-money reputation is a facade. I’ve been digging and there’s really nothing to see, he keeps a clean house."
Brandon frowned. "So how do we convince anyone of all this?"
"Simple." She answered. " I plant the evidence we want, create discrepancies. Offshore accounts connceted to him that don’t add up. A series of paynts to shell corporations right before his brother’s disappearance."
She looked aningfully and Brandon and he looked away for a second before leaning forward. "You think we can pull this off?"
"Easily. Whether he pulled the trigger or not is irrelevant. What matters is that it looks bad. Very, very bad. We leak a little information here. An anonymous tip to a financial cris reporter there. We watch him sweat."
"And Lyse?"
"She’s not gonna stand around with soone who makes her look bad." Lyse assured him.
****
Igor woke up with a groan and blinked in the dark, forgetting where he was then the ache in the back of his neck reminded him.
He jumped to his feet and rushed back to where Honey and Brandon had been. He found Honey motionless on the floor.
"Honey." He called her na as he rushed to her side.
He checked for her pulse and found nothing. her skull was dented and bleeding heavily and even though her body still felt warm he knew there was nothing that could be done for her.
He had been with her for many years and while he was not in love with her, he had loved her, respected her.
He looked around and saw a blood covered iron bar lying on the floor.
His anger knew no bounds as he reached for it, holding the handle and making sure not to touch the blood.
He wanted to find whoever Brandon’s accomplice was and make them both pay for this but there were other pressing matters to deal with.
Then n who had business with Honey were going to be pissed and they would lash out at anyone they found.
What he needed to do was make himself scarce, disappear sowhere they would not find him.
For that, he was going to need money, a lot of money.
Honey had so back in the apartnt.
He rushed out of the warehourse, a new mission in mind. Honey was gone but he needed to secure a future for himself.
When he stepped into the appartnt, he headed staright for the hidden safe in the living room.
He pulled down the painting, discarding it carelessly before typing in the code.
Honey trusted him and knew that he would never steal from her, so she had given him the code.
"She would want to do this."
he thought to himself, justifying his actions.
Then he pulled open the door and looked appreciatively at the bundles of money and jewels.
This would be sufficient for him to start up a new life sowhere.
He could retire, move to so beach with no more than a few thousand inhabitants, open a tiki bar and just laze on the beach all day making pina coladas.
Honey had often told him in the past that if he ever stopped being a bodyguard he would make an excellent bartender.
He began stuffing the wads of money into his pockets when he heard the door open.
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