Scarred

two

two

Running up the stairs of Tag’s apartment block, she let herself in through the front door, then locked it again behind her while relishing the fact that he was once again living alone in a place far more suited to his personality than the last one had been.

Forcing herself to have at least one full day off from Sizzle per week, usually she spent her down time with Archer. But he was still occupied by his guest and she wanted to update Tag on how things were going with the new security measures and the new staff; Sizzle was technically owned by him after all, so it was only right that he be kept in the loop.

The small entry hallway opened into a vast living space with high ceilings, sash windows, and hardwood floors. The place was flashy, just like the Tag she knew. Except this time, when she went inside with her purse hung over her body and a grocery bag under her arm, she came up short.

Standing in the middle of the room, wearing nothing more than a bedsheet, was a ravishing brunette; and one she recognized. “Oh,” the brunette said, clutching the sheet tighter to her chest wearing look of contrite shame. “Oh my God, he’s married. I knew it. Why wouldn’t he be? A guy like him, of course he’s married. I’m sorry—”

“No, I—he—no—I…” Nya felt the urge to calm the woman who was on her way to a meltdown. But she was too surprised to do it well; her shock prevented her from putting together a coherent sentence for another five beats. “I’m not his wife.”

The brunette glanced toward the glass shelving unit near the kitchen, then strode over with an outstretched arm. “This is you. The, the picture, this is you.”

The one photograph Tag had in his whole apartment was of her. It was sort of an inside joke, a tease, because she hated having her picture taken, and she hated it being displayed even more. Funny that this woman should think she was a girlfriend because there was a picture present in the room.

Nya’s actual boyfriend would balk at the idea of putting up her picture because he didn’t bother with superfluous items, he used the barest minimum of furniture not because he was trying to save the world or going for a particular style of décor, but because knick-knacks gathered dust and dust was Archer’s natural prey.

“Yes, that’s me,” Nya said before the brunette could pick up the picture to examine it too closely. “But I’m not his girlfriend. I’m not his wife. I’m… I’m just a friend.”

The brunette relaxed, she stopped walking, and her stuttering ceased too. “Oh, thank God.”

Nya had to remember her place and that didn’t involve slinging accusations. “And who are you?”

“Oh, I’m…” The brunette averted a smile as a sort of coquettish glimpse at the floor that told Nya just how smitten this beauty was with her oldest friend. “Farrah Hexam.”

Nya had known that, she’d known who the woman was because she’d seen her before.

Tag had been tasked with meeting Farrah Hexam by apparent accident so he could flirt with her and tempt her away from the boyfriend her brother, Brett Hexam, didn’t like. Hexam was a scary guy, a gangster many levels above Tag on the street, it had almost been the end of her life, and Tag’s, when the men clashed. Solving Hexam’s personal problem was supposed to zero the clock. As far as Nya was concerned that was exactly what had happened and the play had been finished weeks ago.

Farrah dumped the boyfriend, so Hexam cleared Tag’s debt and Tag was freed from his self-exile. Life was supposed to be returning to normal and the last thing Nya had expected to find was this woman n***d in Tag’s apartment.

“Have you been seeing him long?” Nya asked, moving into the kitchen with her brown paper grocery bag.

Archer had to have rubbed off on her, because she should be asking Tag questions like that, not probing this random, apparently naïve woman, for information while her guard was down. Still, getting information from Farrah’s side, since she had access anyway, would be a good benchmark for Nya to decipher if Tag was being honest when she asked him the same questions.

This relationship was such a bad idea that Tag would have to lie and make excuses. He couldn’t possibly tell the truth because there was no justifiable reason for him to be screwing around with the sister of the man who’d wanted to hurt him not that long ago. His excuse would be—though he wouldn’t phrase it in this way—that his c**k was making decisions that were likely to get him killed.

“We met about six weeks ago,” Farrah said, coming over to lean on the counter between the kitchen and living room. “I was seeing someone at the time, we couldn’t… you know…”

There was that girlish smile again. Nya was crazy in love with Archer and when she thought about him, she was infused with molten carnal awareness. But she didn’t think she’d ever giggled when someone mentioned his name or asked her a question about him.

“You’re not seeing that guy anymore?” Nya asked, unpacking Tag’s treats from the bag and the pastries she’d bought for them to share with coffee from his swanky machine. Except he wasn’t here, so she’d share them with Farrah instead, maybe the bribe would succeed in persuading the beauty to share more details.

“No, that ended,” Farrah said. “I finished it and… I should’ve been sad, I really cared about him, but… I couldn’t stop thinking about Tag.”

“So you contacted him?” Nya asked.

It didn’t matter who was the instigator of the relationship, Tag should’ve let Farrah down gently. The point was never to get into a relationship with her, never to sleep with her. The point was to separate the Hexam sister from her ex. Nya knew how it had happened because she’d pestered Archer enough that he allowed her to watch the final confrontation, when the boyfriend caught Tag and Farrah kissing on the street.

Gio had set it up to ensure the boyfriend was a witness to that first kiss, so they knew when it was going to happen, meaning she could convince Archer to let her sit in his car with him and watch from afar. The altercation was loud and emotional, but no blows were exchanged. That was the first and last time she’d laid eyes on Farrah, and it was supposed to be the last time Tag saw her as well.

Archer was going to blow a gasket. He’d used up favors and pulled strings to get Tag out of the last mess. This time it wouldn’t be so easy.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” Farrah said. “But, yes, I did. I was upset. I called Tag and he was so nice to me. He invited me over for a drink.”

“Last night?” Nya asked. If this was a short-lived affair, it wouldn’t be public, and there shouldn’t be deep feelings involved, maybe it could be nipped in the bud before there was any permanent damage.

“No,” Farrah said, displaying her glowing white teeth. “I’m not quite that easy. This was two weeks ago. We’ve been keeping it quiet.”

Yes, well one would have to be wary of publicizing a boyfriend when your brother was a t*****e-loving maniac gangster. Tag seemed to look for trouble these days. In the past, he’d been the sensible one, but this was off the charts stupid. Maybe this was some kind of premature mid-life crisis, but at only thirty-four, it was wishful thinking to hope for that.

Or maybe he’d been given news of a terminal disease that he didn’t want to face, but he was too scared to be decisive in ending his life so he wanted Hexam to do it for him. Something had to be going on for him to be inviting bodily harm like this.

“Why?” Nya asked, playing it cool while making the absent Archer proud. “Why would you be keeping it quiet?”

“It was Tag’s idea,” Farrah said, tapping a manicured fingernail on the marble kitchen counter. “I don’t know, I guess it makes sense. I’m not long out of a relationship, it wasn’t long-term, but maybe it’s a respect thing.”

Respect for others wasn’t Tag’s primary motivation in life. Keeping his head was. They wouldn’t have a problem with doing that if he followed the one on his shoulders as opposed to the one dangling between his legs.

“Is he around?” Nya asked.

“He went to take a call in the bedroom.”

Nya retrieved two plates and put a pastry on each one before carrying them over to the table. “Share with me,” she said, pushing the plate toward Farrah.

“Oh no, I couldn’t, I…” She glanced at the door and at the plate and back at the door as if Tag might be horrified to catch her eating. Although the sheet covered her figure, Nya had seen how svelte she was when she watched her crying on the street corner, standing between two men who were hell-bent on screaming b****y murder.

“Tag likes a girl who can eat,” Nya said. “Trust me. I won’t steer you wrong with him.”

Except she probably should.

Tag had a habit of disliking her boyfriends and doing everything he could to drive a wedge into her relationships. Nya had always taken the opposite approach, maybe because she enjoyed being contrary. She encouraged his girlfriends, nurtured them, tutored them on Tag, and listened to them cry when he broke their hearts, as he so frequently did.

So it was habit that made her attempt to bond with this woman. But the relationship was a terrible idea that Hexam would go ballistic about. Nya should be doing everything she could to discourage it if she wanted to save Tag’s skin.

Farrah came over, balanced on her dainty little tiptoes and perched on the corner of the seat perpendicular to Nya’s. “You sure you’re not the crazy ex-girlfriend who could be trying to kill me?”

“No, not ex either,” Nya said, tearing off a piece of her pastry and popping it onto her tongue.

Peering closer, Farrah tilted. “You’re not the potential girlfriend with designs on him who wants to claw out my eyes because I’ve been with him?” she asked, touching a fingertip to the pastry before l*****g the invisible taste with her delicate pink tongue.

Wow, Hexam hadn’t only sheltered his sister, he’d made her paranoid about every potential threat. “Not potential, no. You don’t have to worry about me. Tag and I are just friends, have been for years and I have my own man to worry about, I don’t need another taking up my time.”

“You’re seeing someone?” Farrah asked like this was the best news she’d heard in her life.

“Yes,” Nya said, elongating the word and pulling off another piece of pastry to gobble it up as she brushed her hands together to rid them of crumbs. “But I want to hear more about you and Tag. So you’ve been seeing each other for two weeks?” Farrah nodded. “Has he been treating you right? Taking you to dinner and movies…?”

Farrah was already shaking her head. Good, Nya thought, because if they hadn’t been seen out in public, there was a chance Hexam didn’t know this was going on. Archer had said that Hexam was planning to leave the country, but Nya had never followed up to find out if he actually did go.

There had been no need for her to ask questions when, as far as she was concerned, Tag’s debt was settled and Hexam was a part of their past.

“Do you live around here?” Nya asked. “Have a place of your own?”

“I live with my brother.” Farrah took a flake of pastry from her plate and forced herself to take it past her lips.

Damn, she lived with her brother, which meant every time Farrah went out, Hexam knew it. Every time she came back, he knew it. Every time she didn’t bother to shower after having s*x with Tag, her brother would smell the stench of it when she returned to his pad. Hexam had gotten rid of one boyfriend and would want to get rid of another, especially one he had such a fraught history with.

Nya didn’t know much about the previous boyfriend, just what she’d managed to finagle from Archer. But Hexam’s greatest worry was that the man wanted to wheedle his way into the Hexam operation. Tag was one of Hexam’s competitors, he would have to have the same thought, or suspect industrial espionage, when he found out what was going on.

“Your brother, is he a nice guy? Have he and Tag met?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, scooting even closer to the edge of the chair.

Nya was impressed, there couldn’t be much keeping the tall, slight woman balanced. She didn’t know what prevented Farrah from using the chair as others did and sitting in it properly. Maybe her brother didn’t let her sit down at the grown-ups table.

“No?”

“No, they haven’t met,” Farrah said, with more confidence. “Brett isn’t kind to my boyfriends. I think he’d prefer to keep me locked up all the time. He doesn’t understand I’m a woman, I’m not thirteen anymore.”

A woman of twenty-three if Nya wasn’t mistaken. Young, even by Tag’s standards. Her interrogation wasn’t even close to over, but a door at the opposite end of the room opened and Tag came marching out.

“I’m sorry, I—” Halting, he took in the scene before him and dropped his hand to his side, still holding the phone he’d been scrolling through. “Yorkie,” he said with an uncomfortable shift.

Raising her brows, she wasn’t going to make this easy for him because he didn’t deserve easy when he was making such a dumb decision. “Taggy,” she drawled, leaning back in her chair and taking one heel to the crossbar. “I’m just getting acquainted with the new woman in your life.”

“I thought she was your girlfriend,” Farrah said on a giggle.

“Isn’t that funny?” Nya asked, pinning her unimpressed glare on him.

She expected him to give her an explanation, one that he could give in front of Farrah. In fact, she wouldn’t have put it past him to flat out deny that there was anything going on and come up with some ridiculous excuse that he’d backpedal with Farrah when Nya was gone.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Tag said to Farrah while narrowing his eyes on Nya. “She’s a nuisance, butting in where she doesn’t belong.”

So he was going with anger. Nya bobbed her head in acceptance of that. “At least you’re not denying it. I’m surprised you didn’t tell me about her,” Nya said, lightening her tone. “Usually you let me know when you hook up with someone new.”

He didn’t take out a full-page ad, but he’d never gone out of his way to conceal his relationships from her before. What that told her was that he knew exactly how stupid he was being. But he wasn’t ashamed of it, he was infuriated.

“You shouldn’t be here. Sailing in without invitation is rude,” Tag said.

His petulance made her scoff. “I have a key! You can’t give someone a key and then expect them not to use it.”

“For emergencies,” Tag said, coming towards the women. “You have a key for emergencies, and so you can get in if I’m not here when you fight with your lug-head of a boyfriend.”

“Is that why you’re not denying this?” Nya asked. “Because you know you can tell me this isn’t what it looks like now, but the minute I walk out of here and tell Archer what I saw, he would find out the truth in a minute.”

“Archer?” Farrah asked. “You know Archer?”

“Yes, she does,” Tag said, folding his arms. “He’s the lug-head.”

Nya spread her hands on the table edge. “When did this become a game of tear down Archer? He’s keeping it in his pants, he’s not doing anything wrong.”

“Last I heard you were at it like rabbits,” Tag said, holding onto his anger. “Or is that why you’re here, to tell me he’s lost interest in screwing you?”

Nya considered taking a leaf from Farrah’s book and doing the silly smile when she thought about what they’d been doing at Sizzle last night, but she didn’t. She got to her feet and rounded the table. “I meant he’s screwing only who he’s allowed to screw. He makes sensible decisions about who he sleeps with.”

“Sensible?” Tag said, puffing himself up a bit as Nya came to a stop in front of him. Except he was already much larger than her, he didn’t need more bulk to intimidate her, so it had to be habit. “I don’t think you’re a sensible choice for any guy to screw.”

It was like fighting with a brother, at least Nya would guess it was. “Why? Because I’m so easy to fall in love with and will only break their hearts when I realize that they’re not good enough for me?” Nya asked, wading into full-on sarcasm.

She almost wished that Archer was here to witness her triumph because she knew he’d enjoy it. All that spunk he’d been pumping into her had to be seeping into her blood because she was managing a beginner’s level of condescension that he would be proud of.

“Because you root around, root around with that little nose of yours until you find dirt. You roll around covering yourself in muck and then you wonder why everybody knows that you were the one digging in a place you shouldn’t have been.”

“That’s rich,” she said and understood why he was being snide because he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He’d been caught screwing his enemy’s sister and it was clear that the sister had no idea.

“Why shouldn’t he be with me?” Farrah asked.

Nya didn’t answer her. “You haven’t been out of trouble for two months and you’re already in it again,” Nya said, keeping her focus on Tag, because it was her place to judge him. Farrah was a stranger, Nya didn’t give a crap about her safety, Hexam would take care of that. “What is this, some kind of attention seeking? Are we not giving you enough?”

When she patted his chest, he snatched her hand. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said.

So he wanted to appease her but couldn’t do it in front of Farrah. That made sense. “Okay,” she said, pulling her arm free from his grip. “I’ll leave you to your sordid, secret affair.” Going to grab her purse, she slung it across her body. “It was very nice to meet you, Farrah.” Striding across the room, she acknowledged the practical stranger, but only set a glare on Tag. “Try taking a cold shower and thinking this through before you get us all tossed into a woodchipper.”

Sailing from the room, she slammed out of the apartment, something she was getting used to doing. The only way Archer knew to close a door was to throw them back into their frames with great force, and under his influence, she’d begun to do the same.

So much for a pastry and a catch up with her best buddy. Now the rest of the day was her own and she didn’t know what to do with it. It didn’t take her long to come to a conclusion because it wasn’t like she could sit on this news now that she had it.

As much as she knew she wasn’t supposed to be casually visiting his off-limits apartment, she knew one person who just loved to be in the know, and with valuable information like this, she might just be forgiven for breaking his rules.