Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel (5 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

MONEY LOST, MONEY EARNED

I haven’t heard from James, or the police, since that day at the warehouse. There’s has been nothing in the paper and nothing on the news. Not a moment goes by that I don’t worry he’s ratted me out—that they gave him a plea deal, and now a small army of policemen are on their way to my apartment. Any second, they’ll crash through my door and haul me off to prison.

It’s been three days now. At what point can I breathe and relax? How many days before I can be sure James kept his mouth shut? What if James thinks I was the one who ratted him out?

Even now, as I make my way home from that motel room where I smashed the lamp over Freddie’s head, the thought of James ratting me out lingers in my mind.

I drop everything at my apartment door, including my soaking wet clothes. It’s not until I’m in the shower that I remember I still haven’t investigated the messenger bag full of money. As far as I know, there could be a million dollars in that bag.

But discovering whether or not I’m a millionaire isn’t worth cutting my shower short. I never want the hot water to stop running down my naked body, washing away the smell of Freddie’s cheap cologne. After two rounds of shampoo and half a bottle of body wash, I can still smell it. The smell must be embedded in my brain, but unfortunately, they don’t make any soap for that.

That lingering smell keeps Freddie’s face at the forefront of my mind—his gym-toned abs, his presumably steroid-enhanced pecs, that big, hard throbber between his legs. Ugh—and all of those tattoos—those stupid prison-style tattoos that he think make him look so tough.

I can still hear his voice. “Wanna suck my dick?” his voice echoes inside of my head—the sleazy piece of shit. I watch the steam rise up from my shower and wonder if it’s from the water or my blood.

I’m turning into a sociopath. Hitting Freddie over the head with the motel lamp was far too satisfying. Watching that smirking idiot slump over the edge of the bed brought me the first glimmer of joy I’ve had in days—maybe even years.

How much money is in that leather bag?

I grudgingly end my shower and retrieve Freddie’s bag, which sits in a puddle at my front door. I forgot how heavy the bag was, grunting as I lift it from the floor and drop it down on my bed.

Open it, Olivia. I’m afraid the bag won’t have any money in it at all—full of nothing but condoms, a Frisbee, and a stack of shitty-tattoo magazines.

There’s cash inside of the bag.
What a relief.
I turn the bag upside down and dump its contents onto my bed. Only a few bundles of cash and a bunch of small velvet sacs fall out, and rattle as if full of coins.

What the hell? Who gambles in small change?

Coins fill the bags—but not any coins I’ve ever seen. They’re heavy, chunky things, with no inscribed value anywhere on them—just a bunch of blank, useless golden coins. Even it is real gold, it probably isn’t worth much. When my grandma died, my dad took all of her jewellery and sent it to one of those “dollars for gold” services. I think he only got something like forty bucks for all of it.

In the few stacks of cash, there’s ten grand. Ten thousand measly dollars—half of which was mine to begin with. I went through all that shit for five grand? I almost slept with that creep for a few months’ rent?

The morning sun begins bleeding into my little apartment. I stash the cash in my closet and return the velvet sacs to the leather messenger bag. I’ve spent enough time and energy with this bum deal. I’m ready to cut my losses and get some sleep.

I wake up feeling like crap. As my alarm goes off, I try to remember whether I even fell asleep at all. The complete lack of strength in my legs suggests not.

On my way to work. I stop at the No Hold Gold on Main Street. The twenty-four hour security guard nods his tired head at me as I enter. I nod my tired head back.

Inside, there’s an old Filipino man working behind a thick pane of glass. Walking in, I expect the place to smell like a bank—that chemical money and leather smell. Instead, it smells like a bottle depot—like cheap beer and sour milk. The Filipino man doesn’t seem to notice the foul odour.

He stares at the pile of chunky golden coins and scratches the small patch of hair still on his head. He scrapes the pile onto a scale and scribbles some illegible numbers down on a scrap piece of paper.

“It’s gold, right?” I ask, breaking the silence.

“Hm, yes. There’s gold in there. Not much, but some.” His voice is surprisingly high-pitched, considering how slow he speaks. His face is very expressive. One moment his eyes are wide, and the next, his eyebrows are pinched together. “I can give you five hundred,” he finally says.

“Five hundred? That’s it? There has to be fifty pounds of gold there.”

“There’s less than one pound of gold. The rest, I think, is palladium.” Palladium? What the hell is palladium?

“You’re telling me all of that is only worth five hundred?”

The Filipino man is silent for a moment. “Value of gold is low right now.” He takes a full five seconds to say the word low. “For us to sell, we have to melt it down. Melting gold is expensive. Then, we take a small rate—just to keep our shop open and to pay the employees. You understand? Five hundred dollars.”

I leave the No Hold Gold with five hundred dollars cash in my purse.

CHAPTER SIX

CARMINE PESCONI

It’s the middle of the week and there are no reservations booked. Since my shift started, I’ve been sitting at the desk for an hour, and there hasn’t been so much as a passing car on the highway. It’s completely silent, save for the antique clock in the lobby as it strikes midnight and shouts, “Ding-dong!” a noise it makes on the hour, every hour. I sometimes wonder how the hotel stays in business without customers.

I’m not complaining—especially not tonight. On especially slow nights, like tonight, I will sneak up to one of the empty rooms for a few hours and doze off. The President’s Suite upstairs, that the Pesconis are currently sleeping in, is my go-to room. It has one of those Swedish memory foam mattresses.

When the hotel isn’t completely empty, like tonight, I sleep in the lobby. There’s a very comfortable chair next to a warm electric fireplace that runs day and night—winter and summer. I figure I can get four solid hours of sleep in and still be up long before anyone else in Ilium.

So that’s exactly what I do.

“Lady.” A deep voice pulls me out of my chair-bound slumber.

Carmine Pesconi looks down on me with a snarling glare. I spring to my feet, despite the fact my heart has stopped beating. “Mr Pesconi! Um, I’m sorry—my apologies. I—I didn’t—”

“Is this a fucking joke?” he asks. “I called three times. You aren’t picking up because you’re asleep?”

I take a quick glance at the old antique clock. I’ve only been asleep an hour.

“I—I’m sorry, Mr Pesconi.” I can hear my heart palpitating against my chest.

“Is it just me, or is everyone in this redneck town just as useless as you?” His voice is a deafening roar, reverberating in the lobby walls and in my gut. I want to curl up into a ball on the floor, but I’m afraid he would stomp on me like a bug.

I open my mouth to speak, but he beats me to it.

He lowers his voice from a roar to a growl. “We need towels.
Clean
towels. The towels in our room smell like stale shit. Who washes the towels?”

“Who washes the towels?” I repeat, still feeling his voice’s vibrations in my bones. I keep my voice calm and quiet, as if I’m trying to calm an angry watchdog. Easy boy. “Um, the cleaning lady. She’s new. She just started the other—”

“—I want clean towels.” His voice lowers still, somehow retaining the same gut-wrenching tone as his wall-shaking roar. “If I get one more stale fucking towel, I’m going to be very fucking angry.” Apparently, this is not Carmine Pesconi when he’s angry. “You understand
clean
, right, darling? I don’t want to be dealing with this shit. We have an early morning tomorrow.” The word ‘darling’ converts all my fear into rage.

I scurry back to the front desk where we keep a small stash of clean towels. He snatches them out of my hand. Before turning to leave, he reaches over the desk and snatches a water bottle.

He takes a swig from the bottle. “Useless fucking woman,” I hear him mutter as he ascends the steps.

I really hope there is cyanide in that bottle.

Darling.
The word alone is enough to make me shudder and gag; it seems to be reserved only for the scummiest pricks.

I’ll never be able to sleep on duty ever again. If my brain starts associating sleep with that snarling crimson face, I’ll be lucky if I can ever sleep again.

Returning to my seat at the front desk, I discover a new text message on my phone from one of my regular clients.

“What do you have?” she asks simply.

I message her back, listing the few items I salvaged from James’s warehouse.

She replies promptly. “Anything else? Looking for something different.”

Different?

The black crocodile leather bag with the golden BV logo—the woman on the bus called it
different.
I don’t know who that woman was, or where to find her, but it just so happens that there’s someone else with the same mysterious crocodile leather bag—and she probably owns plenty of
different
.

“I might have something. When do you need it?” I text.

“Tomorrow night. Let me know ASAP.”

According to the staff schedule, Kyung-Sook Seonwoo is the next person on duty. “Kyung-Sook Seonwoo?” I say under my breath before realizing it’s the new girl—the little Korean maid who comes in every night to see if her paycheque is ready. She starts at seven.

Sorry Kyung. It’s nothing personal.

As the antique clock’s short hand reaches six, the Pesconis descend the staircase into the lobby. Carmine is dressed in a black pinstriped suit, and his wife must have thirty pounds of fur draped over her shoulders. I take a quick glance down at her shoes—a pair of strappy white heels with no recognizable markings.

Neither Carmine nor his wife reply to my “Good morning” as they pass. Though Carmine does reach behind my desk to grab a water bottle—an invasive quirk that’s growing old fast. Aside from Carmine’s snarling glare, they don’t even acknowledge my existence. I watch them hurry through the rain towards their car. The red glow from their car’s taillights fill the lobby before they turn out from the parking lot, onto the highway.

I have one hour before Kyung-Sook’s shift is due to start—one hour to find something
different
for my client.

And different is exactly what I find—nothing but different. I don’t recognize the name of a single designer, but there’s no doubting it’s all made from expensive and genuine materials. The only logo I do recognize is that golden BV. The inscription under the logo reads, ‘Beaunelle Vianna.’ Beaunelle Vianna? Never heard of it—but that doesn’t make it any less gorgeous.

Stuffing what I can into my bag, I know that my client is going to be very happy with her options. I take a peek inside of one of the porosus handbags and discover a handful of familiar, chunky coins. Upon closer inspection, I realize some of the coins are gold, some are brass, and others are silver. Looking closer even, I notice there are two different shades of gold—a yellowish gold and a whiteish gold. I leave the coins behind, but I take the bag.

The bag is for me.

There’s one thing I want to do before I leave. In the bathroom is a large bottle of bronzing lotion—the true source of Carmine’s orange hue. I twist off the lid and I leave a large gob of spit as a little gift.