“Hey Lola.” She smiles at me as she struts away from the curb and the crowd, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. “What’s going on with the rich girl?”

“Not rich, remember. And nothing much.” I glance over her shoulder at the people watching us then lower my voice and lean. “I was just wondering if you notice anyone a little… suspicious hanging around here this morning?”

She cocks a brow, propping her hand on her hip. “Honey, have you seen the neighborhood we work in. Everyone is suspicious around here.”

“Yeah, I know… maybe suspicious isn’t the right word.” I pause. “Have you seen anyone maybe watching The Dusky Inn or perhaps put something in the mailbox.”

“You mean like the mailman.”

“No someone else… someone was maybe dressed in a suit.”

She considers what I said, her head tipped to the side. “No, I don’t think so. But let me ask around.” Before I can say anything else, she wanders back to the crowd and starts chatting with everyone. Moments later she saunters back over with a shorter guy with overgrown hair and a goatee.

“Luscious says you’re looking for someone suspicious?” he asks, eyeing me over with want in his eyes.

I nod warily, not liking how he’s looking at me. “Yeah, someone maybe hanging out around The Dusky Inn.”

He gives me an amused grin. “Yeah, I saw someone staring at the building this morning. Some woman actually I’ve never seen before.”

Woman? Okay, not what I was expecting. I glance around at the houses then back at him. “Can you tell me what he looked like?”

His grin darkens and he tsks me. “Not so fast. First you gotta pay then I’ll give the info.”

I shake my head. “How much?”

“I don’t want your money.” His gaze lingers on my breasts before slowly traveling up to my face.

“Fuck you,” I say, my hand moving for my gun, ready to threaten him, but then I stop when I realize just how stupid of a move that would be.

Luscious slaps the guy on the back of the head. “Don’t me an ass. Just tell her what you told me.”

He glares at her. “Watch it bitch.”

Luscious raises her hand to hit him again, but I quickly pull two twenty’s out of my bra and wave it in his face. “Forty bucks if you just tell me what the woman looked like.” I’m not even sure if it’ll matter, if I’ve never seen the guy before.

He stares at the money for a second then snatches it out of my hands. “Yeah, okay.” He stuffs the money into his pocket. “She looked like you.” He starts to walk off, but I snag him by the arm.

“Don’t be an asshole,” I snap. “I gave you forty bucks now tell me what she looks like.”

He looks back at me, then down at my hand on his arm. “Hands off bitch,” he says.

“Not until you tell me.”

“I already told you she looked like you. Tall. Nice tits and ass. Same eyes and your faces looked pretty the same too. She was a little older maybe, but still hella fine.” He winks at me and makes this disgusting pucker with his lips.

“Oh yeah.” Luscious slams her hand against her forehead. “I saw her too, but I thought she was you. Except she was dressed in all leather which didn’t seem like something you would wear”

Leather? What the hell? “I wasn’t here this morning.”

Luscious shrugs. “Well, I thought it was you. Sure as hell looked like you.”

“Nah, I got up close to her,” the guy says. “She looked older and a little bot different. Bigger breasts too.”

My heart misses a beat in my chest as I stand frozen in time, lips parted, shocked to my very core. “Older like someone who could be my mother?”

“Mother. Older sister. Whatever.” He jerks his arm out of my hold. “We’re done here. I gotta get back to work.”

This time I let him walk off. It doesn’t matter if he stayed or not. I’m completely speechless. Someone that looked like me. Someone like a mother or a sister. Problem is I don’t have a sister. And my mother’s dead.

So who the hell is she?

Lola

I’m falling apart. Almost two years of suppressing my emotions and now their all manifesting in the form of anxiety. The thing that really sucks is that I only had an hour from when I was at The Dusky Inn until I had to meet my client for the night.

I think about calling my Aunt Glady, seeing if maybe she knows any of my relatives who look like me and perhaps have a leather fetish. There’s a ton I’ve never met before, so who the hell knows. Maybe my father has one of my aunts or cousins out looking for me. Although, I don’t know why the hell he’d have them give me strange notes. It doesn’t make any sense and I really don’t want to get my Aunt Glady involved in this. It’s why I cut ties with her almost two years ago.

So instead I do what I need to do and get cleaned up to go to work, making sure to pack my gun. I pretty much check over my shoulder every five seconds, knowing that someone out there, in the street, in the restaurant—everywhere—there’s probably someone watching me.

Thankfully, I’m a pro at turning myself off when I need to. Despite my rattle nerves, the night goes smoothly. I have dinner with my client Tenner, a tall, larger guy in his early thirties, who smells like cheap cologne and who can’t seem to take his eyes off my cleavage. I make sure to drink a lot of scotch, because scotch makes almost anything okay, including sex with a guy I’m in no way attracted too. Then we go up to the room where it’s clear he wants sex despite what he said to Nyjah so I strip everything off but my boots so my gun will stay hidden.

He’s nervous and it’s my job to make him relaxed so I sit him down on the bed and straddle him. “Relax baby,” I tell him as he grips at my hips. For a moment I wince at his touch, but then smile, pretending that it’s Layton I’m touching. I always picture him when I do this, which is probably fucked up in so many ways but so am I. Sex with Layton had always been good, despite the many complications between us and it’s the one time I can think of him without being bombarded by emotions. Sex has always been sort of a relaxing, calming sort of experience for me, and now it’s become my way of numbing. Like I’ve devoured glass after glass of Whiskey.

“I am relaxed,” Tenner promises, then leans in to kiss me, his eyes closing, his lips puckered.

I put my hand over his mouth and slant back, shaking my head, but keeping my charming smile on. “No kissing on the mouth. Remember.” My rule, not The Dusky Inn’s. It was my one stipulation when I started working there, something that bugged Reagan but Nyjah made it his duty to inform all the clients of this. The no kissing rule had started with something my mother had told me, but honestly, after Layton died, I made a silent promise to myself never to kiss a guy ever. He’d stolen a short kiss that night when we fucked in the bathroom stale and I want that to be the last kiss I ever have.

I lower my hand as his eyes open, and then let my hands wander toward his cock, turning inside everything off until I feel so numb I swear I’ve died. I’ve done it a hundred times and it’s starting to get somewhat alarming how easily I can shut down in the snap of a finger. Sometimes I wonder if one day I won’t be able to turn it back on.

As my hand brushes his harness, Tenner reaches down and grabs my wrist roughly, apparently shaking all of his nerves in a second flat—either that or it was just a facade. “I was told that I could do whatever.”

This isn’t the first time a guy’s gotten a little rough with me and I know the best thing to do is keep everything calm. “Well, whoever told you that was wrong? There are a few things I don’t do. Like kissing.” Why the hell did Nyjah not tell him this?

His fingertips press downward, fingernails biting my skin. “Wrong or not, I want what I was told I would get. I paid good money for you.”