Her Shadows

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

JAYCE POV

I can't seem to stop thinking about Mystery Girl. I feel like an absolute idiot that within the span of an entire lunch, I never got her name.

[The previous day]

The waitress comes to collect our empty plates as I offer her a grateful smile. Mystery Girl sits across from me, elegantly wiping her hands with a napkin. I didn't even know you could do that elegantly but somehow, she's managed it.

Once finished, she lifts those gorgeous green eyes to meet my brown ones and offers that frustratingly emotionless expression once again.

"Thanks for the lunch, but I best be going" grabbing her purse and standing to walk away. As if knocked from a haze I always seem to find myself in when looking at her, I quickly yell for her to wait.

Perhaps a tad too loudly since every remaining customer looks in my direction.

With red cheeks, I stand and quickly catch up with her waiting form at the door. A raise of the brow. That's the only signal I receive that she's listening.

I clear my throat, "uh, I never got your name"

That doesn't seem to bother her at all, if anything it pleases her. Her soft lips smirk at my blushing wreck of a self and a hand reaches out to grip my bicep.

"See you round Jayce" and then she's out the door and gone from sight.

[End of flashback]

I make my way downstairs, silently berating myself for being an absolute nervous wreck all of yesterday. I mean really, did I somehow spontaneously develop a stutter?!

Just as I begin a complete internal argument with myself about how much of an IDIOT I was, I hear voices from my father's study and slow my loud footsteps on the stairs to a stop.

My father speaks, "As you know, the upcoming function will be... rowdier than past years. We have decided to allow an expansion in the guest list. Let some of the riff-raff through the door. You understand."

From where I stand, I have a direct line of sight into his study and the guest within. A man, with silver hair and skin wrinkled with age leans back comfortably in a chair.

Whilst he's obviously on his way to the senior-citizen category, it almost seems an injustice to call him old.

This man does not seem the type to be seen at bingo night.

Instead he reminds me of a panther ready to strike. As though his very bones are constantly storing and withholding a great power.

A calculated smirk, "yes Parker I am well aware you have decided to change the dynamic of guests this year. I also assume that is why I'm here?"

An outside observer may assume that my father holds the power in that room, that he was in charge. He surely looked like he believed it whilst he stands in front of the man and cockily looks down his nose at the guest's sitting form. But truly the power lay in the greying man's hand.

"Yes, well your... services will be quite useful in ensuring the rougher of the crowd remain – obedient.

My father leans against the wood of his desk, arrogantly draping one ankle of the other whilst the guest simply leans back in his leather chair and loosely rests his hands in his lap. His feet remain grounded whilst my father tends to fiddle with his pesky tie.

"And what exactly gave you the impression that my security services would be available for your use? Perhaps I have better offers for my services that night. I am a busy man Parker"

Again, that use of 'Parker'. The challenge in undermining my father. In referring to him without the respect of 'Mr' or 'Sir'.

Another man would have been put in their place immediately after showing such impudence. I wonder why this man can get away with it?

My father seems displeased, if not anxious and aggravated, at his response. "You understand that there is no more important event in the year! Due to your past expenditures, I assume you are planning to attend. Why then would you refuse me your service?"

Whilst my father appears rattled, the guest doesn't so much as shift. An impenetrable wall. He reminds me a tad of Mystery Girl.

"Well Parker, if my services truly are so imperative to the success of your function then you understand why I demand more information than the insulting amount you gave. Not to mention the lowliness of your prices. My business is worth far more, if not triple what you have offered."

The man stands, his Armani suit shifting under the weight of muscle packed along his body. He grips the sides of the jacket and buttons it at the middle, "before I so much as consider your offer, I demand a location, details of the event, the guest list and a rise in the fee."

"The location is not of your concern as of yet."

"Then your want for safety under my services is none of my concern. Whether the riff-raff you've so negligently allowed to attend rip you limb from limb is irrelevant to me."

They remind me of a cat and mouse. The guest is toying with my father like a mountain lion would with a rodent. Allowing him to believe that his standing stance was a blanket of safety as a mouse would a hole in the wall.

It makes me wonder when he will pounce.

My father is truly letting his desperation show now, "Fine! I will release such information soon and your wage shall be tripled. But under your conditions I feel I am within my rights to request my own specific security. I wish for your protégé, the girl, to be my personal guard."

The man smiles at this, and it is by far the most terrifying sight I have ever seen. "

"My pet does as I tell her. You do not make requests in regard to my property Parker. I'll be in contact," chucking his card on my father's desk.

I quickly skirt the last few steps of the staircase and practically run for the kitchen just as the guest exits.

Later that night I made my way back into my father study and grabbed that card neglected on the desk.

EUGENE FELIX

Eugene? I'm sure I've heard my father speak his name before. Spitting out words like dangerous and assassins.

I had assumed I had misheard. Assassins? Seems quite far-fetched. But with that conversation this afternoon...

Could the rumours be true?