Page 151 of Unexpected Shot
CHAPTER 35
BEAU
“Are you sure we shouldn’t tell Ethan about this?”
Shelby shoots me a look. “Tell our agent that we’re about to try and make a loan shark confess to extortion and other shady money dealings and, if we’re lucky, why he’s a shitty human while we record it all? Yeah, babe. Great idea. Maybe he can press the record button on the camera for us.”
“You’ve never called me ‘babe’ before. I kind of like it.”
Shelby lets out a long sigh as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “Nicknames later. Focus on the plan now.”
What Shelby calls a plan is at best a loose idea of what we’re going to try to get Chad to confess to. We don’t know exactly how this is going to work, or where the conversation is going to go when Chad arrives, so we’ve kept the plan open and loose.
All we know is that he can’t keep getting away with this shit. And it ends tonight. So I’m going to get him talking and let him dig his own grave. If I have to steer a little bit to get him to spill some shit? Then steer away I shall.
“I can’t believe he agreed so quickly,” Shelby says.
“I can’t believe he offered to bring food.”
Shelby snorts out a laugh. “I’ve long wondered if this man isright in the head. His mood swings are all over the place. Does he actually think, in his de-lu-lu brain, that you two are going to talk over a pizza and a few beers and everything is going to be right as rain?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Honestly, I don’t know. I just hope it works.”
We want him to bury himself. We want him to admit the extortion and blackmail. And if, along the way, I can get him to admit to what he pulled twenty years ago, and confirmation that he tried to sabotage Shelby, that’ll be icing on the cake.
Hopefully he does it while not realizing Shelby’s phone is strategically hidden, ready to capture every moment on video. All while she hides in the closet.
I told her to leave. Her response was, “Like fucking hell I’m going to miss this.” Then she promised to breathe quietly and give me a blow job tonight.
I caved in a second.
A knock on our hotel door signals that it’s go time.
“You ready?” Shelby whispers.
“As I’ll ever be,” I say as I shove my cell phone into her hands. “Take my phone in case something goes weird and you need to call security. Or Ethan.”
She gives me a quick kiss before an “atta boy” slap on the ass. “Go get ‘em, Big Boy.”
I try to stifle my laugh as Shelby positions herself in the hall closet of our hotel room, while I pull myself together before letting Chad in.
“Hey, man. Thanks for coming. Shit…is everything okay?”
There’s nothing about this interaction I’m going to be able to predict, and that’s starting with Chad’s demeanor. Yes, he brought pizza and beer—staples that we always used to have when it was just him and me playing video games or hanging out. But what's throwing me is that he looks like he’s been crying.
“Yeah,” he says, sniffling back a tear. Maybe. I didn’t actuallysee a tear come down his cheek. Is he faking it? I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m definitely keeping my guard up even higher than it was before.
“Okay…well…thanks for coming.”
I pull open the door fully and extend my arm to welcome him in.
“I’m just glad you messaged. I’ve been really wanting to talk to you,” he says, looking around the hotel room. “Isshehere?”
For the sake of the ruse, I have to ignore the bite he has in his tone when he brings up Shelby.
“She went out to dinner. Looks like she's making friends with a few WAGs.”
Chad huff's out of laugh. “Who’d have thought there would be a day when Shelby would become a WAG?”
