Page 26 of Dirty (Chicago Underground 5)
I dipped my pinkie finger into the scalding tea, then brought the wobbly drop to my lips. “Still. He might have had information. You might have found her.”
“He didn’t know anything. Not anything current, anyway.”
I shrugged. “I would have done it. In case you were wondering.”
“Done what?”
“I would have fucked him if you’d asked me to. So he would tell what he knew. So that you could find her.”
His eyes snapped open, glowing green in the dim light, like a cheetah ready to hunt. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“I know she’s important to you.”
“Did you know about her? You don’t seem surprised.”
“I had an idea.” More like Jade spelling it out for me. There had been other clues, but a girl would go to great mental lengths for love—even the doomed kind.
He reached forward and set his coffee mug on the side table, then rested his elbows on his knees, his head down. “Daisy is my sister. Was my sister. Three years younger. Though she probably isn’t alive anymore, I’ve never been able to make myself accept that.”
“Your sister?” Of course it shouldn’t bring me any happiness, knowing that his sister had been a prostitute, that she was likely dead, and yet pure inappropriate relief flooded me. This was exactly the sort of selfish response that made me unsuitable for him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What for? You were my informant, at great risk to yourself. Then before you had even fully recovered from the gunshot, you were on the run. I owed you my help, not the other way around.”
He glanced up, his gaze hooded—and tired. He needed sleep. And possibly medical attention.
I stood and found an ice pack in the freezer and placed it against his temple. He winced, then pushed it more firmly against the swelling there, taking it from me. I sat again, trying to order my thoughts. He had been searching for his sister all this time. Contrary to my impassioned imaginings, the discovery didn’t diminish his integrity—it strengthened it. Any prostitute who denied ever having a white-knight fantasy was lying. And here he was, loyal to her cause. Considering she was his sister, he wouldn’t even expect sex in gratitude. The savior scenario didn’t get better than that.
“I could have helped you,” I said. “That’s why you were so invested in us girls, right? You were looking for her. I could have helped.”
“I didn’t want you to,” he said, so fiercely I blinked. Then, “That wasn’t why I was so invested, okay? Yes, I’ve been looking for her, but that didn’t have anything to do with us.”
Sadly, I thought it had everything to do with us. He never would have met me if he hadn’t been so bent on finding his sister. He wouldn’t have gone after the pimps…Henri, especially.
“Was she with Henri?” I asked, incredulous.
After a pause, he admitted, “I think so.”
So we were back to this. It was a small comfort that he didn’t feel romantic love for this girl, but she was his goal all the same. I was merely a means to an end. Something to use and discard. And he was just another man to use me. How unoriginal of him.
Well, far be it for me to let him down. “Tell me about her. Something other than the fact that she’s a natural blonde. Maybe I’ve met her.”
He scowled. “Stop it. Stop using that voice with me.”
“My helpful voice?”
“The one you use with johns. The one that sounds sweet and subservient, unless they know you. Then it says you despise them.”
I did despise him. I despised him for seeing me, for knowing me, exactly as he had so arrogantly claimed to in the alley.
“Fine,” I said brusquely. “This is me. My regular voice. My pissed-off voice, actually. Better?”
A smile tilted his split lips. “Better.”
“So tell me. Tell me about your sister.”
He sobered. “Blonde hair. Hazel eyes. They change by the light. Blue in the sun, brown in the dark. Five feet six, a hundred twenty pounds, although those measurements may be wildly different, even assuming…”
Assuming she was alive. “There’s no chance, then?”
