Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 663

TASHA

"Thank you, Tasha." Daniel held my gaze as he spoke. "For agreeing to help. And listen to me, your safety comes first. Before the chip, before the mission, before everything. You be careful in there."

"I will."

"Now, I'm dropping you at the club myself. A woman flagging a cab looking the way you currently look attracts exactly the kind of attention we can't afford."

I caught my reflection in the mirror and winced. The wig was a disaster, the makeup smeared, the evidence of my fake client painted across my face and neck in streaks that looked convincingly, disgustingly fresh. Daniel had done thorough work in that bathroom. I still couldn't decide if the man deserved an Oscar or a therapist.

We left the hotel with my chin tucked, my eyes on the floor, because apparently I now walked through lobbies like a woman ashamed of a very profitable evening. In the car, I watched Daniel drive, calm and steady, and I sighed.

Some people actually dedicated their lives to doing good for others, knowing exactly what it could cost them. It was admirable in a way that made my chest ache. Maybe someday I'd learn to live like that. A life that meant something more than surviving the next threat.

The club's neon sign swelled in the windshield, and the sedan glided to a stop.

"Once you're inside, I'll swap cars," Daniel told me, eyes on the mirror. "Then I'll circle back and wait out front with a taxi. Clean pickup, no pattern."

I nodded, closed my fist around the chip, and slipped out.

Head down. Walk normal. Look like exactly what Big Bryan expected to collect at the end of a booking. The bass swallowed me the moment I pushed through the doors, that same pounding rhythm I'd last heard on the night my life got rearranged without my permission.

I moved, counting my remaining time. Almost two hours gone. Less than one before Shaun started hunting me, and I did not want to meet the version of a Sparrow-trained bodyguard whose principal vanished on his watch.

I knocked on Big Bryan's door and waited.

The pause before the lock turned was long enough to be deliberate. Then the door swung open and Bryan filled the frame, and his eyes crawled over me from the ruined wig to the sticky shine on my throat before he stepped back and let me in.

I walked past him wearing exhaustion and misery, which required no acting at all, while my eyes did one quiet lap of the room. Table. Couch. Chairs. Cabinet.

No phone. Anywhere.

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