“Wait… Why do you work there then?!” I turned her direction as much as my car and center console allowed.
“No other way to get better information, duh. Well, now that we are over that hump… Rumor has it the hunt is some sacrifice shit in the mountains.”
Our serious expressions managed eye contact as long as possible, before we both busted out in a fit of laughter. Slapping my thigh, I couldn’t control the tears drowning my eyes and leaking out the sides.
Sacrifices? Illuminati?
Jus was crazy, but I loved her all the same. That’s what unconditional was: loving what someone else didn’t.
The Office Depot on Wilshire was the closest to our office. Everything was on Wilshire if you were an office with any clout. The Clave had established clout from before I arrived.
You never really think of companies you don’t know before working for them. Even if you do, all you’re hoping is for good pay, a decent boss, and hours. Everything else you can ignore if you try hard enough.
Slowly drifting down the aisles, I picked out random things in white with gold accents (stapler, hole puncher, nice pens that fit my aesthetic). Jus was calculating some kind of argument meant to make Office Depot look terrible; I could see it in her pensive brows.
“Have you heard of Sins and Forgiveness? It’s some bar.”
Her pensive argument blew away with one question as she spun around to look at me safely behind my cart. “The sex club? The club known for drugs? I protested there once for sex trafficking.”
My jaw went slack at her blunt response. Grimm wanted me to get him a table for his guests he needed to impress at a drug infested sex club? Working for Vic was so much easier. If he was morally bankrupt, I didn’t get to see that side.
Sex club.
Sacrificial weekends.
We work for the Illuminati.
Had I been wearing rose-colored glasses this whole time, heart-shaped and red, because I begged for danger, but just didn’t want to be aware I was surrounded by it?
“Grimm asked me to secure a table for his guests.”
With her hands on the end of the cart, she glared at me. “He’s not Vic, Abigail. He protected you from all this, but Grimm doesn’t see those kinds of lines.”
For some reason, I didn’t take her observation for what it was. I peeled back the layers, peered between the words, and found meanings she probably didn’t even mean for me to find. Overthinking wasn’t really a hobby you choose to pick up on your own. It’s bred from anxiety and sensitive souls.
I wasn’t overly sensitive. I was aware that protecting myself was a 24/7 job, and I do every job with pride.
The anxiety just showed up one day and never left. It was manageable. The bad days stood out more, just like bad energy or bad times.
Nothing I couldn’t handle on my own.
“Maybe I need more honesty in my life…” The words trailed off, unsure if even I was being honest in this moment.
Leaning her weight onto the front of the cart, she leaned in and said, “Too much truth will break your favorite sunglasses, Abi.”
Jus had a way of speaking in tongues, but you knew exactly what she meant, because it reverberated in your chest with a vibration that made your soul flinch.
I couldn’t maintain eye contact for too long; the truth was hard to look directly in the eyes. Shifting my eyes downward I waited for her to move out of the way of the cart. After the longest minute of feeling her eyes on me, she finally stepped aside, still with a “take me seriously” look on her face.
I was trying to focus on office supplies, but every ounce of happiness was dampened by the clash with my best friend, reality, and all the bullshit we ignore just to keep some semblance of sanity. Looking at the folders, Jus shouted from the other end of the aisle, “I’m gonna hit up the poke bowl shop down the street. Want something?”
“You know what I like!” I was trying to remind her she still liked me regardless of my sunglasses or risking my favorite pair by working for Grimm.
I appreciated her worry for me. Believe me, it didn’t always show for other people, only because she could get behind, but I didn’t have a choice like she made it seem. I had zero choice in being fired by Vic to only be handed off to someone else.
Waiting until she was out of earshot, I Googled the bar for a number, hoping reserving a table was quick. The bar was dark, seductive, and honestly well designed from the photos my search turned up.
Sins and Forgiveness.
It even sounded precarious as you mulled over the name. It had me biting my lip and tempting me to stand sexier in an aisle of the most unsexy thing: office supplies.
I was being lured in, and all I was doing was stuck on their home screen of their website. Finally shaking off the arousal, I pressed the “contact us” button to find the number before pressing it. My phone dialed it automatically when I pushed the phone up to my ear, waiting for someone to pick up on the other end.
“S&F, how may I help you?”
The girl’s voice sounded drowsy in a way that was meant to be cool, too cool to care too much. That was definitely a LA homegrown special. You could see Diane Keaton, my personal adult goals, in the same grocery aisle and not care one ounce, because it was the LA thing to do. Thank god I didn’t grow up here! I couldn't imagine what kind of scars that created.
“Hi, I need to reserve a table for my boss.”
“We have a waitlist of 3 months. Do you still wanna put your name down?”
“Oh, no, no. He needs this table for tonight. He just said to call. Is there like a password or something?” The words Illuminati and elite were ringing in my ears, and all I could reference quickly was Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrick.
Her laughter kind of stung, even through the phone. “We’re in high demand. There’s still a waiting list.”
“Jason Rothschild… does that help?”
She poked a stick right to my soft parts, making them turn to stone. I was a nice person, with anti-LA qualities and still hopeful in an innocent way, even though I was aware that hope comes to die here, but when steamrolled because of who I am? Oh, you get horns.
Normally people assumed I was a bitch, solely based on how I looked, but this bitch wasn’t even seeing me and treating me like I was a know-nothing idiot.
“Doesn’t ring a bell, sweetheart. Maybe you can try another bar.”
I could see her fake sympathy in my head, paired with a small shrug that just screamed “I can’t help you”.
“He goes by Grimm. Sorry, I thought you’d know his real name,” I snapped into the phone, as I ripped down a pack of highlighters from the hook in front of me. The line went silent—overwhelmingly silent.
“Please hold,” was all I heard after the silence.
Did the non-name hold some weight I was blind to?
Vic dropped his name, but only ever when making deals, business opportunities, and things like that. Maybe sex clubs was the arena Grimm’s name worked in.
The hold music was soft elevator music that seemed outdated for a club peddling in drugs and sex trafficking… A deep voice came on the line with an accent I couldn’t place. It almost sounded like he was losing it by being in the States too long, giving him just a hint of his origin. Hints of Russian maybe? It was distracting me, and it made me wonder how anyone paid attention on his staff.