Even with the sudden intrusion, he somehow managed to maintain his composure, though he was sure his eyes were saying everything his mouth wasn’t. His face was expressive in that way. And one of them was always speaking.
“ I can see that… ” came his oddly cool reply, taking in her scarlet-stained clothing. To anyone else, anyone normal, it may have elicited a different reaction- one of fright or concern, and yet it made him lick his bottom lip, just for a second, and maybe made his dick twitch. he was fucked up, but going with the stronger emotions of confusion and anger was likely easier in this case.
“ I’m sure you can just jank another, huh? Should have taken one of theirs. S’ your specialty, ain’t it?” If he smoked cigarettes, he would’ve take one out by now, but he always kept his lungs in tact. What was he going to do, be a shitty sax player?
“ Yeah sure, let’s talk compensation. Or, let’s just t a l k. Starting with what the hell did you do with them? Let’s start there, actually. A great place to start.” He pulled the pictures closer to his side, but his eyes didn’t leave hers. “ Did you fucking hide these idiots and deal with it, or do I have to take money out of our compensation to keep some idiots quiet now?” He raised a brow awaiting a likely bumbling response, reaching into his desk, third drawer down, pulling out a bottle of whiskey.
“ By the way, you reek.” Adrien was thankful for his bag he kept stowed away, full of clothes and anything else one could need for living on the road or making a grand escape. “ Go look in there for something, for god’s sake. ” He’d catch his breath and poor them both a glass, examining the photos further.
Of course he knew all of the men in question: one was practically a stranger but Adrien had an affinity for remembering people’s faces, the other two much more on his radar. One of them had been a pain in his ass for a while now, a suspected narc and he was relieved to see his corpse in a polaroid. Likely were just in the wrong place at the possibly wrong time, but her trigger happy nature somehow both worried, and amused him.
It could cause him a hell of a lot of grief down the line, but it also could save him a headache or two.
Still. it couldn’t always escalate to this.
“ As much as I admire your fighting nature, Steph, ” he started, gesturing with his tumbler in her direction “ I’m gonna need you to take a second or two before you start firing next time. But.. that’s what this is about. Getting you used to these types of situations. and what.. arises.”
The metallic smell kept hitting him, coming in waves, only stoking the fire inside him. Everything about this new prospect made him excited.
Stevie wasn’t much of a cleaner, there were other people who were better equipped to do those sort of things. The three bodies arranged in the Polaroids were left as is. Something she didn’t know how to tell him. So instead Stevie looked through the duffle bag of clothes, snagging a wrinkled button up she could only assume was his. “Are you going to turn around?” Unlikely.
The soiled shirt found a new home, balled up on top of Lockwood’s desk, where he could decide its final fate— keep it for his own personal enjoyment or BLACKMAIL.
“Here,” Stevie said, handing over her phone (a possible mistake) with the contact already pulled up. “Call Nicky, he’s good for that kind of work. NO compensation cuts needed. He’ll answer if he thinks it’s me.” She strode back to the bag, not before snagging the glass of whiskey he poured, hoping to find something with short sleeves.
“I was thinking you could…. pay me... a grand for each?” She said the last part of the sentence quickly, like a disclaimer at the end of an ad, and paused. Feeling some sort of momentary victory finding a black tee, she sighed in relief. “I think that’s generous. I basically cleaned house at a discount. Em usually goes 4k a pop.” Stevie bargained, although she knew part of the job was cleaning the mess. Stevie didn’t have the heart to do that kind of thing. Never really had. “I’ll buy Nicky a soda and a nerds rope,” and a possible handy to seal his lips on the matter. But no matter.
She took a seat once again on the desk, picking up one of the photographs to study it. The jacket on the possible bystander looked like it would have been a real gem of a keeper, if only she had been in the right mind to jank it, as Adrien so kindly put it. “You’re not mad about it, are you? The mercy killings?”
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