Lies & Lullabies Read Online Free Page A

lined the walls and crudely shared their thoughts on my match. A few expressed their disappointment because I hadn’t behaved like their obedient windup toy and killed the women. Never had I taken a life, and I never would. Everyone who fought with me lived to see another day.
    The guard opened the only door on the left side of the corridor and ushered me into a room that looked similar to a swanky green room of a big production television show.
    Another man was in the room and stood with his broad back to me as he faced the glass bar. The man simply stated, “Sugar.” He poured a little clear liquid in a glass and downed it in a few swallows. Flexing his back with heavy breaths and stretching the shirt across his sinewy shoulders, he set the glass down on the bar counter and turned around to greet me. Mr. VIP. “Leave,” he said to the guard behind me.
    “Yes, sir.” Turning swiftly, the guard exited, leaving the door ajar.
    “Sir?” I asked of the name the guard called him. “Do you own this place?”
    “Today I do.” Moving at a leisure pace, he sat on the arm of the couch. He pulled an e-cig from his pocket and held it to his mouth; a vapor mushroomed from between his succulent pink lips. Tangled and winding black branches extended down his shapely arms, the roadmap of his veins protruded and receded with every movement of his arm.
    “Thank you, and no thank you.”
    He lifted a thick, almost perfectly straight brow, releasing the shadow from his blue eyes.  
    “That’s all I can give you. Whatever you want to offer me because you think I owe you since you saved my ass back there, gave me a box of cigarettes, and a hundred bucks isn’t going to happen. I’m good and far from desperate.” I shifted my hips and settled my weight mostly on one leg, but thought better of it. The adrenaline was so high I hadn’t registered the pain in my ankle fully.  
    He took another puff on the cigarette. Vapor shrouded his face in a white mist. “Did you give the cigarettes to the transient on the curb?”
    I gave him a shrug.
    He titled his head back. A crooked grin pulled at the corner of his mouth. “You did. You definitely did.”
    A collection of drinks in the large ice bucket standing on a pedestal at the back of the room drew my eye. I approached the table and poured myself a two-finger width portion of whiskey in a tumbler. I brought it to my lips.
    Mr. VIP reached out from his position on the couch and clamped his hand around the glass, forcing me to put it down. “By all means, don’t help yourself.” His gravelly voice expelled the words with sarcasm and a pinch of annoyance.
    Receding with caution, thanks to feeling every bit of pain in my body, I halfway limped to the other side of the room and whirled around to face him. “Is there something you wanted?”
    Thick, dark eyelashes fluttered over his eyes. “Even though you said no, you’re curious?”
    “Yes,” I replied with a shrug.
    He lifted off the couch, standing broad and straight and tucked the e-cig into his back pocket.  
    There was something in his swagger; it was hypnotizing and bloated with confidence. As he stood inches from me, I became cognizant of how much his height towered over mine. Without his jacket and given his closeness, the intricate details of the winding barren branches in his tattoo were mesmerizing. His T-shirt stretched across his body and left not much to the imagination. He was fit, but not overly bulky. A very nice bodied middleweight, if I had to compare.  
    “Well…?” I darted my arms out on either side of me to urge him on.
    His eyes turned into slits. “I thought you weren’t interested in what I had to offer you.”
    “Doesn’t mean I’m not curious to hear the big ominous offer.”  
    “Have a seat.” He pointed to the chair in the center of the room.
    “I’d rather stand.”
    “Sit.” Authority and grit wormed into his demand and withdrew any invitation to rebel.
    I swiveled around toward