PANIC

Chapter Twenty - RONIN

The test shoots this week have been a nightmare. Total nightmare. These girls are so snooty and high-maintenance, I just want to drop-kick them.

I sigh as yet another one pouts and huffs over in the make-up salon. Elise is on hiatus with Antoine. Both of them hang around the periphery once in a while, but for the most part, Josie is in charge of the salon right now. And Josie is about to smack this girl, I can tell.

“Look,” Josie snaps at the blonde with aquamarine eyes. “I might not speak French, you stupid bitch. But I certainly do understand it. So shut your—”

“Josie!” I call out to her just before she loses her temper. “Come here a sec, will ya?”

The model sneers as Josie walks over to me, straightening her black jacket a little. “Sorry, Ronin. But that girl—”

“I heard. Let me handle her, just start on the next one, OK? Send her over to Roger with no make-up or hair, let’s see how much she enjoys that.”

Josie peeks up at me through her dark bangs and smiles. “OK.”

She walks away laughing and I watch the model’s horrified face as she directs her hate over to me. I give the bitch a little wave of my hand and then point to a group of girls sitting at some tables near the kitchen, waiting their turns.

French blondie gets up with a breathy blow of air and makes her way towards me. “Comment osez-vous?”

I point to myself. “How dare I? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re pretty, you’re experienced, and you’re here—that’s about all you have going for you right now. If you want this job you’ll be nice to my family. That woman over there”—I point to Josie who is already busy with another girl—“is like a sister to me. Do not piss her off.”

Aqua Eyes looks me up and down for a few seconds, then turns away.

“Oh,” I say, stopping her. “And no more French. Unless your last name is Chaput, it’s fucking rude. Speak English when you’re dealing with us or hit the road.”

I forgot what bitches these outside girls are. The regular Chaput models are all pretty nice. At the very least, they all know the rules and one of them is that I don’t put up with that catty princess bullshit. I’ve been spoiled working with Rook, she never pulls any of that crap. She’s almost always polite, except with Ford, and she’s not high maintenance at all.

She’s perfect.

I wish she was my Gidget instead of all these girls.

I look back over to Barbie Bitch and she’s pointing at me as she spouts off to Clare in French. I shake my head as Clare looks over at me.

Clare has certainly had her moments as far as temper tantrums go, but she’s been a completely different person since she came home from the treatment facility. I watch carefully to see how she handles this.

She stays perfectly still as the model complains and points to me and Josie in the salon. Clare replies in a soft voice and points to the front door.

Frenchy shoots me hate and I let out a small chuckle as I walk over to them, covering the distance in just a few paces, that’s how long my pissed-off strides are. “That’s it, I warned—” I stop talking just as my gaze finds the man standing at the front door. Tall, black suit, looks like the government.

I turn back to Clare. “Get rid of Aqua Bitch, OK? I’ve got a visitor.”

Her gaze travels to the guy at the door and she looks back to me and swallows hard. “OK. Sorry, Océane, you’re no longer needed. Thank you for—”

And I walk away as the bitch starts screaming in French and make my way over to the man at the door. “Can I help you?”

“Like racehorses, I guess, huh?”

“What?”

“High-strung, these girls.”

We step aside as Clare pushes the girl past us and then follows her out into the stairwell and closes the door behind her. The screaming is still loud, but better than it was. “I’m sorry, let’s start again. Can I help you?”

He smiles at me and I know immediately what this is.

“I’m looking for Ronin Flynn. That you?”

“And who might you be?”

“Agent Abelli, FBI.” He flashes a badge, which I study quickly, then thrusts a little white card towards me, but I don’t take it or even look at it.

“How can I help you, Agent Abelli?” My sincere con man voice takes over because I just punched the time clock. “I’m sort of in the middle of a model melt-down.” I gesture to the door with my head then turn slightly and start walking towards Antoine’s office. He follows like a good little chicken. What choice does he have? I’m walking away, he wants to talk to me, he has to follow. “So sorry about the theatrics. It’s tough working with all these young women every day, right?” I give him a slimeball wink but his expression remains stoic.

I turn before the real grin pops through my facade and motion to a chair on the opposite side of Antoine’s excessive desk and then I take the boss position behind the monstrosity, leaning back in my chair and kicking my feet up.

Abelli eyes the chair I pointed to and prefers to stand. “Mr. Flynn, I’d like to ask you some questions—”

“Oh, sure. I figured you guys would be around sooner or later.” I stop to watch his confusion for a beat. “But I figured it’d be a lot sooner than this, to be honest. No matter, you’re here now. What can I do you for, friend?”

Abelli narrows his eyes at me. I smile back at him. “Well, Mr. Flynn, I’m here on another matter, so—”

“Oh, Rook? Yeah, I’ve been telling her to get ready for this, ya know? She’s so fragile. Testifying against Jon will be traumatic, I think. She might not make the best witness, but we gotta use what we have, am I right? Make sure that scumbag never hurts anyone else again.” I stop to shake my head and look down for a moment. “What he did was so, so… so animalistic.” I look up. “Ya know?”

Abelli clears his throat and tries again. “Actually, Mr. Flynn, we’re here—”

“Ronin?” Clare says in a sweet voice as she belatedly knocks on the open door. “Sorry to interrupt, sir,” she says, looking at Abelli. “But I need you, Ronin. Océane is gone, but there’s another girl. I tried to screen them, but I think—” She stops to look at the agent.

“Go ahead, Clare, he’s cool. You can say it.”

“She’s high, Ronin. We need to fire her, I think, and I don’t want to be the one to—”

“No, I got it. One sec, sweetie.” Clare leaves and I get back on my feet and walk over to the door, pause. “Well, sorry about being cut short, Agent… what was your name again? Maybe I should take a card?”

He takes a step towards me and I turn and walk back over to the front door, shaking my head at the screaming coming from the dressing room, look over my shoulder to see if Abelli is following—he is—and then pull the front door open and wait for him to catch up. He’s got the little white card in his hand and I take that and put a hand on his back. “Sorry, I’m sorry you had to see this. We typically run a tight ship here, but…” I huff out a long exasperated breath. “You know, new blood always causes friction.”

The screaming in the dressing room takes on a whole new level of crazy and I wince in that direction, then turn back to Abelli. “I gotta go, man, OK? Let me know if you need any help, any help at all. We gotta put that sick fuck behind bars for a long, long time, right?”

I clap him on the back of the shoulder and walk off towards the dressing room. I turn the corner, out of Abelli’s sight and then start yelling in French as Clare slips past me to go make sure Abelli is gone. Inside the dressing room Josie is throwing a fit by herself. Screaming about drugs, and dieting, and the scale, and the clothes, and fuck all else. Pretty much everything she can think of. I try to calm her loudly until Clare comes back in and closes the dressing room doors.

“He’s gone.”

Josie skips past me, planting a kiss on my cheek as she goes, and then calls out, “You owe me a fat bonus for that performance, brother.”

“Is it serious?” Clare asks as soon as Josie’s gone.

I let out a long slow breath. “Maybe. He never got past hello, but he’ll be back.”

Clare and I go back out into the studio. She does her job herding the girls for their test shoots, me hassling Roger and generally being an asshole, like they expect me to. No one mentions my visitor, no one mentions the fact that Josie threw a fit and then came back to work like nothing happened. The day just moves on.

I’m not really avoiding the FBI, just laying a foundation on which I can build. I don’t call Spencer or Ford because this has absolutely nothing to do with them. If Ford were to get pulled in for hacking he’d never tell me about it. So maybe he’s already been questioned, I have no idea. And Spencer really has no tangible role in this latest job, not like the others. Rook filled in for him in this case, and she’s clearly the victim, so I doubt they’re hassling her.

But me, I’m the face. The front man. Which means they come to me first because I’m the one who’s acting all in the know, right? I’m the talker, the amicable participant, the one who answers every question without fail.

That’s the only job I have. To clean the shit up after the fan throws it all over the fucking place.

I’m not one hundred percent sure why Abelli was here, but I can take a good guess.

I suddenly want a cigarette very badly. I don’t really smoke, but there are times when I want to. This is one of those times.

But I don’t smoke. Because that’s an indicator that I’m nervous about something.

And I cannot—can-fucking-not—afford to deviate from normal now.