Chapter 5 Convict I sprawled across the back seat of my borrowed car, my leg up just as the doctor ordered, and with Mila on the tablet I'd brought with me from the warehouse. I'd watched her for two hours. Not creepy if you had a surveillance excuse and a head wound. Probably. Nothing had happened in that time. Whoever she was waiting for never showed. There was only a shady-as-fuck loser who skulked in a ground-floor room but did little else. Obviously a lackey or some kind of guard. At least he wasn't bothering her. After a while, Mila curled up on the bed and didn't move. She'd fallen asleep, I guessed. The camera view stole her colour, but I knew enough to fill in the gaps. Red lips, blonde hair, pale eyes under the hood of her oversized hoodie. The neon light that shone into her room cast over her bed in streaks, but it didn't touch her, like it was allowing her to hide from the light. At length, it too went out. When dawn streaked the sky overhead, I gave up and drove home. Mila: 1. Excitement: 0. Boner: ...undecided. I wasn't a fan of being out in daylight, and if my woman of interest wasn't doing anything, I could watch that from the comfort of my bed. At the warehouse, the streets and car park were empty, the revellers gone home, but inside, Manny still watched the cameras in the guard room. He lifted his head at my arrival. "Hey. Can I have a new phone?" I asked. Manny tugged open a drawer and fished out a box. "Didn't Tyler give you one already?" "He did. Someone else has it now." Luckily, I had the number memorised. With nothing much in my head, it had stuck. A thought sprang to mind. "I don't suppose we can track that one, can we?" Life sparked in his tired eyes. "All our staff phones are traceable. Some of our people, too. Need me to do that now?" "Not yet, but good to know for future reference." I thanked him and asked after Tyler and Shade, but both were out. I went to leave, but Manny stalled me. "Shade asked me to talk to you about your pay." On one of his screens, he brought up a form. "As you were undercover, we took you off the official books. I've been holding on to your pay, so the money's waiting, if you want it." I peered at the screen which showed a payslip, and an odd feeling passed over me. A cursory glance at the address showed me the area was different to the one the hospital had for me, but I didn't want to note the street or any more details. Remembering too much about my life at once would be an overload. At some point, I'd need to go home, wherever that was, but today was not that day. I stuck my hands into my pockets. "Can I get a printout of that?" "Sure thing. Do you need any cash?" I stared at him. "For real?" Manny rattled something under his desk then brought out an envelope. Inside was a wedge of notes. "I've kept this back for you, locked in the safe. You can have all of it, or I can transfer the same amount to your bank now you're officially back on the crew." Fuck. If I had a bank account, I had no way of accessing it. Maybe the answer to that was at my home address, but that strange, cold feeling wouldn't budge. "I'll take some now then leave the rest for later, if you're good with that?" Manny inclined his head and passed me the envelope. I extracted a stack of twenties and handed the rest back. The security chief regarded me. "Need a wallet, too?" I choked on a laugh. "That would probably help." The resourceful man located one in a stock cupboard. It had our crew logo of a skull wearing a bandanna across its lower face. I thanked him for a second time and left, turning the wallet over in my hands. That image of the skull was me, in a way. A stripped-back, empty-headed version of what had previously been a man. I still carried the worst feeling that if I did discover enough about my past, I wouldn't like what I found. My next mission was food, and though the clubs were closed, there was still a kitchen in operation upstairs in the brothel part of the huge warehouse, where the clientele presumably built up an appetite after fucking their woman or man of choice. I strode through the reception area where a few tired and mostly naked women waited on newcomers, sweet talked the cook into frying me up a burger, then retraced my steps with the food already devoured while I waited for the lift. A lass in a see-through baby doll nightie, completely naked underneath with the front cut away to display her bare pussy, waved at me in greeting, her dark-haired friend leaning in to ask who I was. She whispered her answer, and I picked up my name plus 'Arran's oldest friend'. Was I? Shit, who knew. It didn't escape my notice that the naked skin all around still did nothing to stir my dick. Even when the doors opened and the brunette stripped her bra in a provocative display of welcome to two early-bird old gents. She ushered them in, and I stared as hard at her tits as they did, waiting for a kick of anything in my body. Nope. Not a smidge of interest. The lift arrived, and I returned to my room, shutting myself away with a sigh. Tiredness dogged me, yet I couldn't help tuning back in to the Mila show. There she was. My future emotional breakdown in a hoodie. She hadn't woken, but she'd extended her bare legs. My heart thumped, and I travelled my gaze up her calf and to her thigh. Lust kicked in a rolling wave that heated my blood and sent it straight to my dick. Not at the naked tits or ready-to-go pussy on display downstairs. No, just for this woman. I knew Mila. Either because I'd seen her before, though I'd believed her when she'd said she didn't know me, or for a stranger reason. That, on first sight, my body had decided the lass was mine. I passed out with my hand on my junk just to feel that it still worked, and the live feed running so we could sleep together. When I woke, Mila was stirring, too. Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the Fɪndηovᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. I'd dreamt about her. Just talking as we'd lain in bed, then pulling her onto me for a slow morning fuck. Her mouth had mapped to mine, then she'd pushed me to lie on my back while she kissed down my body, on her way to toy with the ultra-hard dick that only seemed to like her. Fuck it. I dialled the number of the phone I'd given her. On the tablet screen, Mila jumped then snatched it from under the mattress. She'd hidden it. Good girl. The call connected, and she listened but didn't speak. "If you aren't a sex worker, what are you?" I muted the camera feed in case of feedback. Mila's posture relaxed, and her mouth curved. "Wouldn't you like to know? And what makes you think I'm not a sex worker?" "Are you?" "Fine, I'm not. Actually, I have questions of my own, stalker. How did you get hurt?" She'd been thinking about me. I extended my free arm and the white bandage that really needed to come off. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." That smile of hers grew. "This turned dirty quickly." She had no idea. I was hard again, just at the sound of her voice. Maybe my dick had never gone down. "Something about you does that to me, sweetheart." She climbed from the bed and moved to the window, peering out into the rainy afternoon as if I might be perched on the rickety frame again. "Is that why you asked if I'd recognised you? Like some kind of cosmic connection?" "Pretty much." "Except you don't know me." Her words gave me pause. And for no good reason, I found myself revealing the truth. "I didn't know for sure. Here's something real. I have amnesia. I can't remember anything past a few weeks ago." Mila stilled, her hand to the window frame. "Honestly?" "Entirely. And hardly anyone else knows." "Why are you telling me?" "Because of how I react to you. There has to be something that's familiar." On slow steps, she made her way back to the bed. "React how, exactly? We met once, last night, for a minute." I palmed my junk. This was inappropriate. I should hang up, or at least apologise. But let's be real, neither of those things were happening. I wanted her involved. More, I just wanted to keep her talking. Maybe I was an obsessive kind of man. But from first sight of Mila, I'd only wanted more, and now we'd spoken, that interest was turning into something else. I had no idea if that was good or very, very bad.