Page 18 of No Sweeter Poison

“I’m stepping out.”

Lettie swings around to face me. “Where are you going?”

“Meeting with Belov and Maslov.”

Lettie with her scary intuition asks, “And the redhead?”

“The driver took the cousin home last night. Figure out where they’re staying and send me the address.”

My sister sighs and takes a sip of her tea. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

D ahlia and Karina return to their hotel just in time.

Karina’s scrolling through her phone, looking frustrated as Dahlia chews her ear off, rubbing her forehead, clearly stressed out. The two of them share words, Karina trying to calm down Dahlia, and Dahlia unable to be calm.

Likely to do with the fact that her wallet is in my pocket.

Imagine my surprise when I found that and a tube of lipstick under my bathroom sink this morning. She must’ve been shuffling through her bag and dropped them without realizing. In her rush to make a quiet escape, she managed to leave behind the most important thing a woman owns. Sure, she could get new credit cards and head to the American Embassy for a new ID.

But her lipstick? I’m sure she’s freaking out right now.

As I step out of my car, something across the street must catch Dahlia’s attention because she turns her head. We make eye contact and she stops dead in her tracks, Karina continuing to ramble up ahead as she turns around the map in her hands. It isn’t until she reaches the hotel’s entrance that she realizes Dahlia’s no longer with her and stops. Karina turns around, looks at Dahlia, then follows her line of sight across the street. I lean against the car door and bow my head in her direction, acknowledging her presence.

Karina grins and waves before disappearing inside the hotel.

Dahlia hesitates at the curb before finally crossing, the layered ruffles of her long white skirt rustling in the wind. She stops in front of me, hands folded against her stomach, bottom lip between her teeth.

“Hi,” she says.

“I don’t know if I should be impressed or insulted. No one’s ever pulled a disappearing act like that before.”

She nearly smiles. Almost. “Is that so?”

“Absolutely. It was the humbling I needed.”

“Even the best of us need humbling every once in a while.”

“Seems like I’m going to have to try something different.”

“Like what?”

I reach into my pocket and pull out her wallet. “Like put in effort.”

Dahlia reaches for the wallet but I hold it out of reach. Her gaze flickers to mine. “Am I going to have to beg for it?”

I ignore the sexual innuendo. For now.

“A date. Just one. And if you think I’m a self-absorbed, arrogant, insufferable prick, you can have your wallet back with the promise you’ll never see me again.”

Despite her best efforts, laughter slips from her lips and she brings a hand to her mouth, smothering the sound. She bites the inside of her cheek as she looks around, likely in search of Karina who’s too good of a wing woman to have stuck around longer than necessary.

“I won’t lie and say I’m not tempted,” she concedes.

“Mm,” I hum in response.

“But…I’m here with Karina. I don’t want to leave her alone for the night. This is kind of a special cousin trip.” The corner of her mouth lifts slightly. “Not sure how you fit into the equation.”

My eyes narrow as I lean forward, dropping my voice to a whisper. “It’ll be kind of hard to do anything without a wallet don’t you think?”