Free Cheat (Karma Inc. Book 1) by Gillian Zane

them hooked back up and running. I put the new password in a secure folder and wrote down a quick set of instructions for Marshall to find them and placed the notebook on his desk with a sticky note that read in bold letters “Lock this up!”
    I checked the monitors, everything showed on the monitors. They were working perfectly. I walked out to the front of the bar where Marshall was looking flustered and Bishop was looking perplexed and gave Marshall a thumbs up.
    “Everything okay with your aunt, Cassidy?” Marshall asked with an exaggerated wink that Bishop missed.
    “Yup, false alarm. Thanks for letting me use your computer, Marshall.” I took my spot behind the bar and got back to work.
    Bishop was suspicious, eager to find out what I was doing in Marshall’s office. He tried buttering me up to figure it out, at least that is what I assumed he was doing. The moment the crowd thinned, he was right there by my side.
    “Cassidy, you look spectacular today,” he cooed as I filled the order of two young college frat boys.
    “Thank you, Bishop,” I beamed at him as was expected. I thought I did look spectacular today. I was wearing a blue skater dress that reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, with a cute pair of Mary Janes, my hair braided in two plaits on either side of my head. I knew I looked girlish, but Bishop seemed to like it, the perv. I was getting used to being a blonde, or at least figuring out how I could use it in my favor. I knew Bishop had a thing for Alice. He supposedly had the Cheshire cat tattooed on his thigh, according to my intel.
    “Every time you bend over to grab a beer out of the cooler, the entire bar cranes their heads to get a peek,” he leered.
    “Bunch of pervs, the lot of you.” I rolled my eyes. It was getting close to the end of our shift. Marshall had left in a hurry about an hour earlier, claiming he had some errands to run and would see us tomorrow. I was disappointed that he hadn’t noticed Bishop. The negative energy had swirled around him on countless occasions during the night.
    A slap on the bar had me looking up quickly at a gentleman standing at the bar. He was out of place. In his late thirties, slick on the side of cheesy. His dark hair was slicked back and he wore a too tight tee over a not so tight physique.
    “Bishop,” he said as a declaration to listen up and not in greeting.
    “Sergei,” Bishop said with no warmth.
    “You thought over that little business proposition we discussed?” the man named Sergei asked. His careful wording making it more obvious than if he would have said exactly what they were referring to. Was this Bishop’s drug contact? He looked the part. And negative energy clung to him like an oil slick. I didn’t want him to touch anything, he might leave a residue.
    “Yeah, still thinking about it, Sergei,” Bishop said through a tight-lipped glance at me.
    “Don’t take too long, boy. My offer won’t be around for too much longer.” He slapped his hand on the bar again and turned without a farewell.
    “What was that about?” I asked, looking from Bishop to the retreating back of his visitor.
    “Nothing, I was thinking about taking a second job,” he shrugged.
    “With that guy? I wouldn’t want to work for someone like that,” I said with a shiver that wasn’t exaggerated. “End up at the bottom of the lake with cement shoes.”
    “Yeah, Sergei, he’s not that bad when you get to know him.” Bishop looked over at me and shrugged again like he didn’t believe his own words.
    “That guy put the shhh in shady,” I said as I moved away from him and tended my side of the bar. My timeline was getting a little tight. Bishop was on the verge of caving and taking his first “income supplement” from Sergei. If I didn’t move fast, Bishop wouldn't just be pushing drinks from behind the bar.
    We had hardly any time to talk for the rest of the night. The place exploded right before closing and I didn’t have any time to stop