Free Braver by Lexie Ray Page A

her for you?”
     
    “She’s gone!” Mike shouted. “She’s gone because of you!”
     
    “I’m afraid I don’t understand. I’ve never met your wife before.”
     
    My mind and heart racing, I tried to figure out where this was going. Had I met this woman before? Was there a chance that I was somehow at fault?
     
    “She found out about the night I spent with you,” Mike said. “She divorced me. She took everything from me.” He was silent for several long moments before sneering at me. “You took everything from me.”
     
    I shook my head. “What happens here, stays here,” I argued. “Your wife didn’t find out from me. Maybe one of your friends —”
     
    Mike cut me off with the fist he brought down on the table, rattling the cutlery. I tried not to look at the customers around me even though I was hyperaware of their eyes on us. I focused on maintaining control in this situation — even if it was only an illusion for their benefit.
     
    “It was you, in a roundabout way,” he said. “I was fucking pissed when I figured out that it was you who deleted my photos.”
     
    “You were told no photos,” I put in, “twice.”
     
    Mike shrugged away this annoyance of a fact. “You didn’t delete the photos from the cloud.”
     
    “The cloud?” I repeated, puzzled. It sounded almost mythical. “I have no idea what that is.” Once the photos were deleted from the phone, they were gone forever, weren’t they?
     
    “That’s because you’re a stupid whore,” Mike said. “The cloud is an online storage system. My phone’s defaults send all my data there so I can retrieve it if my phone crashes. If you delete the photos, they’re gone from the phone. But they stay in the cloud otherwise, and my wife likes to look at them via her own phone to see what I’m doing.”
     
    I thought I understood the concept of the cloud, but I was still having trouble understanding why this was my fault. I hadn’t forced Mike to take the pictures. I’d even deleted them — or tried to, anyway. However, I didn’t want to be combative. I had to defuse this situation.
     
    “I’m sorry your wife saw us together,” I whispered.
     
    “Not as sorry as you can be,” he said. “I’ve been living in a shitty apartment, barely able to scrape the rent together in this fucking city with my paycheck alone. My wife took our kids, my car — everything — and kicked me out of the house. She had the photos. She had the proof. And now I have nothing.”
     
    “I’m so sorry,” I said again. “I know this must be a tough time for you.”
     
    “Save your sympathies for the bedroom,” Mike said. “I’m going to fuck you until I think we’re even.”
     
    “If that’s what you feel like you need to do,” I purred. Maybe all he did need was a good lay. Many of my customers were like that, coming in here to blow off some steam — or to have someone blow it off for them. “I’ll get Mama and she’ll give you the best price. We’ll make this happen right now.”
     
    “Yes, we will,” Mike said. He lunged at me and tore at my shirt, popping buttons off of it as I scrambled back to get out of his reach. Everyone around us gasped at this new development of violence.
     
    “Please stop,” I said. This situation was reminding me too much of Tito. I wasn’t going to be able to play it cool for much longer. “Let me go get Mama so we can go upstairs.”
     
    “Upstairs?” Mike echoed. “No. I’m going to have you right here and now. If it doesn’t bring my wife back, I’ll try again. Still nothing? Again. And again.”
     
    I didn’t like the crazed tone in his voice. It told me that I was in danger. How could I get away?
     
    I stood up and tried to dart away. I was well aware that everyone knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had lost control of the situation. Now all I cared about was escape. I didn’t give a shit who knew about it.
     
    With stunning quickness, Mike punched me on the jaw,