Chapter 3
Laila was ready to start talking, to tell her story, she was going to tell these men something she had promised to never tell. She was going to tell these men how she had met, and fallen in love with a man who worked as an assassin for the CIA. She had kept this story inside for so long that the idea of telling someone was making her feel sick to the stomach. She was going to explain how her relationship with Ahmed worked, and how she knew that when he went away on business, that the nature of his business required that someone would die in order for him to come home. This was something that she had promised to never talk about. Now, all of the rules were out the window and she knew that they knew most of the things she was going to tell them. She knew that they had probably been following her the whole time she was with Ahmed. But still, this was her life, this was a promise she had made to Ahmed to protect him, and a decision to protect her family from her actions.
“What do you want to know sir? I will tell you what I can, and I will be honest, but there are things that I won’t talk about. Some things are simply too personal and private.” Her voice was soft, and she could tell that Garcia and Lewis were having a hard time believing that this was the same person that they had left not half an hour before. Laila could tell simply by their faces and body language that they were surprised by the change in her manner, the men seemed to sigh with relief and glance at each other out of the corner of their eyes. She sighed lightly in frustration, she understood their surprise, but at the same time she felt that her previous actions had been justified. “What did you expect, really? If you were me, what would you do, how would you feel right about now? You wake me in the middle of the night with a gun to my boyfriend’s head, and drag me in here and start asking me all of these questions. Again I ask, what would you do?” She sighed as neither man replied to her and simply watched her in silence. It was almost as if they were baiting her and trying to upset her into talking more. Determined not to do that, to not give them more information than they needed she immediately became quiet and tried to make her face blank.
“Well Laila, we can pretty much ask you any questions we want to, and you should probably answer them. But we don’t want to know anything too personal, and we’ll try not to upset you too much. Try to remember though, we need to know these things and sooner or later we’ll find the answers. We need to know how exactly you met Ahmed, when and where did you meet him?” The older man was trying to be careful; he did not want to upset this girl anymore than he already had. He noticed that her even though she had made her expression blank that in her eyes there was an anger there, most likely directed at him ignoring the accusation she had just given, and also at what he had just said. At the same time, he couldn’t help it, this is what he had to do. Garcia still could feel that he was starting to like this girl more and more, and even though he knew that he needed to keep his emotions and feelings in check, he found himself wanting to protect her. He had been with the CIA for almost fifteen years, and between the training in his first year with the agency and all the years since that he had been with them he had always managed to steel himself and keep a distance. To do the job he did he wasn’t able to care about the people he was questioning or the people he was helping, it simply led to more problems. Always before he had managed to keep himself from feeling. He knew that if he and Lewis did not find out exactly how much this girl knew, that there would be hell to pay and that someone else would take his place. His boss was under pressure to try and get this situation with Mahr and this girl under control from the major players in DC, and he was now taking that pressure to Garcia. But what made him even more afraid was Mahr’s threat, he knew that this was not a guy he wanted to screw with, and he believed him when the guy said he could make him disappear. When he had taken this case on, he figured it was going to be a simple job, in and out, watch and if it came to it, to take the couple in to ask questions. As time progressed, he had managed to get his hands on Mahr’s records. The shit that was in it amazed him, but the shit that was not in it, had planted a deep seed of fear, that maybe he was in over his head. For most of the classified operations in Mahr’s records, the only information given was the simple line ‘Problem no longer remains’. Even if someone did not work for the CIA they should still be able to figure out what that phrase meant and be worried by it. But if you worked for the agency, you knew that you were playing with a person you did not want to piss off.
With a deep shaking breath Laila began. “I met Ahmed in April, probably around the third week of the month. I know it was not the total end of the month, because I was still taking finals then. I had seen him probably a week before that at a bar on Carson in the South Side called Jack’s. I did not talk to him that night, we each barely looked at each other I was with a friend of his that night, Amr.” She paused to catch her breath, her face going blank as she stared at a point in the wall over Garcia and Lewis' heads. Despite her fixed gaze, she wasn’t seeing the wall, she was reliving those first few nights in her mind. “Close to a week later I was talking to Amr at the parking lot in Oakland near Pitt campus, that’s where Amr worked. I’d been on my way home from taking a final and had run into Amr simply by chance. Anyway, Ahmed showed up, I kind of remembered him from the night at Jack’s, but this was the first time I met him to be introduced. Basically all we even said that night was hello before I had to leave. I still had to finish writing one paper and re-read another paper before I got to sleep, and it was around nine at night, so I had to haul ass. Anyway the next night I ran into Amr again as I was going home, and Ahmed was there again. It had been a long two weeks for me, I was in my last semester at college and had just finished turning in my last assignments. I was in a really good mood, so we all decided to go get a drink together at a local bar called Denny’s, which is off of Atwood in South Oakland. All I wanted was to get out and relax, ya know? I had been cooped up in front of my computer for two weeks, and the only time I was getting outside even was to walk to campus to turn in a paper. So even to be standing there outside talking to them was nice, it gave me time to be outside and enjoying myself. But Amr was being a bit of a prick and left after one drink.” Laila stopped talking, and met Garcia's gaze with a small smile and shrug. “At the time I still didn’t know Ahmed so I was not very comfortable, but I was too happy just to be done with school that I didn’t care and Ahmed was fun to talk with, so I stayed and we kept talking until closing. After that, we went to his place where we stayed up and talked all night. The next day we went to Starbucks and had coffee. As I went home that day I figured that was it, ya know?” Laila couldn’t believe she was telling these men, these strangers about these things, but still she continued talking. In a sense reliving these memories simply felt so good. To remember the good times, the fun that they had had. Also, in another sense, it felt so good to finally be able to tell someone these things. She had never been able to tell her parents the full truth about Ahmed, not even her best friend knew all of the details of how they had met. “ But I ran into him about two days later. So that is how I met Ahmed. You wanted specifics and I gave you as many details as I am able, and as much as I’m willing to tell.”
Lewis, the younger, blond haired man, was amazed at this girl’s memory, he had a good memory but these events she had just described had taken place nearly a year ago. Yet, at the same time, he wasn’t surprised, he knew from her files that Laila wasn’t stupid by any means, and also he had the feeling that for as tough and strong as she portrayed herself, that she was very much a romantic. He himself had never been in love, at least not to the point that Laila and Ahmed seemed to love each other. “Ms Bryce, what name was given when you were introduced to Mr. Mahr? And what about what he did for a living.”
Laila thought for a long moment, frowning at first as she tried to recall then smiling as the detail came back “He was introduced simply as ‘My friend Ahmed’ by Amr, I was not given a last name until much later probably a week or two. As for what he did for a living, it was not quite clear that night. The way they were talking though I figured it must be something to do with law enforcement. I remember that Ahmed was complaining that second night at the parking lot about how he wanted to shave, and when I told him to just go home and shave he said he couldn’t. When I asked him why he said it was for his job. When I asked what his job was he wouldn’t tell me, so I started to guess. My dad’s a cop, so I figured that maybe Ahmed worked for the DEA, or was on some task force and that he was going undercover.” Again she met Garcia's eyes, almost pleading with him to end this, to stop her from babbling on about these things. Garcia's face was passive as if what was occurring was completely normal to him. She wasn’t sure how much they needed or wanted to know and she felt herself growing more upset, feeling like she was wasting all of their time. She also couldn’t help but feeling like she was being violated, and violating Ahmed's trust by telling them these things. These were thoughts that she hadn’t even written in her journal. “All I was told was that it was one of those things. So basically I just gave up.” Laila was quickly becoming frustrated with this, but she tried her best to stay calm, she owed that much to Ahmed. “Look, I don’t know what you guys want from me, I don’t really know that much. I feel like an idiot who is sitting here babbling on and on about nothing important to you. I’m telling you all of this stuff, and I still don’t quite understand why you need to know it.”
Garcia spoke first trying to reassure the girl that she was helping them, “No, Ms Bryce. You are doing exactly what we asked, you’re telling us all the important stuff and that’s good. But I still have questions. You said that the night in Oakland that you did not totally feel comfortable with Ahmed because you did not know him, yet you went to his home. Why did you not feel comfortable with him was there anything specific?”
Laila took his reply to her question and his continuing with the line of questions as a sign that she was giving them what they wanted or needed to know so she thought back to that night. She smiled as she in a sense relived that night, it had been great, but at the same time it had been unnerving. “Well, look at Ahmed and then look at me sir. I’m not exactly that strong, and he definitely is, you can tell that by looking at him. Also, as I said, my dad is a cop, I know what some of the younger cops are like, and excuse me for saying so but they can be pricks. They tend to want to be players and they tend to have no respect for women.” She said it slowly, but she was sure of herself, even though there was something nagging at the edge of her memory. Her green eyes closed and her small mouth twisted into a frown as she struggled to remember what it was. It had been a simple, fun night out drinking with a hot guy…nothing bad happened, right? And then she remembered, it wasn’t exactly a bad thing or an event that had made her uncomfortable, just something that at the time bothered her. “Well there was one thing that did bother me that night, and I only just now thought about it. I realized at Denny’s that Ahmed was carrying a gun. I’m used to guns, but it still scared me for some reason, and I knew it was illegal. One thing, it was concealed, and another we were in a bar, drinking. Both are illegal. When I noticed the gun I called him on it, at the time whatever it was he told me made sense.” She met first Garcia’s and then Lewis’ eyes to see if this was of importance, they nodded as if expecting her to continue, but she just shrugged, unsure of what to say next. Finally she shook her head waiting impatiently for them to continue with their questions. She was okay with answering their questions, but she didn’t like to simply sit there talking without them having asked her a question. In her mind she was in more control when they were asking the questions. That way she had a gauge of what information to give them. She would give them the information they needed, while at the same time, she wanted to be able to control the amount of information she gave them. If she simply sat there, the longer she talked, the more she would ramble with her nervousness, which they were probably counting on, so instead she would simply try and answer the questions and then stop and not give more information.
“Okay Laila, that’s really good. But why if you were not comfortable with this guy and you realized he had a gun, well why then did you go to his house?” Garcia looked at her almost as if he were confused, or as if he were trying to be fatherly. This only made her more irritated and frustrated; this guy had no right to judge her. She was neither ashamed, nor proud of some of her actions, she felt that everything she had done was simply part of her, and helped her learn, and become more mature. The decision to do what she had done with Ahmed that night was something that she would never regret, even if the worst would come from it, because at least she had lived, and had found love. This man had no right to ask her this question, he was neither her, nor was he her father, what choices she had made in her life belonged to her, and no one else.
“Look Garcia, that was my choice, obviously at the time I felt comfortable enough with him to do what I did. That is my business and it has nothing to do with what you want to know, I’m sure of it. He did not force me to go with him, and he didn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to do if that is what you’re implying. So can we move on with the line of questioning and I’m asking you again, please try to remember that this is my personal business, and my private life you are asking me about.” Her green eyes were slightly defiant and her mouth was set in a hard firm line.
Garcia had to allow himself a small smile at Laila's response, he was only a little surprised at Laila’s reaction, and he had known that the question would upset Laila, but he’d had to ask her anyway. He wanted to understand how this girl had become involved with a guy like Mahr. She seemed so nice, so sweet and innocent. When he had first started this case, Garcia had found himself amazed when he first saw Laila in person. Then, when you compared her to Mahr, it was amazing that they had fallen in love with each other at all. He had read her file and he knew a lot about the girl, but still he just could not get into her head to understand her enough. He had been studying her and watching her for the past two months, at times he felt like he knew everything and understood her completely. But still there were other times when he felt like he knew a lot about a few things when it came to Laila. Garcia could feel himself constantly second guessing himself.
When Mahr had first started to get involved with her, the agency was not that interested, figuring it only a passing thing. They were not happy about it, he had put himself at risk because he knew nothing about her, but he was a human being after all and not a machine that could be controlled. Everyone only gave it a week, two at most but when things kept going and it seemed things were more serious they started to look into who this girl was and who she knew. Laila seemed like a good kid, she was young and had been raised in a small town in New York state the only child of a cop and a teacher. She left home to go to school in Pittsburgh where she studied Spanish. Her teachers all seemed to like her, as did classmates, most of them thought she was very quiet though, but not excessively so, just shy, she had a small group of friends. Everything seemed to check out fine with her for the most part. Finally they thought they might have come across something that could be damning. From talking to her friends they found out that Laila seemed to like men from the Middle East, harmless enough and nothing ever came from it, no lasting relationships, and no long term commitments. At least that’s what everyone thought, and maybe even Laila herself did not know. But if she did know, then this was where the trouble would start. “Okay Laila, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want to be sure I understand. Now I want you to go back farther, before you met Ahmed. In the late fall of 2000 you met a guy at a club downtown. He was an Arab gentleman. Can you tell me anything about him?” he sat on the table directly across from her, making himself comfortable, but at the same time challenging her. He knew he was in her space and she would be forced to either look up at him, or slide back from the table. Garcia almost started to laugh when she calmly slid back from the table and slouched, almost defiantly in her chair.
Laila’s mind drew a blank. The fall of 2000, what the hell was this? That was a long time ago how was she supposed to remember back that far. “Umm…a little help may be needed here, I’m sorry but I’m not exactly sure what you are talking about. I can think of two guys who I know who are from the Middle East that I met at that time. So I don’t know which one of them you’re talking about.” She was genuinely confused, the only two men she could think of that she knew she had met at the time were Abe, and Aqil. Other than that, she may have met people in passing, and would know them on the street to say hello, but nothing more.
Garcia couldn’t tell if Laila was lying or not about this, so he tried to give her a little help, “He probably said he was from
Laila could tell that Garcia was not telling the full truth, she just did not know what he wanted. Both Abe and Aqil were from
Garcia was not interested in Abe, they knew who the old man was and he was harmless, for the most part, he was maybe a bit crazy but in the whole he was a good guy. The other man from
“You’ll excuse me if I say huh? How well do I know him? I don’t know him. All I know about this guy is his first name, and that he goes to this club downtown. He seems to try to play the field if you follow me, but I don’t think he gets anywhere. I don’t know where he lives, and I don’t know what else he could do for fun other than the stupid club and trying to sleep with women.” Laila was genuinely surprised and confused by these questions. First these agents had been asking her questions about Ahmed, and now they were forcing her back into the past. She took this time between questions to study the two agents’ faces, she still did not trust them and she hated the fact that they could ask her any question they wanted to, and they would want the questions answered. They looked tired and frustrated, obviously they did not like this, but they had no choice by the looks on their faces.
Lewis was the first to speak, his voice further betrayed how tired he was “Oh come on Laila, you know that you went home with him, you can trust us. We don’t care if you slept with him that’s not what’s important.” Lewis sounded almost bored, but still his voice held a hard, sharp edge to it, almost as if he were challenging her. At first she was too mad to talk, this man had no idea what he was talking about. Laila knew for sure that she had not gone home with Aqil that night. She was simply trying to help them as best she could, as uncomfortable as the situation was. She was trying to give them any answers they wanted. Just as she was about to reply to Lewis, Garcia quickly stepped in “Lewis that was uncalled for, and you know it. My apologies Ms Bryce.”
“I don’t want your apologies. Again, you say to trust you. How can I trust you? Need I remind you again of everything that is happening and has happened? For god’s sake I wake up in my boyfriend’s bed in the pre-dawn hours to find you and your friends standing over us with guns to our heads. Then I am drug from the bed to this room, and have been asked questions that I would really rather not answer. And I have done my best to answer the questions. Now you two are standing there throwing wild accusations at me, and basically accusing me of being a whore! If you were me, how trusting would you be? You stupid asshole, you’re trying to say that I had sex with Aqil?” Laila glared at Lewis, daring him to say anything, then turned her anger back to Garcia as she began talking again. “You can make me disappear, you can make the people I love disappear. As for you Lewis I think you’re just bitter because it’s been so long since you got any. I never slept with Aqil. Sure I had the chance, and I considered it at the time but I never did it! That was in October that I met him. If you look deep in my file that you have, maybe you’ll find that I never lost my virginity until March of the next year!” She didn’t know how she had managed to keep her voice as calm as she did. Lewis’ face was bright red with embarrassment and anger but he kept quiet, he understood how the girl was feeling. He knew that what she said was true but he had wanted to get some answer as to her connection to this Aqil guy. All he could bring himself to say was “I’m sorry Laila.”
“Screw you Lewis. I don’t want your apology and no matter what you or Garcia says you don’t like me, you’re not sorry about this, and I don’t trust you. You can kiss my ass, I’m doing this for one reason and one reason only. Any information you get out of me, you should thank Ahmed for, he is why I’ll answer these damn questions. But you Lewis you can go screw yourselves and then jump off a bridge for all I care.” With that said Laila grabbed her pack of cigarettes, shaking one out and roughly tapping on the table before lighting it with a shaky hand. She was tired and not quite sure how any of this was connected to Ahmed.
Garcia wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh at the fact that Laila had just managed to rip Lewis a new asshole, or if he wanted to shoot himself in the head from the frustration he felt. He’d only been working with the guy for half a year, and this was their first case together. So far Lewis had not done anything to impress him, he’d only caused more problems. “Oh for God’s sake you two grow up. You have been looking like you’re ready to kill each other all morning, and now you’re ripping the other a new ass. And it isn’t going to get us out of here any faster. Look Lewis if you pull that again, or if you even say another word I will carry out Mahr’s threat myself. Laila we’ll try to keep to the topic, and I truly am sorry about this.” He stood and walked for a moment, stretching before he sank into the chair across from Laila, rubbing his eyes tiredly. While Laila had been at this for almost seven hours, he had been working nonstop for almost thirty hours now. “Lewis, go get us all coffee, make sure you bring enough cream and sugar. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long time before we get out of here so make sure there is a lot of coffee, don’t be a lazy bastard.”
Both Laila and Garcia sat quietly, each lost in their own thoughts as Lewis left the room. “What was Ahmed’s threat?” Laila finally asked. Garcia looked up, startled at first that she knew about the threat, and then he remembered his own words and smiled wryly. “He put me against a wall in a choke hold and then told me that if we hurt you in anyway he would make us disappear. And I for one believe him.”
Laila laughed softly at the thought of Ahmed throwing this guy up against a wall, face to face and telling him that, it brought back a fresh memory from Denny’s. “I believe him too. Garcia? I hate to say it, but I really need to go to the bathroom.”
As Laila washed her hands in the small bathroom’s sink the dirty room faded as her memory took over. She remembered the night at Denny’s and the things that had happened, as the memories played out they began to become clearer. She had been sitting at the bar with Ahmed after Amr had left. One of Ahmed's friends had come up to them and the guys started talking, Laila had only been half listening as they spoke in Arabic. Laila could pick up a few of the words here and there, but not enough to follow their conversation. Her attention would not allow her to focus enough to try very hard to work on understanding what the guys were saying. Giving up, she began to focus on the drink that Ahmed had chosen for her. “Something with…cherry. I think,” she muttered to herself. Ahmed noticed what she was saying as she started to try and count the number of drinks she’d had so far, she was thinking that this was her third when a glass of water was sat in front of her. Surprised she looked up and thanked the bartender. “I thought you might need the water, you look a little relaxed and dazed there” Ahmed had said grinning at her with amusement.
Laila had glowered at him, “I am not drunk damn it. Just enjoying the start of my freedom!” Laila had to stifle a laugh when Ahmed put his arms around her. After a few minutes the guys had begun to speak in Arabic again and that is when Laila noticed the guy watching them. He was a fat, old man with greasy graying hair. When he realized she was staring at him he got up from his stool across the bar and came over to her. Laila put her head down, refusing to meet the guy’s eyes, hoping that he would simply take the hint and leave her alone. Ahmed and his friend were too involved in their conversation to notice.
The man leaned in closely and she could smell the alcohol, not just on his breath but from his body, as if the man had bathed in alcohol. Not beer, but something harder, something more sour than simple beer. “I can screw you better than he can.” The man rasped in a two pack a day voice, that single line as he pointed to Ahmed. Laila could not believe her ears, she looked at Ahmed to see if he had noticed, but he was absorbed in conversation with his friend, grinning and laughing. “What did you just say?” She was hoping that maybe she had misheard the man, but he simply sneered at her and said “You heard what I said bitch.”
Laila tightly gripped the edge of the bar to keep from hitting the guy, slowly she nodded, her face set and dark with her anger. “That’s what I thought you said. But you know what? I’m not too worried about it, cuz I don’t think you can get it up limp dick.” With that she turned and saw Ahmed staring at her. “What was that all about Laila?”
Laila kind of smiled, “He told me that he could do me better than you could, so I simply told him that I did not think that was possible, because I don’t think he can get hard.” Laila’s eyes widened as Ahmed turned and grabbed the man by the shoulders. “What did you say to the girl asshole?” The old man was red with anger as he took a swing at Ahmed. “I told her the truth, that I can screw her better than you can.”
Laila was struggling with Ahmed, her arms around his waist trying to pull him off the old guy telling him that it wasn’t worth fighting for, “Come on Ahmed, there was no harm done, there is nothing to prove.” With one arm holding the guy in place he turned to Laila and calmly said “Lai, can you please let me go? I’m not going to hurt the asshole, but damn it, he will apologize. I promise you I’m not going to hurt him, but please let me go.” Still, Laila refused to give in and tried to tighten her grip on him.
“I think you owe the lady an apology.” The man took another swing at Ahmed, this one barely missing his nose, “I will not apologize to that whore” was all Laila could hear being yelled over the noise in the bar, with that all hell had broken loose. Finally, after struggling with Ahmed for a few more minutes she was knocked on her ass and smacked her head off the wall as she went down, Laila simply sat there watching what was happening. After what seemed like an hour, but was actually less than five minutes the bouncer and bartender had Ahmed and the man separated. Laila sighed and put her head to her knees, one hand rubbing the back of her neck as she sensed him kneeling in front of her. She didn’t bother to look up at him, she was torn between being mad at him and wanting to hug him for what he had done. After several seconds of silence she felt a gentle, warm hand replace her own, feeling the bump that had already formed. “Lai? Laila? Are you okay? Come on, at least look at me and nod.”
Slowly she looked up, their eyes, his brown, hers green met and she silently nodded, a small smile played at the corners of her mouth. Finally after sitting like that for a minute she tried to get up, as she was standing she realized her legs were rubbery. She went to steady herself with the wall and he grabbed her by the arm and waist gently helping her up. “Thank you, I’m okay.” She said this softly, “What the hell just happened Ahmed?” Ahmed’s face lit up and he almost started to laugh as he said “Well, I almost kicked the old guy’s ass to…to protect you. And I wanted to do it, but damn it I promised you I wouldn’t hurt him, and even though the bastard almost managed to crack a tooth, I kept my promise. I don’t break my promises. But still, when I turned around you were on your ass against the wall. I told you that you needed some water.”
Laila started to laugh as she shoved him away gently “Oh bite me. I seem to remember telling you that I was not drunk…” Ahmed nodded skeptically, “Uh huh, so you just called that guy limp dick and ended up on your ass totally sober? Damn I think I’ll hold off on seeing you drunk for awhile, I don’t know that I could take any more excitement than this…and as for biting…please don’t tempt me.” Laila grinned, “I also recall that it was you that put me on my ass after your arm knocked me into the wall! Bite away…I don’t care.”
Laila shook her head as she brought herself back to the present. She still could not imagine how she had gone from that night to this morning. With that memory in mind, she wished that these men could know Ahmed like she did. That was why she had gone with him that night. He had shown her in that action that she could trust him, that he honestly was a good guy. How she wished they could see him like she saw him. On the outside he was hard and a bit of a bad boy, but underneath it all, he was still a little boy, a good guy. She could remember the nights he had come to her apartment after having been ‘at work’ where he sat quiet and almost shaking, she knew how many nights he didn’t sleep just so he could keep the nightmares away. This was why she trusted him, and she loved him in a way she could never explain. This was also why she could not allow herself to trust Garcia, and definitely not Lewis.
While Laila was lost in her memories, Lewis was scrounging for coffee and muttering to himself the whole time. “Damn him, what does he expect? That the little bitch is just going to tell us that she’s using Mahr to get information?” Suddenly he dropped the cup of coffee he was holding as he felt himself begin to fly through the air, his body pressed into the cold cement blocks of the wall. Before he could move to defend himself, he felt cold metal press into the base of his skull and a harsh, accented voice said “I love that little bitch, and I’m starting hate you.” The gun withdrew from his skull only long enough for him to be turned to face Mahr who then shoved the gun under Lewis’ chin. “Not so tough when you’re not holding a gun are you? I told you before to be careful with her.” Lewis was fighting to keep from shaking as the gun pressed even deeper into his throat.
Ahmed’s dark eyes were black, and full of anger as he started to talk again. “Now I want you to tell me who this Aqil guy is, and what he has to do with Laila. Cuz ya know what Lewis? I’m starting to think that this whole thing, all these questions, they have shit to do with me, and even less shit to do with her. So I want you to tell me exactly what is going on.”
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Slipping Further Away – Chapter 4 (coming soon)