The Billionaire and the Con Artist: A Bad Boy Romance (Bad Girls Series Book 1) (8 page)

I
come to slowly
, my head feeling like it weighs twenty pounds, my brain foggy.

It takes a moment to figure out where I am—this seedy motel room isn’t a place I recall choosing to stay in, and boy, what a stark contrast to the huge suite I’d almost gotten used to.

Then I remember coming here with Taylor; it’s the room she booked for us.

My eyes continue to sweep the empty room as memories slowly make their way to the forefront of my consciousness.

I remember trying to decide how much to tell my best friend about Axel.

I’m used to sharing everything with her, but this time, I was conflicted—my time with Axel felt like something I should keep to myself; it felt like something worth respecting.

Still, that’s what best friends do, right? Spill all the dirty details.

I remember feeling sort of bad afterward, like I’d said too much. Like I should have been more protective of my time with Axel.

I pretty much immediately regretted running my mouth like that.

It was a lesson Taylor herself taught me a long time ago—never tell everything.

I’d just figured since Axel was just a fling, and ultimately a delightfully unexpected mark, it was no big deal to talk about what we did and how we did it, despite some part of me yelling that he could have been so much more than a lay, a target.

There’s no sign of Taylor now—no bags, no discarded clothing—and I don’t hear any indication that she could be in the bathroom or anything.

I slowly raise myself off the bed, my head still pounding and heavy.

I notice a folded sheet of paper tucked under a pillow and grab it up.

I straighten it, a feeling of dread hitting me before I even read the words.

Look, I’m sorry
, it says.
But hate the game.

To top it off, that bitch had the nerve to draw a heart where the vowels should have been in the word Taylor.

I wonder whose handwriting she stole to write me her stupid little ‘don’t hate the player’ note.

Taylor has this creepy ability to accurately imitate any handwriting she sees, and she has totally freaked me out by writing to me in my own handwriting before. Just for kicks.

Luckily, she didn’t add insult to injury by doing that this time.

Still, I’m definitely mad as hell now that it’s clear what happened, but it’s being choked by sadness alarmingly quickly.

It’s not the first time someone I worked with pulled a fast one, but Taylor? Of all people?

How could she do this to me? We were supposed to be in this together!

I throw the ball I’ve made of Taylor’s note across the room in rage, and I suddenly realize I am dangerously close to tears.

God damn it, no way.

The last time I cried was the day Taylor found me, crumpled near a garbage can.

Since then, I had at least one person I could put my trust in, someone to look up to, someone to keep an eye on me. Someone who made me feel like I wasn’t completely alone.

Since that moment, I figured all wasn’t lost. I learned that there was always hope.

I should have known better.

If I can do this sort of thing with her, and if I could watch her do this sort of thing to others, she could easily do the same to me.

She pretty much warned me not to trust her, didn’t she?

A specific memory comes back to me, one that makes it clear that, had I been less green at the time, I would have known how this would end…

"
Y
ou really thought
he’d come through, didn’t you?" Taylor says with a slight smile, her hazel eyes practically dancing.

I’m not sure if she’s even bothering to try to hide the amusement in her eyes.

"I told you," she continues, shaking her head, "you can’t really trust anyone. Not like that. Sure, the kid had a sweet face, sure he looked sincere when he said he’d do it. But people are born to be self-serving, self-preserving.Why should he follow up on the job you hired him for when he could just flee with the money, without having to do the work? Sometimes you have to trust for the time being, but let this be a lesson, A—prepare to be betrayed."

I realize I’m hanging my head, whether in sadness or shame, I’m not aware, but I do feel pretty stupid. I’m also unwilling to believe her fully—some people are trustworthy, right? Even if they’re few and far between? Taylor makes it sound like trusting is pretty much a lost cause.

I try not to think about all the evidence I’ve gathered over my short lifetime that actually backs up her claims. My mom, my foster homes… I pretty much haven’t been able to lean on anyone for too long.

I realize Taylor’s voice has softened as she speaks again.

"Obviously, you can’t do everything on your own, A, but to get people to stay true to you temporarily, you pretty much have to sweeten the deal. Promise more of where that came from—whatever you decide is most valuable. In this case, it was money. Maybe the kid still would have fled, but you would have increased the chances he’d carry out his part by appealing to simple logic. You could have offered twenty dollars now, thirty dollars when it’s done. Simple."

She rubs my shoulders in a comforting gesture.

"Don’t give in to your emotions like that—you feeling sorry for the kid compromised your ability to do proper business. Always remain logical when you’re the one dealing the cards, even as you prey on others’ emotions when you’re working with what you’ve been dealt. If you’re going to default to anything, default to logic. Is the kid more likely to take the money and run, failing to play a part in your distraction? The answer, according to probability, is yes. Therefore, the next question should be, ‘how can I appeal to the reasonable, greedier part of his brain?’ How can I make him see it’s worth it to work with me? The answer is pretty much always: offer more. Could be money, could be shelter, could be food. Could be companionship. If you don’t want to be done with them and have them take off on you, offer more.

She pauses.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean you actually have to follow up on whatever you promised. Once they return, the ball is in your court. Depending on your next immediate or even long-term goal, you can either continue the cycle or disappear yourself."

B
asically
, you can’t count on anybody.

I kind of knew it before I met Taylor, and somewhere along the way, she distracted me from the truth.

At the very least, Taylor left me with a final lesson, the most important one of all: trust NO ONE.

Best to use people for whatever they can give rather than give them a chance to take from you when you let your guard down.

I finally leave the bed and search the whole room, from the bathroom to under the bed to the closet and find myself panicking even more as I realize she didn’t leave me a goddamned thing. She took everything I stole from Axel, plus everything I brought with me from L.A.

She took my tools of the trade: my fake IDs, my burner phone, the quickie disguises.

I knew she’d robbed me of the cash and watch, but I just figured she would have dumped my backpack somewhere, leaving me my own shit at least.

But that’s all gone too, even the disguise I came here in—the wig, the glasses.

I didn’t bother putting in brown contacts when I left the suite I shared with Axel, so my supply of those are also gone.

I’m left with only what I have on. What I really look like.

The panic is taking over quickly and I know I’m about to lose it, so I start taking deep breaths, consciously focusing on the act of deep breathing for a few moments to calm myself down.

I need a clear head now more than ever.

I guess this is the first time in a long while I met up with Taylor with everything worth a shit to me on me.

I should have left something behind in my L.A. apartment, something I could hide somewhere I know my roommate wouldn’t look and later show up for, claiming I accidentally left it behind. Some emergency stash.

Again, in yet another way, I broke a cardinal rule: never put all your eggs in one basket.

You should never put all your money in one place, and you should never put all your trust in one person.

I made it easy for Taylor to bleed me dry; I never figured out how to squirrel away for rainy days.

You’d think with the hauls we take in sometimes, we’d be able to save a good chunk here and there, but this sort of life teaches you it’s best to live in the moment.

You learn you can never really feel safe, that even if you squirrel away savings, risking opening bank accounts with all your real information attached, your assets can be frozen, garnished for taxes or something. Or someone might find out you’re using someone else’s ID and social security number, and you’re suddenly in a lot more trouble than no longer having access to that money.

Or you can come home and find the money you hid in your mattress or floor board or stuffed animal gone.

At any moment, your careful saving can turn into heart-plummeting loss.

So you learn to be prepared, all right—prepared for the worst.

For me, that pretty much takes the form of living it up while I can.

I’ll never forget this girl I met on the streets—Alicia.

She had all these plans. Despite her dreary circumstances, she talked brightly, hopefully about the future.

She had a stash somewhere—a stash that would save her, she was sure of it.

She happily talked about what she would do with it.

But the ex-boyfriend she’d fled found her and beat her to death.

She never got to use that stash, amongst other things. It probably could have helped her had she used it up getting further away him.

Obviously taking the future into consideration makes sense, but in some circumstances, you realize the future is promised to no one.

It’s up to you figure out how to do whatever you want with what you have right now.

At some point, I want to live on the record, but that’s clearly not in the cards anytime soon.

I’ve had legit jobs—babysitting, cleaning—and I know I can transition to a more legal lifestyle, but Taylor always found a way to pull me back in.

Like now.

I’m pretty much back to square one.

I feel so incredibly stupid, so immensely gullible. A feeling I’m not used to being on the receiving end of.

I’ve been had.

I realize I’m more upset about losing Taylor than my stolen goods, and even my ‘work supplies.’

Taylor was my only friend and I had considered her a true friend. I never suspected she didn’t grow an attachment to me as I did to her.

She faked everything between us—a connection never formed.

Tears continue to sting my eyes but I absolutely refuse to cry.

Nope—not letting her do that to me too.

Tears help nothing and will only make me feel weak when I now need to be stronger than ever.

I swallow back the tears, steeling myself against the emotions threatening to take over and eventually, my breathing returns to normal, and my brain is starting to think up a few plans.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be so worried about where my next meal is coming from or anything, but on top of Taylor’s betrayal, the full realization of how she left me starts to wash over me.

Taylor completely cleaned me out, taking things she didn’t even need, so it’s not even about her survival, is it?

It’s like she was deliberately setting me up to fail spectacularly, like she’s hoping I get caught in the simplest of ways due to lack of resources, but I refuse to believe that’s the case.

She probably thinks I’ll figure out a way to track her or lead someone to her with the number she’s been using, which I certainly didn’t memorize—I just plugged it in; we change them often enough. Maybe she took the IDs because her fingerprints might still be on them. Maybe she completely cleaned me out just to help cover her tracks, and it’s ultimately about survival after all.

The result is the same—I have nothing.

She taught me that too, by the way—get rid of all physical evidence. Leave nothing to chance—even if it seems like overkill, do it. Better safe than sorry.

I’ll have to get a new ID. New wigs, contacts.

With dry eyes, I consider my next step.

Yet again, I’m on my own, but I’m practiced—I can do this easily.

It’s funny how many lessons my mom taught me that later got enforced by Taylor but in more real-world, concrete ways.

I guess in a way, it’s natural that that’s where I head next. Now’s as good a time as any.

Maybe I’m looking for more clues about me from her.

Maybe I just want to remind myself there’s somewhere I belong.

At the very least, I can get some kind of closure.

Either we’ll get along and be friends or something, or I’ll finally take Taylor’s advice and harsh final lesson to heart and close my mother off for good.

She is, after all, the best example of why you can’t rely on anyone.

I mean, if you can’t depend on your mom, who the hell else can you trust?

I start formulating my plan.

The room is paid for for at least one more night—at least there’s that.

Hopefully, I won’t need it.

I memorized the heck out of my mom’s supposed location according to my research.

I figured out various ways to get there from various start points.

I might not have any cash or credit at this time, but I am never short on assets.

Free rides are pretty much Conning 101; transportation is one of the easiest things to figure out, especially when you look like me—a youthful, petite frightened-looking blonde disarms most people.

Without my disguises, I’ll end up risking being identified by people who will most certainly remember the blonde girl they gave a ride to, but I don’t have much choice at this point; I don’t have time to dye my hair or risk drawing even more attention to myself by trying to walk out of a store with a new wig using the five-finger discount.

It’s funny—this time, there’ll actually be some truth to the lines I’ll give my good Samaritans.