To Kiss A Man Silly

Chapter 13

"Confidence is sexy!" I exclaimed to no one in particular. Closing the papers with a precise snap I turned to Claude. "Well that sure explains why I am not."

"I am sure you manage your kills with confidence," Claude threw back with as sardonic smirk.

"I also brush my teeth with confidence but I don't think that is what they meant here," I said pating the guilt newspaper.

I looked out at the passing scene of the busiest strip with restaurants and nightclubs all spilling over onto the road. It was a scene right out of Bangkok. I should know having spent a good part of my youth there learning martial arts from the monks themselves. They were said to be not as good as the Tibeten monks but my uncle who escorted me there said that they made up for their lacking by all the alternate enjoyments he hadn't hesitated in sampling. Overindulging more like since it was because of uncle that I got sentenced to two more years at that death camp. Then again it was because of my uncle that I survived the attack on my family at all.

The attack had been a well planned two frontal episode. The first wave took out the key members of my family. My grand dad and parents had been taken down then drawing the rest of the family to gather flying in from across the world. I had returned with the rest only to be faced with the second wave... right after we returned to the house after the funeral.

So given all that has happened and my day long history with Claude I shouldn't have an ounce of feeling for him. Yet here I was spending what little time I had with him trying to figure out that very thing. And the time was scarce. And getting scarcer by the moment.

Claude pulled into the valet parking at an expensive hotel. The Ritz was all it was acclaimed to be. Glitzy and pzaz. But I wasn't really feeling it. I was feeling jittery and experiencing a strange sinking feeling in the pits of my stomach. It was no doubt due to the enigmatic man that was now walking by my side and even more so the man who ordered the hit on his life. My uncle, Anthony Basille.

I suppose the only saving grace in this whole mess was that uncle Anthony was not an Arachnow, like me.