Chapter 41: YOUR CALL, DUDE

I glanced over my shoulder. One of the chairs at the empty table behind us was clearly wet, probably lemonade or some sticky drink someone had spilled. This could work. I was suddenly very glad I’d dumped points into Perception.

"Hey," I said casually. "Can we change tables? My chair’s kind of shaky."

"Sure."

"Let’s go over there."

We stood up and moved. I deliberately angled us so Sarah would take the wet seat. She grabbed the chair... then paused, ran her hand over the seat, and made a face.

"Ugh, it’s wet."

She switched and sat down right beside me instead. Plan failed. Completely. I kept my expression neutral and took another sip of coffee.

"Is it usually this crowded?" I asked.

"Yeah. You should see it after work hours." She laughed lightly. "We get completely overwhelmed."

"Understaffed?"

"Understaffed to hell." She smiled. "At least we get to keep the tips. My old place used to just... slurp them up."

"Slurp." I nodded. "I’m stealing that."

"When you have a dirty boss who steals tips? Yeah. Use it. Please."

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MAIN MENU

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NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 9 [105/505]

RANK: Homewrecker

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[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 22

> END: 11

> PER: 22

> LCK: 4

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 180/180

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[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

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SIN POINTS: 1370

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Fifty Sin Points from the Perception check. Nice. But if I wanted the full 500 EXP I had to move soon. I had no idea if the quest would just fail the moment her break ended.

"I, uh... I was looking for my cat earlier today," I said, trying to keep the conversation going.

"Your cat?"

"Yeah. The black one I told you about. Purple eyes. Little goofball."

"Ooh, right." She nodded. "I hope you find her... or him?"

"I think... her?"

"Well, whichever it is, I hope you find the cat." She exhaled, eyes going a little distant. "I won’t lie, Chance... I’ve always wanted a cat."

"Really?"

"Yep."

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GRIEVANCE LOG UPDATE

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> Sarah is a cat-lover.

But her husband is very

strict with no animal in

the house rule.

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

That explained the cat wallpaper on her phone.

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GRIEVANCE LOG

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Target: Sarah Angi

Subject: Husband

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> Forgets Anniversary

> Poor Hygiene

> Ignores her at dinner

> Dismisses her Feelings

> Stifles Creativity

> Stockholm Syndrome

> Cat-Lover

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

"I love cats," I lied. "Used to have one. She ran away."

"Aw. Sorry to hear that."

"What about you? Why don’t you just get one?"

She gave a strained little smile. "Hubert. And we’re in an apartment. Maybe if we had a house he’d be okay with it."

"You sure about that?"

She shook her head and laughed quietly. "Nope."

I chuckled with her and took another sip of coffee. My window was closing fast. Her break was almost over, and I couldn’t just sit here for hours waiting for the perfect moment. This whole thing was turning into a bust. I had no idea what I was thinking coming here.

"I should go," Sarah said, rolling her shoulder. "Customers can’t wait."

"Right."

She stood up, gave me a small wave, and walked back toward the counter. I waved back, then dropped into my chair with a heavy sigh.

Fuck. Complete failure. I’d been too cautious, too worried about getting caught. I should’ve just gone for it and played it off as an accident.

"Shit," I muttered. "Just fucking great."

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

CRITICAL QUEST FAILED

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> Target is gone.

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> Penalty: 5 EXP

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

A penalty. Of course. Because it was a Critical Quest, failing it actually cost me EXP. If I’d known that beforehand I never would’ve accepted the damn thing. The timer had forced my hand.

"Some other time," I exhaled. "Next time I won’t chicken out..."

❤︎‪‪❤︎‪‪❤︎

I needed to keep leveling. Charisma was clearly working, I was getting more looks from women than I ever had in my life. Perception was proving just as useful. For now those two stats were the priority.

I sat on the couch and opened the quest menu.

A knock came at the door.

I raised an eyebrow, stood up, and checked the peephole. A woman stood there with her arms crossed. It took me a second to place her, the same girl who’d helped me frame Hubert. I cracked the door open. She was chewing gum loudly, looking bored.

She wore a tiny black crop top that barely covered her chest, the underboob clearly visible, and a pair of extremely short denim shorts that clung to her hips and left most of her thighs exposed. Cheap heels and a small purse completed the look. She looked exactly like what she was.

"Yo," she said with a curt nod. "You know where Karim is?"

"No idea. We’re not exactly close."

"Ah, okay." She popped her gum. "You got any other jobs for me? Framing people, that kind of thing?"

"Nope. You did a good job last time." I gave a thumbs-up. "Very believable."

She leaned in slightly, squinting at my face. "You look different. You using some kind of skincare or what?"

"Sometimes."

"Mmh." She stepped back. "Whatever. Call me when that fucker shows up. I’m not waiting around in this rundown building. I’ll be at the coffee shop across the street."

She pulled a small piece of paper from her purse, scribbled a number on it, and handed it to me. First time I’d ever gotten a hooker’s number. Life really did work in strange ways. Not that I planned on calling her, my focus was still on Sarah.

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NEW QUEST

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[!] MISSION:

Wanted Guest

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> OBJECTIVE:

Invite her inside.

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> REWARD:

+150 EXP

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Simple enough.

"Actually, want to wait inside?" I asked. "I’m not a creep like Karim, if that helps."

She paused, checked her watch, then glanced at Karim’s door. I could tell she was weighing it. While she hesitated, the quest completed.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAIN MENU

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 9 [250/505]

RANK: Homewrecker

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 22

> END: 11

> PER: 22

> LCK: 4

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 180/180

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIN POINTS: 1370

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

"Eh, sure." She shrugged. "But try anything and I’ll scream."

"Deal."

I stepped back. She walked in, looked around, and didn’t even try to hide the disgust on her face. She kicked the door shut behind her with her heel.

"This is a shithole."

"I know," I said. "But at least it’s my shithole."

She walked over to the single couch and dropped onto it, crossing her legs. I would’ve offered her something to drink if I had anything worth offering. The only thing in the fridge was a four-day-old cola that had basically turned into sugary water.

"What was your name again?"

"Chance."

"Chance. This place sucks."

"You’ve been here before," I reminded her. "The day I got you to frame the guy upstairs."

"Oh yeah. Hubert." She nodded. "You get a chance to fuck his wife yet?"

I blinked. "What?"

"You’re the quiet guy downstairs who paid me to set that asshole up." She tilted her head, studying me. "It’s obvious you want to fuck her."

"Let’s just... change the subject." I forced a smile and walked the three steps into the kitchen area. "I’d offer you something, but—"

"Air," she cut in. "Some fresh air would be nice."

The only window was in the bedroom. I walked over, opened the door all the way, and cracked the window. Cool air drifted in. Then I stepped back into the main room.

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OPPORTUNITY DETECTED

────────────────

[SUGGESTED ACTION]

- She smokes, you can smell it. Offer

her a cigarette.

────────────────

- COST: 10 Lust

- EST. GAIN: ??

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

"You smoke?" I asked, pulling the pack from my pocket.

"Sure."

I tapped one out and handed it to her, then lit it before lighting my own. I sat down at the small table, one elbow resting on the surface, trying to think of something to say. This was basically my first time alone with a hooker. Words weren’t coming easy.

As she took a deep drag, a familiar blue window appeared beside her.

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TARGET DETECTED

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NAME: Latonia Allison

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[ RELATIONSHIP ]

> Partner: [Jamal]

> Loyalty: 74% [Stable]

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[SYSTEM SYNC]

> Favor: 0%

> Threat: None

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> [ ! ] GRIEVANCE LOG

UNKNOWN

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Latonia Allison. Interesting that she had a partner, Jamal. Married? Boyfriend? I wanted to dig, but asking outright felt too blunt. For now I filed it away. The thought crossed my mind that I could just pay her and get it over with. Free EXP, maybe even a level. The system shut that idea down immediately.

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SEXUAL ENCOUNTER

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- EXP can be gained only

from corrupted targets.

Otherwise, EXP penalty will

be applied after the encounter.

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Yeah, no. I wasn’t about to spend the last of my cash just to get slapped with a penalty. Better to stick with corrupted targets. Sarah was already one of them. And with high enough Favor, the multipliers would make every encounter with her worth a lot more.

"So," she said, glancing at me through the smoke. "Who’s the chick upstairs? Hubert’s wife, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"You fucked her yet?"

"N-no," I lied. "Let’s not talk about that."

"Boring." She exhaled a long stream of smoke. "And you’ve been staring at my tits since I sat down. Wanna fuck? Two hundred."

"Nah. But thanks for the offer."

"Your call, dude."

"Yeah..."