A/N: Thank you for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! It's so nice to be getting notifications again :) You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter nine and be on the lookout for chapter ten soon!
Fenrir found all sorts of reasons to recall her to the warehouse. Most days, Hermione ended up tucked back away in the little room that held her dryer, hunched over newly crinkled bills, counting carefully, to make sure that not a single one was displaced. Fenrir would stop by, his hulking form disrupting the light from the room. When she looked up at him, he would be wearing that crooked sort of smile, his eyes liquid with desire.
They spoke here and there, but it was no secret that Fenrir was a busy man. He was out more often than not lately and didn't have endless time to devote to speaking with her. Not that Hermione minded. She wasn't sure what to make of... whatever it was that was going on between her and Fenrir. She appreciated the chance to clear her head, even if it forced her to acknowledge that she missed the attention a little bit.
The hardest part of being at the warehouse was fending off Remus, who always seemed to know when she was around. He really wanted to talk to her about what was going on between her and Fenrir, no matter how much she tried to avoid the conversation.
Unfortunately, when she was cleaning the money, she was a bit of a captive audience. She didn't feel comfortable leaving such large sums of money unattended when she was in charge of it. No matter how amusing Fenrir might find her, she did not doubt that the consequences would be serious should she lose some of his money.
Remus would slink in periodically. He did not stand in the doorway, lording his presence over her. Instead, he would pull up one of the folding chairs and sit next to her, worry clear on his face. "Please, can we just talk about this?" he begged, the third afternoon in a row.
"There is nothing to talk about, Remus," Hermione insisted. She knew that he felt the need to look out for her — and at the beginning of her detail that had been comforting — but now she couldn't shake the feeling that he was judging her.
He scoffed, throwing his head back in annoyance, before leaning forward, his arms pressed against his legs. "I know what I saw," he said. "I'm not stupid. I know what you are doing."
Hermione frowned. "Don't presume to know what's going on in my head," she insisted. "What you saw is my business. I am not looking for advice and I would prefer if we just dropped this topic all together."
"But, Hermione, if you are just doing this to... too get more," he whispered, looking over his shoulders to make sure no one was listening. It was an inherently risky topic and Remus was treading on ground that he shouldn't at all with her, let alone in Fenrir's warehouse. "Did Sirius put you up to this?"
She bit her lower lip. In a sense, yes, Sirius had almost... given her permission to see where things went with Fenrir. But, she would be lying if she said that the kiss had anything to do with getting information from Fenrir. She hadn't been thinking about that at all. All, she'd been able to think about was the heat of Fenrir's skin bleeding into her palms, his tongue invading her mouth, consumed in his lust.
"If that's what you think, perhaps you should be asking him," Hermione insisted. "In any case, this isn't exactly an appropriate conversation for the work place." She smiled broadly at him, gritting her teeth in frustration.
"I just want to make sure you are safe," he continued, her words going in one ear and out of the other. He reached across her and put a hand on her knee, giving it a little squeeze. "Fenrir... he doesn't care about people like that. I just don't want you getting things in your head that it's more than it is."
Hermione pushed his hand off of her knee, surprised at the contact. "Well, Remus, you can't keep me in bubble wrap," she said, all fake cheerfulness again. "Some things you just have to learn on your own."
She saw the way that Remus's face fell when she said that, but before she could reflect on it much more, the door was being pushed open again, revealing Fenrir himself. "Speak of the devil," she whispered under her breath.
"Peach," Fenrir called out her name, his eyes narrowing at Remus. "Got another job for you. Let's take a drive."
"Are you sure you don't want to send me?" Remus asked, being far too helpful for what he was supposed to be doing. "I am sure that... Hermione and I could accomplish whatever you needed. You are so busy."
Fenrir laughed at the other man. "And give up a chance to have something pretty to look at rather than all your ugly mugs — fuck no. Hermione is with me," he countered, a hint of possessiveness in his voice, like he was staking his claim on her.
"Actually, it would be great if you could stay here for the rest of the dry cycle, Remus," Hermione said, giving her coworker a saccharine smile, too pleased with herself. "When the bills are done, you can just put them in Fenrir's desk. That's okay, Fenrir?"
He grunted and nodded his head.
Pleased with how things had worked out, Hermione jumped up and smiled at Remus once more. "Thanks, Remus," she said, before making her way to Fenrir's side. "Good talk."
Remus looked dejected, but there was nothing that he could do or say that wouldn't tip him off to Fenrir at that moment. He had no good reason to object to Hermione spending time with him. And, Hermione wanted to spend time with him.
Hermione skipped out of the room, before waiting for Fenrir to follow her out. When the door to the 'laundry room' was shut behind her, though, she was left with the realization that she was alone with Fenrir again. And the last time that had happened, well...
He led her through the warehouse, out to where his car was waiting and Hermione slipped into the passenger's seat without question. She wondered where they were going exactly and her curiosity got the better of her. "Where are we going, anyway?" she asked.
"I had an idea about laundering money," he said, with a smirk.
"Hey, that's my job," Hermione answered with a laugh. "Although, you know that I won't be here forever. So, it's good that you start thinking of ways to continue to clean your money flow. I doubt that you are going to stop with what you have in your warehouse."
"You know me too well," he countered, his hand left on the gear shift. "How is your work going, anyway?"
Hermione thought it over, before giving him a full assessment. "So far, it seems like everything is going swimmingly. Both Scabior and Daphne were able to make a deposit that was higher than usual, but it didn't raise any red flags with the bank," she explained. "They know to call if they get any interest."
"Yeah, they are good people," Fenrir agreed, knowing that he had selected the right sort of people. "Daphne and I go way back."
"So she said," Hermione said, amused. "Daphne told me that you used to work for her father. She told me that you used to help her with her maths."
"Might have done," he said with a smirk. "The kid had such a crush on me, she followed me all around the shop." He sounded rather pleased with himself, to know that he was desired.
It made her stomach twist in a terrible sort of way, the thought of Daphne and Fenrir together, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to think about why. "Well, Daphne is a good looking person," she quipped. "I suppose she could have whoever she wanted."
"Yeah, whoever she wanted," Fenrir agreed, a smirk on his face.
Was he suggesting that there was more between them than just the friendship that Daphne had talked about? Again, her stomach twisted and she realized with a start that she was jealous. Jealous of whatever had happened between Fenrir and Daphne.
God, she didn't know what to think anymore. She wasn't sure if she wanted Fenrir to be interested in her for more than a cheeky snog or just down to take what he could get! It wasn't as though they could have a bloody relationship together! She was more or less a cop and he... he was her bloody target. She was setting him up to fail. She was going to send him to jail. So what was the point in being jealous of Daphne bloody Greengrass, anyway.
"Now Scabior on the other hand..." she croaked out, needing to inject some levity into the situation. "I am sure he thinks he could get anyone he wanted but..."
"You'd be surprised," Fenrir said with a laugh. "He's got a huge cock."
"Ugh, Fenrir!" Hermione said, pressing her hands to her cheeks. She could feel the heat from her blush. She wasn't sure that she ever wanted to know something like that about Scabior! "I did not need to know that. Besides, that's not the be all and end all for women."
He laughed at her reaction. "It is for some women," he said.
She supposed that was true. "How do you know that anyways?" she asked, before realizing what it was that she was asking. "On second thought, I don't wanna know."
"It's not what you are thinking—"
"I promise you don't know what I'm thinking."
"Once at the Slippery, he just got drunk and decided that the talent wasn't doing a good enough job," Fenrir explained, smiling at the memory. "So he got up on stage and gave us quite the show."
"Oh my god," Hermione repeated, thinking that it did sound a lot like the Scabior she knew (even if she didn't know him very well).
"Come to think of it, maybe he did it on purpose," Fenrir said, shaking his head. "I think some of the other guys gave him lots of tips."
"Can we please stop talking about Scabior and tips?" Hermione asked, wondering how exactly she was going to face him the next time that she had to make a stop at the Slippery Serpent. She supposed she had the knowledge that she could use against him and he would be none the wiser, so maybe it wasn't completely terrible.
Fenrir grinned at her again. "So you were saying the deposits went well?" he asked.
"Yes. And we should be ready for the next one in a couple of days. I am keeping the amount variable at the moment," she explained. "And it's been nice to come in and only do one or two loads at a time, rather than the mad dash that I did beforehand. It was silly to try to accomplish so much in one day."
"Besides, it gives you more of an excuse to see me every day," he said, his eyes studiously on the road ahead of him, even if it was clear that he was fighting a smile.
"Who said I want to see you everyday?" Hermione asked out loud, though she knew it was a lie. Even if she didn't want to see Fenrir, it was at least an excuse for her to get out of her flat, to fill her empty time with something besides baking and her first ill-fated attempts at actual cooking. "Aren't you the one who calls me out every day?"
"And why shouldn't I?" he asked, puffing up his chest a bit. "You work for me, after all."
"That's right Fenrir. You tell me what to do and I do it," she said, with a bit of a sigh. She knew that she didn't have much to argue with about it.
There were a few beats of silence and for the first time, Hermione wondered where it was that they were going, exactly. Fenrir mentioned he had an idea of how to launder more money, but she couldn't begin to think of what it might be. Was he looking to buy some new property? Or did he have another business to funnel funds through?
She thought about where he must live. Obviously, he didn't live at the warehouse. He likely had a flat somewhere nearby. It would be an easy candidate if he owned instead of rented. He could just sell to an LLC — one that he secretly owned — for an extremely inflated profit on paper. He could disguise some of his dirty money as new capital.
"What's your flat like?" she asked, the question tumbling out of her mouth before she could think about what she was really asking him.
She watched as Fenrir's eyebrows shot up. It seemed like she'd actually surprised him for once. "It's not much," he explained. "I've been living there for years now."
"Let or own?" she continued.
"I do own it outright, but it's not much to sniff at," he said, not at all embarrassed. "It gets the job done. I don't spend much time there anyway. Why do you ask? Are you angling for an invite back?"
She could feel her cheeks flush at the thought of going back to Fenrir's flat with him. She knew what he'd done with just a few moments when he kissed her... a daring part of her wondered what he could do with a whole evening and no interruptions. "Uh, not exactly," she said, unable to shake a new daydream from forming. "Just, if it was a bit more... luxurious, we could have sold it to a shell company and included some of the dirty money. It would have been a good way to move a whole bunch at once."
"But then our time with each other would be over sooner," he crooned. "And you don't want that."
"I want... I want to do the best job I can for you, Fenrir," she lied. That wasn't entirely true. But, she hadn't really thought about what she wanted in a long time. "Besides, you are the one who is going out and setting up a little side operation without telling me."
Before they could discuss it more, they were arriving at what looked to be like a small arena. It was local only — didn't have too many seats. Hermione waited for Fenrir to turn off the car before she got out, looking around.
Fenrir led her inside the empty building. Inside, there were stands set up on all sides around a ring. "Boxing?" she asked, surprised.
He nodded. "You mentioned that you could use sports betting to disguise profits and it got me thinking," he said, walking around. "I had a little bit of an idea and well, here we are."
"So you are going to put on a boxing match? And, what, you take a cut of all the bets?" she asked. Even though she worked with betting tangentially, it wasn't exactly her forte, seeing as it usually wasn't illegal. Still, she knew how these sorts of things were supposed to go. "What if the house loses?"
Fenrir rolled his eyes at her, crossing his large arms over his chest. Briefly, she wondered if he'd ever done any boxing himself. He certainly had the reach for it. "The house never loses, Hermione," he said matter-of-factly.
"Well, yeah, usually, but these are all just chance," she said, pressing her own hands to her hips. "You never know what really is going to happen."
Fenrir started to laugh. The sound echoed around the empty room and Hermione could just imagine it filled with thousands of drunk men, all calling for blood. "God, you really are naive sometimes. This life isn't for you," he said, almost sounding regretful.
Again, a pulse of fear raced up her spine. Had he figured out that she wasn't who she said she was? "I don't understand," she whispered, hoping that she hadn't done anything to tip him off.
"Of course not," he said. "The whole card is rigged. We decide who is going to win and who is going to lose. We set the odds. We take the money. And we never lose. Isn't it obvious?"
Hermione felt stupid when she realized what he really meant. "Oh, I didn't... of course you do," she said, rather embarrassed at not putting it together. "I can't say I've ever been into... match fixing before. Not really my area of expertise."
She squeaked when he took a step closer to her, grabbing her jaw tightly in his fingers. "That's why I've got to let you go as soon as I can," he said, sounding disappointed. "You are too sweet, too nice, too naive. Like I said, this life... it's not for you. It's not what you want. The longer you're with me, the harder it will be to get the smell off you."
"You don't know what I want," she said, staring defiantly into his blue eyes. "I just... I like money. And, I'm good at making money." It sounded so lame to her ears, but it seemed to convince him long enough to let her go.
"If you insist," he said, though he looked pleased with her.
"Don't tell me what I want," she repeated, torn somewhere between wanting to agree with him so she could get the hell out as soon as possible and never wanting to leave his side. Still, she would learn everything that she could about him, his business, and how he went about it so that she could run back to Sirius and tell him how it was done.
"Alright," he said, putting his hands up in mock surrender. "God, you are like a fierce little kitten with those claws. Don't do much damage, but damn do they sting."
Hermione liked the assessment. That felt more like her. She wasn't sweet or naive, ask anyone.
"Anyways, I didn't drive you all this way to show you an empty arena," he said, before stalking off towards one side of the gym. "Come on, Antonin wants to meet you."