Pretty Psychos (Drop-Dead Lethal #3)

Chapter 1

SABLE

The first thing I noticed when I regained consciousness was ringing in my ears. Along with the smell of something sharp in the air.

What the hell happened?

Hazy memories became sharper.

Woody and Forrest. At the same time, they'd realized the camera right outside the penthouse was tampered with. The vision on the screen beside the door showed no one outside. Nothing but an empty corridor.

Someone was there. Someone made the door explode.

I was thrown off my feet and hit the bed. I'd scrambled across the top so fast I managed to fall off the other side. I'd hit the floor with a thump as graceful as a newborn hippopotamus.

How long had I lain here? Not long, I didn't think, but long enough. I needed to get up. Whoever caused the door to explode would walk through it. Look to see if we were dead.

Shit, where were Forrest, Woody and Leif? Were they…

I opened my eyes a crack. My line of sight was clear, all the way under the bed, to the bedroom door. How was there no dust under there? Was Forrest that meticulous, or did he have a cleaner? If he had a cleaner, could I poach them?

Later, I told myself.

Past the bedroom, the space was filled with a haze of smoke.

Someone coughed. Woody?

Beyond him, Forrest groaned and pushed himself up. Sitting, then standing on wobbly legs. He waved smoke away from his face.

"What the fuck?" Woody coughed again.

"I'm going to guess it wasn't Taco Tuesday," Savannah said.

Where was she? On the other side of the bed? I caught a glimpse of her wriggling her fingers, checking for damage. She seemed unscathed, her sense of humor intact.

I choked out a laugh and managed to push myself to my feet. Tentatively, I peered over the top of the bed. Let out a squeak of surprise when Savannah's face appeared.

She made a similar startled noise and ducked back down.

Forrest caught my eye. He gestured with his fingers for me to stay down, out of sight.

I lowered myself back to the floor and went under the bed. I managed to hold back the instinct to jump when Savannah scrambled around the bed to join me.

"What the hell was that?" she whispered.

I shook my head. I didn't know. It wasn't good. I mean, obviously. Doors didn't usually blow in by themselves.

"They're in here." The shout came from beyond the smoke. A voice I didn't know.

Shit.

Woody and Forrest moved out of sight. I presumed, to duck down behind the couch.

A gunshot sounded, echoing through the apartment. I winced. My ears rang even louder.

The shot was followed by another and a cry of pain. Also not one of my guys.

"No one else needs to get hurt," the first voice said evenly.

"Looks like you're outnumbered to me, asshole," Woody called out.

Another shot sounded, quickly followed by a fourth.

"We have you pinned down," that same calm voice said.

"What do you want?" Forrest asked, irritated, but no hint of fear.

"The same thing you do," Calm-voice said.

"A straight answer?" Woody asked. "An end to people being assholes? A bowl of loaded fries?"

I exchanged glances with Savannah. Loaded fries sounded pretty good around about then.

"My boss wants what's his," Calm-voice said. "You can either give it to us or we'll take it."

"It what?" Woody called out. "Do you see it around here anywhere? Is it in the room with us?"

"You know what I'm referring to," Calm-voice said.

"Do we?" Forrest asked. "I think you're making assumptions. Several of them. Including that we have any intention of cooperating with you."

"What he's trying to say is, answer the fucking question," Woody snarled. "Tell us what you want or fuck off. Better yet, tell us what you want, then fuck off." He also sounded more annoyed than scared.

Another gunshot sounded, followed immediately by another. Did I hear bodies hit the floor? Something did, heavy and final. Out in the corridor from the sound of it.

Or maybe that was me hoping like hell.

"Heeere's Leif," Leif declared, "It's all clear out here."

I let out a ragged breath of relief.

"Are you kidding?" Woody asked. He walked past on the way to the front door of the apartment. "We were just about to get some answers."

"You're welcome," Leif said sarcastically. "I could have left them to kill you."

"We appreciate you," Forrest said. He peered into the bedroom. "It's safe to come out now."

Strange, it didn't feel safe. Still, I got to my feet and stepped over carefully to peer toward the penthouse door.

Three bodies lay right outside, beside the twisted door, blood pooling around them.

Savannah gagged before running into the bathroom, followed by the sound of her being violently sick.

"Is everyone all right?" Forrest asked, appraising each of us in turn.

"Fine and fucking dandy," Woody said sarcastically. "We do this on a regular basis, nothing to worry about." He brushed dust off his clothes.

Forrest smirked at him before stepping over to clap Leif on the shoulder. "Nice work."

Leif shrugged. "They weren't looking in my direction." He gave Forrest a one-armed bro hug and stepped over to me to wrap his arms around me. "You're okay?" He nuzzled his face into my hair.

"I'm fine," I said. "A little shaken up, but nothing a few fingers of vodka couldn't fix."

His body rumbled with a laugh. "Friends of yours?" He addressed that question to the other guys.

"Fuck no," Woody said. "My friends don't shoot at me."

"Are you sure?" Leif asked. "You have that kind of face, and, you know, personality. The kind that says, 'Please shoot at me.'"

"You all heard him say, 'Please shoot at him, right?'" Woody gestured toward Leif with both hands.

"I didn't hear anything." Forrest stepped over to the bodies for a better look. He pulled out his phone and disappeared into the corridor, presumably to call someone to clean up the mess before someone else came along. Not to mention replacing the doorframe, door and surrounding flooring.

"Is there any chance they have friends?" I leaned back to look up at Leif. "Their boss went to a lot of trouble, destroying the door and all. Only sending three seems, I don't know…"

"Unrealistic?" Leif suggested.

"That's a good word for it, yes." I half-expected a horde of paid thugs to swarm in, overrun us, and then… I didn't know what. Something bad.

"I don't suppose they were organized before the auction and didn't get the message?" The senator might have assumed he'd fail to kidnap me from the Halloran Hotel and had this as a backup plan. Now, after Woody and I killed him, they didn't know not to carry out those orders.

"It's possible, but my spidey sense says otherwise," Leif admitted reluctantly.

"We'll never know," Woody said, looking at him darkly. "He killed them before they could explain."

"My theory is," Leif said, "they wouldn't have told us anything. If they did, it wouldn't have been the truth. Not to mention guys like that usually don't know the answers. They don't get paid to know things. They get paid to do things."

Woody grunted, the closest to acknowledging Leif was right that he'd probably give.

"If there's someone else out there, he's going to send other people," I reasoned slowly. "This is the same person who organized the auction, isn't it?"

"That would be my guess," Forrest agreed as he stepped back into the apartment. "They've figured out we're coming for them. They decided to try first."

"Looks like we better keep a low profile for a few days." Leif didn't sound too bothered about the prospect.

"We go on as normal," Forrest said, after a few moments thought. "We act like nothing is wrong, but we be careful."

"'We be careful'?" Woody echoed, staring at him. "Is that all you've got? We'll be careful?"

"What would you prefer?" Forrest asked. "Should we go into hiding for the rest of our lives?"

"I don't hate that option." Woody stalked over to the table where we'd sat eating only an hour earlier. He started rifling through the containers before he found an uneaten spring roll.

Before he bit into it, he said, "We could hole up somewhere, get food delivered. Why would we need to leave?"

"Because we have lives," Forrest said. "You can disappear for as long as you like, but I can't, and neither can Leif."

"Not to mention, if we were holed up somewhere, sooner or later you'd get annoyed with me and try to kill me," Leif said lightly. "I agree with Forrest. We make these pricks disappear." He jerked his thumb toward the corpses outside the door. "We go on with our day. Uh, night."

I didn't know who to agree with. On one hand, I also wanted to keep living my life. On the other, hiding away where it was safe sounded pretty good to me.

"Do we get to vote on this?" Woody asked.

"No, this isn't a democracy," Forrest shot back.

"Of course it is," Leif said. "But if we vote, we're going to vote for living our lives. Right, Sable?"

I didn't know how to respond to that. "Woody has a point," I said carefully.

"Of course I do," Woody said. He scrunched up his brow and stared at me. "Did you just agree with me?"

"No, I didn't agree with you, I agreed with what you said." It amounted to the same thing, but if we didn't make some sort of distinction, we might think we were starting to like each other. Which we were, but I wanted to keep him on his toes for a bit longer.

I hadn't forgotten our tally of kills.

"Leif got two of them. Who killed the other one?" I asked.

"I did," Woody said quickly. "That's six."

I got the impression he was hoping I'd say that was enough. Instead I leaned over and patted him on the bicep. "Every little one helps."

"Little?" Woody scoffed. "Can you see how big he was?

They were all big. Tall and burly. Still very much dead though.

"Forrest didn't kill anyone," Woody pointed out. He gave the older man a sidelong look.

"That's true. I didn't," Forrest said. "I kept them distracted long enough for Leif to do it."

"I kept them distracted too." Woody bit down on his spring roll.

"It's not a competition," I said. "You all played your parts." I glanced back as Savannah stepped out of the bathroom, her face pale.

"I heard you talking," she said, her voice wobbly. "None of you has a problem with this?" She gestured toward the front door without looking out. "You know this isn't normal, right?"

"That depends who you are and your definition of normal," Leif said. "While this isn't exactly normal for us, it's also not completely abnormal."

He glanced at Woody.

Woody pointed a finger gun at him before he could say anything. "Don't fucking call me abnormal," he growled.

Leif grinned and raised his hands in surrender. "I wouldn't dream of it."

"Yes, you would," Woody said.

"No, I wouldn't," Leif argued. "I'd lie awake in the middle of the night thinking about it. I save my dreams for more interesting things."

"You lie awake at night thinking about me?" Woody said. "Of course you do, I bet you all do." He expression was smug, a smile tugging at the side of his mouth, eyes triumphant.

"No offense, but I don't," Savannah said. "I mean, I don't really know you."

"I think about you," I said. "Maybe the same as Leif though, thinking about how abnormal you are."

He flipped me off.

Fair enough.

I drew away from Leif and stepped over to place my hands on Woody's shoulders, pressing my cheek against his back, between his shoulder blades.

"If you're abnormal, then so are the rest of us," I said. "Most people would be losing their shit over three dead bodies lying outside the door."

"I'm more pissed off about the door," Forrest said darkly.

"They must have used something heavy duty to bust that in.

I need to get the security cameras looked at too.

No one should have been able to hack any of them, especially not the one right outside the door.

" He looked as furious as I'd ever seen him, eyes flashing with anger.

Jaw tight. Stark contrast to his usual calm composure.

"If they can get to us here, they can get to us anywhere," Woody said.

"That's why we're going to be careful." Forrest's phone buzzed with a notification. He glanced down at it. "The cleanup crew is here. When they're done, we can all get some rest."

How was I supposed to rest when other people might come after us? Or when my thoughts were full of unanswered questions. Who were they working for, and what did their boss think belonged to them?