Don’t Log Off, Part One (Terms & Conditions #1)

Chapter 1

The thing about working for the Maldonado Cartel is… you stop pretending you hate the mess. The blood. Gore.

The craving of freedom.

Roo and I don’t pretend. We never have.

Not even a little.

My best friend is at the sink, rinsing off her tools like she’s washing dishes, humming something lazy and off-key. I can’t quite place where I recognize the tune from, but the sound is too sweet for the room we’re in.

The man in the chair is quiet now. The kind of quiet that means the night’s work is over, not that he’s at peace. His feet sit in a pool of his own blood and piss, stinking up the air with the acrid scent of copper and ammonia.

There’s a finality to that last sticky, gasping breath as someone dies before you.

And this fucker is finally dead.

Longest. Job. Ever.

I stay sitting in his lap, facing him, the thick plastic of the tarp between us rubbing my thighs as I finish my work. This part takes a steady hand and a creative mind, but the thread staining red as I pull it through his lips is a satisfying reward.

He’ll never speak again. Even in death.

Roo calls me the calm before and after the storm. She’s not wrong. We just don’t advertise that I might actually be worse than her…

“You know,” she begins, tilting her head toward me. “You could’ve let me have the honor. You always take the fun tasks.”

“He was mine,” I remind her. “I won. You were rock.”

She snorts.

“I was paper,” I continue, pointing at my chest with bloody fingers. “That means I get to pick which task I want, and I wanted this one.”

“He was ours until you started dating Daniel.”

I huff, the corner of my lip tugging into a snarl as I pull the needle through one last time. “Occupational hazard.”

Roo flicks water from her fingers into the sink, smirking as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Sleeping with the mark’s friend doesn’t make it less of a hazard.”

“Daniel was the access point,” I say, shrugging as I tie the thread into a knot against the dead man’s lips. “We needed the layout, his passwords, his habits. Dan the Man handed me the entire operation without realizing it.”

“And now that it’s done?” she inquires, trailing off like she’s prompting me.

I climb off the man’s lap, using his hair to hold up his head while I survey my threading work. “Now it’s time to clean up.”

Roo comes to stand beside me, drying her hands on a dish towel as she appraises my work with her signature crooked grin. “You’re going to dump him.”

“I’m going to try.”

“Try?” she parrots. “What do you mean by try?”

I meet her eyes. “Daniel is the kind of man who mistakes kindness for permanence. I can’t just disappear overnight. He’ll start poking around and asking questions.”

“Then why didn’t we take care of him, too?”

“You’re impatient.”

“I’m efficient,” Roo informs me, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

I laugh quietly. “You’re bloodthirsty.”

“Tomato, tomahto.” She rolls her eyes, mumbling under her breath, “He was handsome. Such a waste.”

The silence that follows is familiar… comfortable, weighted with understanding. We’ve done this dance a hundred times. Roo breaks people open. I put them back together long enough to make them talk.

We don’t moralize it.

It’s work.

Work we’re good at.

She tilts her head, using the dish towel to wipe away a smidge of blood from the corner of the dead guy’s mouth. “So what was he, anyway? Daniel’s roommate? Brother?”

“Friend.” I pause, considering. “Or something closer. They shared passwords and women. Maybe I would have gotten lucky if we’d waited a little longer?”

Roo whistles low. “Guess you’ll have to break up with him gently. Wouldn’t want to traumatize the poor bastard twice in one week.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Her maniacal giggle hits the tile and echoes. I smile without meaning to.

We’d look insane to anyone peering into our lives…

Me grinning at Roo with hearts in my eyes and blood staining my hands.

And Roo, with her head thrown back, peels of laughter bouncing off the walls of a nearly empty apartment we mostly use for murder and mayhem…

All while our latest victim is still warm and bleeding in a dining room chair.

“I’ll give him a week,” I say finally. “Let him think it’s me, not him.

That’s what he needs. The illusion of choice.

All I have to do is flip out over him fucking the chick next door.

Then I’ll be the problem, he’ll be the victim, she’ll be the next focus for his control issues, and his narcissistic world can keep on spinning. ”

Roo leans against the counter, crossing her arms. “And if he figures it out?”

“Then he joins his friend.”

“Cold.” She mocks a shiver.

I roll my eyes. “Necessary.”

“You always did play the long game, Caldwell.” She nods approvingly. “But I’d rather kill him.”

I smooth the front of my dress, checking the floor out of habit. Everything is in place… every tool, every print, every secret. Roo has already boxed the evidence, picking through it two more times like she’s taking inventory.

I double-check my clothing for blood but stop in my tracks when I see Roo grinning at me.

“You know…” she begins again, and I can’t tell if she’s going to stir shit up or compliment me. “Most people burn out after their first year in the cartel. But I think you’re getting worse.”

“Worse?”

She nods with too much enthusiasm. “Scarier. Calmer. More accurate with your aim. ”

“I like what I do,” I tell her simply. “You’re getting more bloodthirsty, which is both surprising and impressive considering where you started.”

“Yeah,” Roo says, grin widening as she sighs dreamily. “That’s what makes us perfect for it.”

We move through the apartment in sync, like a cleanup crew finishing a shift.

She locks the box. I kill the lights. Our task is done and awaiting pickup.

The city hums beyond the window, none the wiser to the death and gore we’re leaving behind, indifferent to the newly gutted man who still hasn’t even become a missing person yet.

Roo pauses by the door. “So. Daniel’s next?”

“Eventually.”

“Promise?” she asks, sticky sweet and up to no good.

I glance around my nearly empty apartment, making sure everything is closed up and in place, then give her my full attention. “Promise.”

Roo laughs like gentle, tinkling bells as she unlocks the door for us to leave. “See you for brunch and mimosas tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

We leave the apartment together, footsteps silent in the sleeping hallway. By morning, someone else will have cleaned up the mess we made, and by noon, Daniel will text me like nothing has changed.

He’ll think I’m still his.

He’ll have no idea what it means when I finally stop pretending.