12. Finley #2
“You know what, yeah, why don’t you do that,” Dennis said with a cruel smile on his face.
“I’d love to see you haggle with Mr. Trevorsy.
That bastard will eat you up and spit you out if you think you can pull one over on him.
” Dennis slammed the bottle on his desk.
“Go on. I’ll be sure to call an ambulance when he’s done with you. ”
Swiping the bottle off his desk, I stormed out.
Then, once I was out of sight, I couldn’t help but grin.
My contact here was right. Dennis was an idiot who deserved to lose the one client who was floating this restaurant.
I grabbed a tray, snifter glass, and put two ice cubes in it just as he liked, along with four drops of a slow-acting poison.
Entering the dining room, I found my mark and headed over. “Good evening Mr. Trevorsy. I’ve brought your cognac.”
“About damn time. I’m almost done with my meal and was about ready to light my cigar,” Trevorsy grumbled.
I set the glass by him and opened the bottle, pouring in the two fingers he liked. “Oh, and Dennis wanted to thank you for your patronage by letting you take the rest of the bottle home with you as a gift.” I shared, leaving the bottle on the table. With a small bow, I started to step back.
“Wait,” he ordered, then handed over a folded up hundred-dollar bill. “Remember who takes care of you around here, hmm,” Trevorsy said, giving me a lecherous look.
“You’re too kind,” I murmured and slipped the money into my pocket before heading back toward the kitchen.
When I knew Trevorsy wasn’t paying attention and had taken a gulp of his drink, I handed off the tray to another server and exited right out the front door.
Part one complete. Now it was time to deal with the second mark of the evening.
This one would take more skill and less manipulation, but I was excited about it.
I’d always wanted to see a Broadway show but never found the time. Guess I wouldn’t really see much of it tonight either, but such is the job.
Studying the map of the theater had been the hardest part of this job.
With so many entrances, exits, pathways, tunnels, and trap doors, it was the easiest and the hardest job to do.
There were so many ways to enter or exit, making it easy if something went wrong.
The hard part was dealing with the people who might appear via these various methods that had me worried.
Stage hands were like mice running about behind the scenes fixing things, adjusting for issues to keep everything moving seamlessly.
My next target was in a box tucked away from eyesight because he had a pension for things that should not be done in public.
It was against the law in many places and viewed as vulgar and unseemly, and his kink was to do it in public.
The world wouldn’t miss Mortimer Drugal and his deep love for shifter women of all kinds in their alternate forms. He would find a woman who indulged him and would play the part of a pretty pet, but when he got bored, he’d kill them and move on to the next animal he had to have.
The only time he left his home filled with his wife, seven children, and six pets was to go to the theater once a month with his favorite pet at the time.
This one, to my surprise, was actually male.
He must be looking to try something new.
I’d made sure to include a syringe full of enough tranquilizer to neutralize the pet if needed.
My hope was that he would realize what I was doing and let me be.
With Mortimer gone, he would be free to return to his life before this man had captured him in the name of the Dark Ring.
The show was well underway as I moved through the back halls the staff used. Stashing my waitstaff clothes away in the alley behind the theater, I’d cut the power to this part, so I was in pitch black darkness, and using my wolf’s night vision, it was easy to navigate.
I reached the door that brought me back into the main area, just before the entrance to the section of private boxes.
Cracking the door, I found it completely empty.
It might have been due to the person who was screaming about someone stealing their purse while in the bathroom, but I needed a distraction, and she was the fool who set it on the floor.
Mortimer always took the last box since it offered the most privacy making my job just a tad harder, but I wasn’t one to back away from a challenge.
Keeping my back to the wall, I watched the curtains of the other two boxes.
There should be an attendant checking on them if they needed anything, but I couldn’t see them.
They must be in one of the boxes or off getting whatever someone needed.
Darting to the end of the row using all my enhanced speed, I almost crashed into the wall, not expecting to be quite so quick.
With my sharp werewolf hearing, I could make out the sound of someone’s soft moans and the tell-tale guck, guck of a blow job.
Using my knife, I separated the curtains enough to get a feel for who was sitting where and who might be on their knees.
Mortimer’s shaggy head leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, leading me to believe who he was with was the one on their knees.
Gliding through the curtain, I stepped off to the side, placing my back in the corner so I could see the whole space before acting.
Sure enough, a young man was on his knees, pants around his ankles, going down on Mortimer.
Now I was left with the question of whether I should settle this while Mortimer was distracted or get the young man's attention first. I knew the answer that was the smarter choice but now, having brought more emotions into my life, I was second-guessing things I would never have before.
Shaking myself out of this turmoil, I stepped up right behind Mortimer, grabbed the bottom of his chin with my gloved left hand, yanking his head back, then sliced with the knife in my right hand.
Blood shot out from the artery spraying the ceiling as the final gurgles of Mortimer’s last break could be heard.
I kept a hold on him until he stopped moving and the blood was seeping out of his neck instead of shooting.
The young man gasped and fell back, eyes wide in fear, mouth open as if to shout.
“Don’t,” I warned. “If you want to live, then run, get the hell out of here and never look back. Staying here will only make them think you’re the one who killed him. You’re free now, so pull up your pants and get the fuck out of here and start over somewhere else.”
The young man nodded, looking at me curiously. “Why do I know you?”
“You don’t,” I snapped, wiped my blade on Mortimer’s shirt, and tucked it back into my sheath.
“Wait, you… you were at one of Delilah’s parties. The one where everyone was killed and we ran,” he blurted. “Are you trying to take down the Dark Ring on your own?”
I glanced at him tilting my head slightly as I considered him. “If I say yes are you going to tell them I’m hunting them down?”
“They already know that. They’ve sent out warnings with your image on it to let our masters know if we see you,” he answered. “But I’m not going to. Those bastards can rot in hell for all I care.”
“Do you mind me asking what kind of shifter you are?” I asked.
“A lynx,” he shared.
“Do you have any place to go?”
The young man shook his head. “No, that’s how I ended up here. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Groaning internally, I made a gut choice and gestured to his clothes. “Pull yourself together. You’re coming with me. I’ll make sure you get somewhere safe. What’s your name since it seems we’re going to be spending some time together?”
“Benjamin, Ben is what I prefer,” Ben answered.
“Let’s get a move on, Ben. The last thing we need is to get caught with the dead body.” I sighed, moving aside the curtain for him once he buttoned up his pants. A bonus in bringing him back to the party, he was already dressed for the occasion in a suit so he wouldn’t stick out.
I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him along with me as I sprinted out of the main hall into the staff area that was still dark. “I’m assuming you have good night vision being a cat, so stick close and don’t make a sound.”
This would never have worked with another normal person, but a feline shifter was anything but a clumsy human. We made it out of the theater, into the back alley, down the street, and into the subway station. When we reached the turnstile, I stopped and turned Ben to look at me.
“Do you know where the Prism Hotel is?” I questioned.
“Yeah, that place is super swanky,” he answered.
Nodding, I handed him my transit card. “I’ll meet you there and we will find you someplace safe to be, okay?” He looked at me with awe as he bobbed his head in answer. “Go, be smart, don’t draw attention, and we’ll make it through this alright.”
Giving him a final squeeze, I released him and headed back up the steps to head back a different way once I changed back into my server clothes. It would be far more noticeable, looking like I was heading to some leather underground sex club in my catsuit alone.
“The jobs are done. I’m on my way back… with a stray,” I shared with all my men.
My connection was stronger, so I could talk to them at almost any distance, but they didn’t have as far of a range to answer. Ducking into the alley I hid my clothes in, I hurriedly put them on and hailed a cab a few blocks up from the theater. Let’s hope Ayla has been as successful as I had.