19. Don’t Let Your Words Come Back to Burn You
Between the trust fund from my grandparents, what I’d already made, and my investments, I didn’t have to work. I especially didn’t need a job that had long, irregular hours, frequent bullshit, and aspects that often put me on the wrong side of legal.
I did it because I liked Maximo, Marco, and Cole. I liked what we did. I liked the variety and the organization and the satisfaction.
I liked the excitement and the chaos and the violence.
Even with that, I’d never been happier to work there than I was right then. Cole had located the assholes at a strip club owned by one of Maximo’s connections.
Maximo had sent a few guys from his promotional team over to lure them in with an offer of food vouchers and a poker chip giveaway. That’d been all that was needed, and the dumb bastards had strolled into Moonlight on their own accord.
They just hadn’t remained free once they arrived.
I could and would make them pay for what they’d done to Mila. And when I was done, I’d go up and celebrate by making her come with the same hands that’d taken two lives for her.
And that was why there was a motherfucking pep in my goddamn step.
“You got a plan?” Maximo asked as we rode down to The Basement. Usually, that kind of job would be done off property. But since Mila and Juliet were both at Moonlight, we’d decided to stick close.
Like the pathetic bastards we were.
“I always have a plan.”
I’d been plotting how I’d handle them since the moment I’d found out Mila’s injuries weren’t from a car accident. Her last-minute divulgence the night before had forced me to tweak it a little, but that was fine. I always calculated for possible variations.
We turned the corner to see Cole in the hallway with his phone in hand, rapidly typing at the screen.
“Anything else I should know?” I asked.
“Knights signed a new goalie.” Cole glanced up and gestured to the door. “They’re exactly what we thought. Losers for hire. Nobodies with nothing that no one will miss. Got disposal spots lined up.”
“Think we’ll only need one,” I said.
“Okay,” he drawled, but no one questioned me as I opened the door.
Two sets of eyes shot to me.
One filled with stark terror.
Smart.
The second filled with rage, attempting to mask his terror.
Moron.
This is going to be fun.
Dragging a chair from the wall, I moved it between the two men. I plopped down and kicked my legs up on the table, looking back and forth at them. I wasn’t on guard since they were both cuffed to the latches on the underside of the table.
I’d have preferred rope, but no one else had my knot skills.
“Who the fuck are you?” the cocky one—Edward Zale—bit out when I didn’t speak. “We were promised free poker, but when we got in here, some pricks jumped us. They came after us, so why are we the ones in cuffs?”
“Oh, don’t like that, huh? Don’t like getting randomly attacked?”
“What—”
I kicked the table away. With their arms cuffed to it, the momentum pulled them forward and both smashed their faces into the hard steel.
Blood was instant, but neither nose looked broken.
Yet.
Both men—and I used that term loosely—cried out their confusion, but the mean fucker was the only one dumb enough to follow it with insults.
“You pussy-ass bitch. Uncuff me and try that shit again. I fucking dare you.”
With a shrug, I held my hand up. Maximo tossed me a key ring that I used to unlock the guy’s wrists.
Rather than come at me—and I’d really been looking forward to that—Zale backed away and rounded the table toward the door.
“I thought you dared me.” I tilted my head in exaggerated confusion before holding my arms out. “I assumed the rest of your plan wasn’t to tuck your tiny dick between your legs and run.”
He spun back like he was going to dive at me. And, again, I looked forward to it. I wanted it. His quiet, crying partner wasn’t going to be any fun.
I wanted to play with my prey.
Instead, he muttered some nonsense and continued to the door where Maximo and Cole stood. Both held guns at their sides but were otherwise relaxed. Like they didn’t see the man as a threat.
It added insult to the injuries I would inflict.
“I’m going to own you,” Zale blustered. “All three of you. I’m going straight to the owner.”
“Why wait?” Maximo held out his hand. “Maximo Black, owner of Black Resorts.”
He blanched but quickly rallied. “This is even better. I’ll own you and your damn casinos. I’m going to the media and getting a lawyer when I get out of here.”
“If,” I corrected, but he was too stupid to get it.
Zale looked over his shoulder at me. “There’s no if. When I sue you, I’ll get all of this and everything else you three have to your name. Plus those fuckers who jumped us. Casinos are loaded with cameras and?—”
“Not where you were brought in.” Maximo gave a dark laugh. “And certainly not down here.”
He wilted a little before puffing his chest out. “I’ll let my lawyer handle it. Out of my way.”
“No.”
“You can’t keep me here.”
Like it was nothing, Maximo lazily raised his gun to press it under Zale’s chin. “Can and will.”
By the time Zale realized what was happening and a delayed sense of self-preservation kicked in, I’d already stood and rounded the table. He scrambled back just to crash into me. I didn’t give him the chance to turn before shoving him against the concrete wall. Palm to the side of his head, I pushed hard as I dragged him against the rough texture.
Tearing at his cheek.
Making it burn.
Just the beginning.
Keeping a firm hand pressed against his head, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I whistled as I swiped through until I found what I wanted.
Who I needed.
It was a screengrab from one of the security cameras at the back of my house. Even if the quality wasn’t the best, Mila looked so damn pretty sitting near the creek. He didn’t deserve to see her, but I needed answers.
And he needed to know why this was happening to him.
I put the phone in his face. “Recognize her?”
“No. Should I recognize some random bitch?”
I slammed the edge of my cell into his already swollen nose. “Look again.”
He growled before inhaling sharply.
“You recognize her.”
It wasn’t a question, but he shrugged. “Maybe. What’s some honey-ass tweaker got to do with this?”
Another drag along the rough wall before I turned him. “Some what?”
“That scrawny bitch was hanging out on a fucking street corner where all the other whores in the world work.” His eyes darted to Maximo before returning to me. I thought he’d put the pieces together, but the two-piece puzzle was clearly beyond his shit-for-brain capabilities. His throat bobbed as he swallowed nervously. “Look, if she’s one of your girls, my bad. But she didn’t have any money on her. So if that bitch said I took it?—”
Using my hold on his shirt, I pulled him away and slammed his head against the wall. His eyes went unfocused before he rapidly blinked.
“She”—I slammed him against the wall again, though lighter that time since I didn’t want him losing consciousness—“isn’t a honey-ass tweaker. She”—another slam—“isn’t a whore. She”—one last one before I released him to collapse in a heap—“is my fucking woman.”
“I didn’t know, I swear. I thought it was an easy score of her bankroll.”
“Did that require touching her?” My voice was calm. Even. “Are you such a weak little bitch that robbing a small woman required you to beat on her first? Or were you compensating for your tiny dick when you grabbed her tits so hard, they bruised?”
“I didn’t know, man. I didn’t know,” he rushed out.
Not that he was sorry. Not that he regretted touching her. Just that he didn’t know she was mine.
The world is about to be a better place.
Tears and snot mixed on his face as the gravity of his situation finally penetrated his thick skull. Or maybe it was the concussion. It didn’t matter anyway.
I stepped back and met Cole’s gaze. He started typing out a message without me having to say anything.
Sick minds think alike.
Knowing it was handled, I turned toward the table and swung my gaze to the other man—Ronald Jacobs—who still sat in the chair. A sharp, metallic tang in the air grew stronger, and I glanced down to see his wrists were dripping blood as he worked to dislodge himself.
“Going somewhere?” I asked.
His beady eyes darted between me and the slumped man on the floor. He hesitated for a few seconds, like he wanted to protect his friend. That kind of stupid loyalty would’ve been commendable had he placed it with someone who deserved it.
And had they not come after my woman.
His sense of preservation kicked in, and he flipped. “I didn’t do nothing.”
“The double negatives,” Cole muttered.
Jacobs didn’t correct his grammar as he repeated, “I didn’t do nothing. It was all Ez. He said that girl was an easy hit and then we could party big that night. He was the one who touched her. Not me. I just kept watch, but I didn’t touch her, I swear.”
“You pathetic nobody,” Zale started, standing up and moving forward like he was going to attack. When Maximo blocked the way, the dumbass was smart enough to launch himself back against the wall. He kept spewing his insults, though. “You’re nothing, and you’d be less than nothing if it weren’t for me. Dead in some gutter, and no one would notice.”
I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my black kit.
I came from a family of overachievers. We’d all inherited trust funds from my paternal grandparents that we could live on but didn’t. My dad had been a judge and my mom had been a professor before they’d retired—though Ma still did guest lectures when bribed or flattered enough. My four sisters were competitive among themselves. Violet was a nurse. Maggie owned a restaurant in New York. Emily was a CFO of a media company in California. And Andrea was a chemist.
One who headed a facility with a lot of funding and very little oversight.
I pulled an already loaded single dose shot from the kit and tapped it against the table. “The fact of the matter is, my woman ended up bruised. Cut. Hurt. So one of you will pay.” I set it on the table and stepped back. “You two can decide yourselves.”
Zale didn’t have the same battle with loyalty that Jacobs had. There was no hesitation. No delay. Without the cuffs that kept Jacobs in place, he did exactly what I wanted.
He stormed forward, snatched up the needle, and jabbed it in his friend’s arm.
I’d honestly expected him to at least think about stabbing me with it. Or try to use it as a threat against us to free himself. It just confirmed that he was a narcissistic moron.
Jacobs let out a cry. His pale face stayed scrunched as he hyperventilated, his heavy breathing echoing in the silent room. After a minute, he pried his eye open to look at me. He took in my smirk and opened his other eye. He whispered some prayers as tears flowed down his cheeks. “You were just trying to scare us. Holy fuck. That’s all this was. A scare. It worked.” More tears. “It fucking worked.”
“I, uhh, knew that,” Zale tried. “I was just calling their bluff, but I knew nothing would happen?—”
“Fuck offfff.” Jacobs’ voice warbled, his lips turning down. “You’re full of…” Arching in his chair, he winced.
I talked quickly before the pain stole his ability to listen. To comprehend the magnitude of his fuckup. “Not a scare tactic. A very real poison is flowing through your veins. It’s going to feel like your skin is slowly being peeled from your body. It’ll burn like your blood is being boiled from the insides.” I held up the kit. “I have a compound that can neutralize it within seconds. All that pain, your impending death,”—I snapped my fingers—“gone like that.”
He scrambled for it. The table screeched as he dragged it along the floor, trying in vain to get relief from the slow building agony.
My laugh was cruel even to my own ears as I tucked the case away. “You don’t get that. Like you said, you just watched. So now we’ll just watch.”
He tried again to squeeze his hand through the cuff. When that didn’t work, he slammed it against the table—likely in an attempt to break the bones into being more pliable. A sheen of sweat broke out over his face as he continued thrashing like a trapped bear.
Actually, bear gave him too much credit.
A trapped weasel.
When he couldn’t break his own hand, he switched his focus to the table. He knocked it onto its side and futilely tried to break it. Then he tried to drag it with him as he lunged for me in desperation.
A stiff breeze could’ve knocked him over, so I plopped into a chair and kicked the already toppled table. It pulled him back, and he clutched his side, curling into himself. Another cramp tore through him, and he turned his desperate eyes to me. “Please.”
“Nope.”
No hesitation.
No sympathy.
Nothing but watching.
He looked at Maximo. “Just shoot me.”
“Nah,” Maximo said with the same heartlessness.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Zale chanted over and over. But not with guilt at the torturous death of his friend that was his fault—in the actions that’d landed them there and literally since he’d injected the dose of hell. He was only worried about himself as he scanned the room repeatedly, trying to save his own ass.
Far sooner than he deserved, the last weak breath left Jacobs. It was quick, but it wasn’t a pain-free death. Those last minutes of his life had likely felt like an eternity of suffering.
While we just watched.
Like he deserved.
Something thumped loudly, and Zale jolted, letting out a high-pitched screech.
“Are you four?” Cole asked with a mocking snicker as he opened the door.
Marco stepped in with his hands full, and I righted the table so he could set the load down.
Meeting my eyes, he tipped his lips in a barely-there smirk and quietly chuckled. “You’re a sick bastard.”
I put my hand to my heart. “Thank you.”
His expression returned to stone as he tossed me a pair of gloves. “Freddy says if you ruin those, you owe him a new pair.”
“Noted.”
I stood and rounded the table, going the long way as I set the gloves down next to the rest of it.
“W-what is that?” Zale haltingly asked. He sniffed, trying to get more of the mouthwatering scent.
I didn’t blame him. The heavy scent of blood, sweat, terror, and death that’d clung to the small space was replaced by something sweet.
“Dessert.” I stopped in front of him and jerked my head toward the door. “You can go.”
“W-what?”
“Yeah, I want to enjoy dessert, so get out.” I walked back toward the table, discreetly removing a new pen from my kit as I went.
I could hear him scramble to stand, stumble, then scramble some more like a cartoon character running in place. When he reached the door, Cole and Marco moved out of the way. A relieved sob escaped him as he yanked the door.
It clattered loudly but didn’t open. It wouldn’t without the correct thumbprint. That didn’t stop him from trying again. And again. That time, an anguished sob tore through him.
I almost felt pity for the poor bastard.
Moving behind him, I jabbed his neck with another needle. He spun around, his hand lifting toward the stinging wound.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Before he could touch his skin, his arm dropped uselessly. I grabbed a chair and slid it behind him. Just before he fell back, Marco shifted it out of the way so Zale crashed to the floor, knocking his head against the edge of the metal seat.
My laughter cut off. “Hey, wait, this means I have to lift this fucker into the chair now.”
Marco kicked at Zale’s torso and shoulder until he was positioned near the drain. “More convenient now.”
“Smart.” I crouched next to the frozen man. He could hear. See. And most importantly, feel. I told him as much. “This is going to hurt. Burn. You’ll feel every excruciating moment.”
Soft whimpers were all he was capable of. Those and the tears that steadily streamed down his face.
I pulled on the heat proof kitchen gloves before placing a metal funnel in Zale’s malleable mouth. I’d originally planned to use fryer oil, but when he’d called Mila a honey-ass tweaker, I realized how short sighted that was.
Boring.
Overdone.
The scalding honey and sugar mixture was much better.
It wouldn’t burn away at the layers of his esophagus. It would cling to his insides while it burned away the layers of his esophagus. And then, if that didn’t kill him, it would harden to suffocate him from the inside out.
Far more poetic.
Careful not to injure myself in the process, I slowly streamed the sweet mixture into his mouth. It pooled there until instinct kicked in, and he reflexively swallowed. His eyes screamed what his body was incapable of.
Stop.
Please.
Kill me now.
I’m a fucking waste of space dickhead who should’ve been swallowed or wiped away on a cum rag.
The last one might’ve been what I thought, not him, but it was still true.
Blood and who knew what else flowed out of the side of his mouth. His ears. His nose. And then his eyes. I cut off the syrupy stream as the light went out behind them, his chest no longer a rapid rise and fall.
“That is fucked.” Maximo chuckled. “But fitting.”
“It’s no dove carved into a back,” I pointed out, referencing his own payback.
“And see?” Marco gestured to the leakage going down the drain. “Easy cleanup.”
“You know your shit.” I set the pot down and removed the gloves before kicking the dead man at my feet. I looked at Maximo. “He’ll have to get disposed of, but I’ll dump Jacobs at their place. If anyone bothers to do an autopsy, all it’ll show is an OD. They’ll assume Zale took off. No blowback.”
Maximo lifted his chin in approval. “This is why I keep you around.”
“I thought it was my color-coded organization.”
“Aren’t they the same?”
He wasn’t wrong. The same thing that made me good at keeping chaos organized was the same thing that helped me think ten steps ahead. It was a fucked skill to have, but it was a skill nonetheless.
“You can take off,” I told my boss. “It’ll be a while before I can dump pube ’stache at the motel. I’m going to go back to Mila, and then come back around midnight.”
Marco and Cole looked at each other, communicating silently before Cole spoke. “We’ve got this. You can both go.”
“No, that’s—” I started before he cut in.
“You can make it up to me when I’ve got someone else to spend my nights with besides this grumpy bastard.”
It was my mess, and any other time, I’d stay to clean it up. But not then.
Not with Mila waiting.
After going over the plan, I retreated to the elevator and pulled out my phone. Since I didn’t have bodies to dump, there was no reason to stick around.
Me: Change of plans, sunshine. We’re going home.