Chapter 31 #3
“Arresting Jonas for the murder of Larron Van Gordon makes sense. It’s clean.
Efficient. Ruins his rep with the voters.
Poetic justice, for all the times he’s pinned his own bad deeds on my sweet Doki-Doki Boy.
If we go to P-Trip with Chet already gone, with a few well-placed articles from Emma to cement Jonas’ downfall, and I win the race?
How could Burt not agree? We’ve even got a ready-made witness for the mock trial. ”
I smile sweetly at Alexei in a way I never smile at anyone besides Bohnes, Widow, or Ash.
He returns the smile, and I’m hit with this overwhelming sense of peace.
Widow is breathing softly as he dozes. Ash is scooting even closer to me, so that his naked thigh and mine are pressed tight on my right.
Onscreen, the women begin shrieking at each other, startling us all and shattering that peaceful aura.
“You couldn’t even handle your orphaned nephew!
” Valeria shouts, her shrill voice drawing Widow back from his peaceful dreams to a stiff, seated position on my left, between me and Bohnes.
Alexei dropped the washcloths off in the laundry bin and was in the process of climbing into bed next to Ash, one knee on the mattress, gaze fixed on Widow instead of the TV.
“I run a business, Trish. Not a charity. Not some amateurish side project. A fucking business. You wouldn’t last a single day doing what I do. ”
“The fuckup with Adrian wasn’t my fault!
It was YOURS!” Trish thunders back, ice pack pressed to her face as she shoves up from the couch to a standing position.
“All I did was suggest him as a possible candidate. That’s it.
Handling candidates isn’t my job. My job is to handle the media.
Maybe it’s not a ‘business’ but it’s just as important. ”
Valeria scoffs, her short dark hair disheveled from the gag and the ride in the trunk.
She paces back and forth in front of the cottage’s front door, the broken leg of a chair in her right hand.
Her eyes are red-veined and too wide. For someone that supposedly helps procure victims for an illegal organ harvesting ring, she’s got a low threshold for discomfort.
Trish moves around the coffee table, smirking through her swollen face at her colleague.
“How hard is it to make people disappear when nobody is looking for them? Or to summon crocodile tears on a whim? You’re pathetic.”
“Me?” Valeria looks around, like she can see the tiny, hidden cameras planted all throughout the cottage.
This is Hype’s work, and it’s flawless. No way is she finding these things unless she tears the place apart.
Based on her expression, she may very well do just that.
Bohnes might be right about using a bit more force on her than I did Trish.
“You’re the fucking idiot that’s running your mouth like you don’t think they’re watching. ”
“Who cares if they’re watching?” Trish replies with a scoffing laugh. “We’re not getting out of here. This isn’t some teenager’s folly, Val. This property that we’re standing on belongs to the goddamn mob.”
Valeria looks down at the broken chair leg in her hand, like she’s contemplating Trish’s words.
“You think that makes it okay to run your mouth?” Valeria lifts her eyes to Trish, a darkness in them that tells me that she probably grew up here in Prescott.
It’s the ‘it’s you or me and I choose me’ mentality that’s shining in her eyes.
“Just say whatever you want because you think it’ll get you out of here? ”
Trish shrugs.
“Ernest is dead, Val. They fed him to a rodent. Chet and Jonas are next. I don’t know about you, but even a rat knows when to abandon a sinking ship.
” Trish looks up the way Valeria did, searching for cameras.
“Can you hear me? I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.
Like how Valeria collects the homeless at her little charity and screens them for—”
There’s a sick thud as Valeria swings the broken chair leg at Trish’s temple, and then blood. So much blood. It splatters on the wall as Trish drops to the ground in a pool of red, twitching. Val doesn’t stop there, lifting the chair leg and beating Widow’s aunt until she stops moving.
“Tonkatsu,” Ash whispers feverishly, twisting up a bit of the sheet in his hands.
“Huh?” Widow replies, eyes still fixed to the screen as I exchange a look with Alexei first and then Bohnes.
Erm.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said the thing about only needing one witness, eh?
“Tonkatsu is pork that’s pounded until it’s tenderized,” Alexei explains with absolutely zero emotion whatsoever. He finishes getting into bed and pulls the covers up to his hips, situating himself comfortably. “Not sushi or sashimi, not nabemono or karaage. Trish is tonkatsu.”
Silence. Pure silence. Valeria throws the broken chair leg aside and then disappears into the cottage’s only bathroom to wash up.
“Leave her with the corpse for a few days. Once the maggots and the flies and the smell show up, she’ll start talking if she wants fresh air.
And trust me, she’ll sing like a canary.
” Bohnes laughs, like he’s having the best time.
“Oh, Scarlett. I said you couldn’t torture them to truth without leaving a mark.
Once again, I was wrong. We didn’t even have to lift a finger. ”
“Dude, the fact that you can admit that so easily is soooo goddamn hot.” I shoot a quick text over to Emma, letting her know that we’ve got some juicy footage that might contribute to her journalistic pursuits.
“Although Trish would’ve made a better witness in court than hotheaded Valeria will, apparently.
This video of Valeria committing murder though? That’s fantastic.”
“Fuck, I’m so glad that Trish is dead,” Widow mutters, curling back up on my lap and closing his eyes.
I dig my fingers into his galaxy hair and scritch his scalp with my nails, giving us both goose bumps.
I have the parking space thief in my bed, my heart, and my soul.
A smile twitches on my lips, despite the insanity and the violence I’ve just witnessed.
“What’d I say about these selfish creatures?” I turn to Bohnes with a brow raised, fucking hot as hell in low-slung sweatpants and black nail polish. He pulls one knee up to his chest and wraps his arms around it, smiling at me like he really means it, like he gets it.
“Instead of venturing into a cemetery full of militia at risk of certain death, all to save one man at the possible cost of four lives, these spineless, slithering feral humans turn on one another and eat their own at the slightest whiff of possible disadvantage to themselves?” he asks, almost innocently.
He has a touch of naivete still left in those strong, pale limbs.
Smiling, he’s only just learned how to do it properly.