Chapter 29
Nicole
Nicole retreated, stealing very quietly, trying to keep a line of sight open so she could watch Masters thrash noisily through flesh-tearing thorns to get to his lady love.
The spectacle was very entertaining. He thought she’d been shot to death.
That she was bleeding out pathetically in the thorns, staring up at the sky, like the finale of some tear-jerking movie. Oh, so sad and tragic, boo-hoo.
But no. Kat Banner had been left in beautiful working condition.
She had to serve as the linchpin for Nicole’s huge and glorious death-and-money machine.
It would have been sweet to have her in the bag now, and Nicole could have bagged them both, but not yet.
Not quite yet. If she brought them in now, Vincent would fuck it up.
She was after a bigger prize now.
Mick Drummond’s information had taken root, grown, and flowered. The idea was taking shape in her mind like magic. Complex, detailed, perfect in every particular. All she had to do was watch, and enjoy, and rejoice in the huge, colossal inevitability of it.
Ethan Masters would be betrayed by his lover.
His heart, ripped to bloody shreds. She would settle for nothing less than that outcome.
And he was so ripe for it, too. Just look at the dumb fuck, sloppy in love, howling Kat’s name as he blundered across the brambles, lacerating himself. He had it bad.
And Nicole was going to make him regret it. Like he’d never regretted before.
She hoped she’d get to see the look in his eyes when he realized what a fool he’d been, how badly he’d fucked up. The moment his heart froze, his guts twisted.
Yes, Kat Banner would cut him to the bone. It was going to be beautiful.
It was going to be a challenge to sell the idea to Vincent, since he was tripping out on being the big boss right now. Tiresome, but she was already coming up with ways to spin it. Vincent wasn’t hard to manipulate.
She watched through the screen of leaves as Masters and Kat Banner clutched each other in the bramble patch.
Masters snatched a quick kiss, Banner stiffened, then patted him briskly on the back, saying something businesslike.
Probably about the foolishness of emoting while they should be running for their lives. She wasn’t wrong.
Masters looked over his shoulder, scanning the trees for Nicole.
His gaze fastened right onto the spot where she huddled behind a canopy of ivy or kudzu or some botanical shit.
He could feel her presence. They were connected, on a deep, primal level, and they had been ever since that night when he’d taken her to bed, in that hotel room in Vegas.
He was the only man smart enough, strong enough, to be worthy of her, but he was too stupid to see it.
He’d been dazzled by that snotty blonde whore.
Watching Kat Banner betray and destroy him was going to feel wonderful.
She crept back through the trees, staying out of sight until she was over the rise. Then she sprinted back down through the trees, and saw Maynard, on the ground.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. The tit-squeezer was a fucking mess. That leg, bent strangely, his face streaked with blood. This was inconvenient and stupid. But not unexpected…or even all that unwelcome, now that she thought about it.
She kicked his shoulder with her foot. “Hey. Maynard. What happened to you?”
His eyes opened a slit, squinting until he focused on her.
“Fucking asshole,” he croaked. “Got me from behind.”
“Dumb shit. You didn’t hear him coming?”
“How could I? I was listening to you, yapping in the com,” he snarled.
“Ah, yes. Of course. So it’s my fault.”
“Yeah! It is your fault, you stupid cow! Did you get him? Are they tranqed?” He pulled out his phone. “We need emergency back-up, to get them loaded up. And me.”
She bent down, twitched the phone from his hand, put it into her pocket. “No.”
He gave her that thick, stupid look. “No, what? No, they’re not tranqed?”
“No to all of it,” she said softly. “They’re not tranqed. They’re gone, Maynard. In the wind. And I’ll be sure to tell Vincent that outcome was a direct result of your incompetence. And Masters’ team of Unredeemable commandos, of course.”
Maynard looked confused. “It was just him, bitch. You could totally have taken them with the tranq gun. Why didn’t you? I won’t lie to Vincent for you.”
“I know you won’t, Maynard,” she said. “You absolutely won’t. But you won’t deny it, either.”
Maynard’s eyes dilated. He saw death in her smile, and shrank away.
“He’ll kill you,” he said, unsteadily. “For losing them. Losing me. Not smart.”
“Yes, he’ll be mad at first. Then he’ll get excited about my new plan, based on new intel. And he’ll forget all about you, Maynard. Because you are insignificant. It’ll work out fine. For me, anyway. For you, not so much.”
Maynard stared up at her face, his squinted eyes glittering with hatred.
He turned his head, and spat blood onto her boots.
“You know what? I loved it when that dentist pulled out your tooth. When you screamed, I practically came in my pants. All that blood. The way you trembled. The way your tits jiggled. God, it was good. Peak moment for me.”
Nicole did not allow her smile to waver. “Really, Maynard? I’m touched.”
“You know what else? I took your tooth. Took it right out of that bloody silver pan when they weren’t paying attention. I took it back to my room. I hold it in one hand while I beat off with the other. Mmmm. Sweet, sweet release.”
Nicole looked down at her muddy, blood-spotted boots, and figured they were a lost cause anyhow. “All right,” she said. “You chose this.”
She started to kick. First the knee, making him shriek and writhe. Then his face. Maynard resisted, feebly, but the first savage blow of her foot broke his jaw. After that, it was just a matter of keeping at it until his teeth were all knocked loose.
When she accomplished that, she squatted down, reaching into the slack, bloody mess of shattered meat and bone on the bottom of his face. She flicked around, looking for the tooth she wanted. It had to be a molar. The same one they had taken from her.
Ah, yes. There it was. She plucked it out, and held it up for him to see. “This one’s a beauty, she told him. “I’ll treasure it, Maynard.”
His eyes widened as she pointed the gun at his face. Pop. Right in the eye.
She stood, tucking the sticky red thing into her pocket, along with his phone.
She’d lost track of time, with this little bloody detour, and she had to hurry, before Masters and his whore made their way out of the thorn bushes.
She peered through the trees, but saw no sign of them.
Assholes. Taking their own sweet time. They had already forgotten her.
They were in the woods, kissing, flirting, while she lurked out here with death on her mind.
She stuck her hand into her pocket, fondling Maynard’s wet, hot tooth. It was disrespectful of them, not to fear her more. But she could wait.
They would learn.