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Not long afterward, my mother abandoned me and my younger sister, and when the family who wanted to adopt us decided one child was enough, I made it so they’d take my sister.
My only good act.
I found her a few years ago, and she’s happily married, so I didn’t go near her. She didn’t need my brand of toxic clouding up her life.
But my shit childhood story, going from the lap of luxury to destitution to a boy’s home and then finding my way into money once more, caught the eyes of the Knights.
I’m talented. I stole, scammed, and grifted my way to the top, invested and used my talents to make money. Of course they wanted someone like me.
It doesn’t make it right.
It doesn’t fucking exonerate Dale Hanlon.
He’s going to pay.
As soon as this job is done, he’s going to pay.
With his life.
My day’s pretty full. But I’m still back outside her job like a fucking stalker on steroids.
The smoke feels good as I pull it into my lungs, lighting up all the pleasure receptors that tobacco likes to target.
This isn’t a norm for me, smoking. I gave it up years ago and it’s something I know I’m lucky I can take or leave. But it suits JM, and so for now, smoking’s an indulgence I’ll take. Plus, it gives me something to do while I watch.
No one looks twice at the lone smoker loitering outside a building. It’s one of those perfect covers.
I check my phone. I’ve got to set up my next move with the Hanlons, and it’s tricky, the balance of the level of threat to what I need. I need them paranoid but not too paranoid. So far it’s worked to get me Scarlett, and the engagement party is a good introduction into the family without setting up a really formal meeting with the father and uncle.
That would negate what I need, which is complete and total access. So another small thing, a threat. And the brakes on the car… I never asked for it to go that far, just enough of something to make them panic and wonder, but whatever the hell. It worked. The next threat needs to be left of center, maybe something to do with an old client. I haven’t worked out the details yet, but I will.
Scrolling through my phone screens, I find her number and call.
“When and how did you program your number into my phone?” she hisses.
I smile. “Most people say hello.”
“Most people aren’t being… coerced.”
“You didn’t seem that coerced when you had multiple orgasms last night,” I murmur, taking a drag on my cigarette as I walk into the alley—New York style with no exit, just the entrance—between her building and the next. It’s actually a loading zone, but it’s out of the way, and even during the day, the shadows from the tall buildings it sits between are deep. “Or when you squirted.”
“I did not.”
God, I love the fucking defiance. She’ll pay for that later.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” I say. “You’re going to get up and leave the desk to take a break.”
“Malone, I can’t.”
“I’m letting you work, Scarlett. I’m making the fucking rules, and you’ll do what I say. So take a break. Now.”
“I don’t want to play games,” she says.
I smile, feeling all kinds of good filthy, that edge of risk is perfection because I know I shouldn’t be doing this, toying with her. She just might snap and walk. But I don’t think she will, and not because of the threats to her family.
She likes what I do to her, slightly more than she hates it.
“Get up, come outside, and turn left.”
