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I get that the guy never knew John, but surely he remembers the woman and child he lived with who share the last name.
“I don’t know any John.”
“Sure you do.” I step closer. “His son’s name is Kamden. You fucked his ex, Sherry.”
That does it. More fear bleeds into his expression. “Man, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he lies.
“Really? I see… So you wouldn’t care if I said I want to paint your nails?”
Every muscle in his face freezes. The paper bag drops from his hand, bottle clinking against pavement.
I smile widely. “What do you think, Steven? Blue? Red? Or no—let me guess, you’re a pink man, aren’t ya?”
He swings first, but his fist doesn’t reach me. I catch the movement, turn him, and send him hard into the side of his truck. Steven grunts, air forced from his lungs.
Before he can recover, I have him face down against the hood, one arm twisted behind his back at a sharp angle.
“What the fuck?” His voice goes shrill, panicked. “Get off me!”
I lean close enough that my breath stirs the greasy hair near his ear. “You’re lucky I don’t have any nail polish remover on me. Would’ve been fun to pour acetone up your ass and light that shit up.”
“I’ll fucking kill you! Stay away from my ass! I’ll kill you!”
The next several seconds are ugly and fast. Steven fights. Poorly. Alcohol and panic make him sloppy, all wild elbows and choked curses. I don’t fight; I dismantle. By the time I’m finished, he is conscious, furious, terrified, and no longer in any position to decide where the morning goes.
Exactly how I want him.
* * *
Steven wakes tied to a chair in a decrepit, tetanus-ridden building that doesn’t belong to me.
He comes around slowly—head drooping, harsh breaths through his nose. Then he jerks awake all at once and tests the restraints like every idiot does.
The chair scrapes against concrete as he struggles in vain against the zip ties binding his limbs. Unlike with Kamden, I couldn’t care less if he flays himself open doing this.
I’m leaning up against a metal pillar in front of him, but he appears too busy shredding his skin to notice me.
“Hey.”
His head snaps toward my voice.
“You’re fucking dead.” The words come out garbled through swollen lips.
I chuckle softly, the sound echoing faintly off the bare walls. “Interesting opening.”
“Untie me.”
“No.”
“Do you know who the fuck I am?”
“I thought we established that already.”
That shuts him up for half a second.
I lean forward and watch a bead of sweat trace the broken capillaries on his temple. “Steven Mercer. Fifty-four. Two DUIs. Assault charge dropped in 2019 because your girlfriend decided she’d ‘misremembered’ what happened. Fired from a manufacturing warehouse three years ago. Current job doing HVAC installs when you bother showing up sober.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
