Page 54 of Wicked Ever After (Wicked & Devoted 2)

I had a second of reservation about the driver.

Until I remembered that he hadn’t been prepared to step in to prevent Ezmeray from getting a beating right there on the street because of a pair of fucking shoes.

And if he hadn’t stepped in that time, I could only imagine there were at least a dozen other times when he could have stepped in, and didn’t.

His position wasn’t fucking reason enough. His fear of his boss wasn’t reason enough to see that and do nothing.

“‘Scuse me,” I said, leaning down near his open window as he scrolled through porn selections in the car, waiting for his boss outside the never-ending meeting.

“Fuck off,” he grumbled, not even bothering to click away from his porn even though a stranger was standing right there in screen-viewing range.

One quick glance around said no one was watching, so my hands shot in through the open window, grabbing the fuck’s head, and giving it a hard, fast spin, hearing that little crack that said he wasn’t going to be witnessing any more abuse without stepping in.

He could answer for his sins in the afterlife.

I didn’t have time to play with him.

But Eren?

Oh, I had big plans for Eren.

Opening the driver’s door, I pushed the driver’s body into the passenger seat, climbed in, and drove off to park in the minuscule lot of a deli a couple blocks away.

Then I climbed out, transferred the body into the trunk, climbed back into the front, put up the privacy screen, and said a silent “thank you” to the universe for Eren’s obnoxiously dark tinted glass.

He wouldn’t know something was wrong until it was way too fucking late.

Until the doors were locked and he had no way out.

The only downfall was that I didn’t have a jammer to block his cell signal. If I’d taken the hour to go home and get my kit, I’d have that pretty vital piece of equipment.

But I didn’t want to waste the time. It had to be right then. I couldn’t stomach the idea of the motherfucker walking back in through the doors of that apartment and sharing the same space with Ezmeray again.

So I made do without and hoped he wouldn’t realize we were going in the wrong direction until it was too late.

My destination wasn’t that far away from his apartment building anyway.

Normally, I would take him to the back of the Family butcher shop. It was convenient. Meat hooks in the ceiling, drains in the floor. It made having fun with something as messy as a human body a lot easier.

The problem was, it was the middle of the day. And I didn’t have anything with me that would make it possible to subdue the guy for several hours until business shuttered for the day.

So he had to go to my second favorite location.

A place not many people who hadn’t grown up in that particular area of the city would even know existed.

An old Cold War-era fallout shelter underneath a antique shop. And it just so happened that there were no windows or exits to the back of the building, no way for anyone to see me hauling a body down the hidden doors that led to half-crumbling stairs, and—eventually—the shelter where I’d spilled more blood than I could count.

The plan was simple enough.

Get Eren in the car.

Drive him to the location.

Knock him out long enough to gag and bind him, then drag him down the stairs and into a room there was no escaping from.

Adrenaline was pinging through my system as I parked the town car, a block away from the meeting, running into two different stores. One to grab the duct tape, another to get the zip ties.

Only fucking amateurs bought all their kidnapping and murder supplies in the same damn location.

Necessary items obtained, I got back in the car, parked in the same spot I’d walked up on the driver half an hour before, then waited.

Anticipation was a live wire through my system, sparking and igniting, setting my whole body ablaze.

Anyone who had “worked” beside me would say I was calm and collected, maybe even psychotically at-east during torture or killing.

But, inside, there was a fire.

It burned bright, warming and lighting up places inside that felt cold and dark since I was a kid.

Twenty minutes after finally parking and waiting, Eren was making his way around the side of the building, texting on his phone.

Good.

That was good.

The more distracted he would be, the better.

“The fuck are you waiting for?” he barked after climbing inside, making a humorless laugh escape me as I put the car into drive.

And then we were off.

Each block had me feeling more and more like I was buzzing.

“You missed your turn, jackass,” Eren hissed, making a smirk tug at my lips as I took a turn down the next side street.