As we entered the shit lit room, I took note of the exits. One in plain view and one behind the filing cabinet. A filing cabinet? Really? The look I gave Malcom was flat. I saw my own judgement of these people’s incompetence reflected in his knowing look.
“Welcome.”
I looked over the Tony Soprano clone and fought down the urge to beat the shit out of him on principle. He even had the open cardigan over the white wifebeater. Where the fuck did these hicks come from?
“Mario,” Malcolm greeted as he ignored the outstretched hand and took a seat. Mario? If I looked up Italian wannabe gangsters called Mario, this dick’s face would be the top search result.
Malcolm was going to rob these fuckers blind, and they wouldn’t even realise it.
“You can sit too,” Super Mario told me. I ignored him and his “men.” There were four of them. Two lanky streaks of shit and two bruisers with more brains in their knuckles than their heads. All four would be dead before they hit the ground.
This was a waste of my time.
“He prefers to stand,” Malcolm spoke for me.
“I prefer he sit.”
He wanted a pissing contest over if I stood or sat? I gave him my full attention, saying nothing. I waited. He pretended he needed his whisky, I pretended I hadn’t just owned his ass and handed it to him.
“You requested this meeting,” Malcolm prodded.
“We’ve been extending our product into the gaps left by some of our competitors following their recent spell of incarceration.”
Their recent spell of incarceration? I couldn’t listen to this shit much longer, and this was what, his third sentence? I shifted slightly on my feet, feeling the soothing weight of my gun move with me. Calming me.
It was going to be a long night. An hour later, we walked out of the club and to my car.
Malcolm started laughing. “I love amateurs, don’t you?” he chuckled. I got into the car, noting Les and Wayne behind me in a blacked-out SUV.
“They were fucking clueless,” I said with disgust. “You should just let me kill them now; we both know I’ll end up doing it.”
Malcolm sighed. “I give them twelve months.”
“Twelve months?” I shook my head. “You’ll have cleaned them out in less than six months, and they won’t realise until what, the second to last shipment? And then they’ll decide they want to put a hit on you, I’ll then take them out. It won’t even be fucking Christmas.”
“You’re cynical for one so young.” Malcolm’s eyes shone with pleasure at my thought process.
“What are you going to tell old man Vialli?” I asked as I drove through the quiet Denver streets.
“Meh,” Malcolm answered.
“Meh?” I glanced at him. “Did you just ‘meh’ me?”
“Aiden seems to be rubbing off on me,” Malcolm said with a pleased smile.
“Aiden or the tattooed fighter in Boulder?” I said softly, noticing how Malcolm smiled to himself at the mention of him.
“Or something.” Malcolm pulled his phone out of his pocket and started looking up the stock market. He saw me watching and waggled the phone back and forth in his hand. “There’s always a market opening,” he said with a sly grin.
“You’re going to die of a heart attack,” I replied as he bent his head to the phone. His answering huff of laughter almost made me smile.
As I pulled up outside his sprawling mansion in Cherry Creek, he pocketed his phone. “You take care of the girl?”
“Yeah.”
“Dead?”
“No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“I’m thinking about the situation,” I told him.
Malcolm turned slightly in his seat to look at me. “What’s there to think about?”
“She didn’t see Louis in the car. I’ve checked the scene multiple times. There was no way she saw him.”
“She saw Emilio shoot the rat three times,” Malcolm reminded me.
“Emilio isn’t a problem.”
“No, but Louis will be if she identifies Emilio in a line up.”
“She isn’t identifying anyone,” I snorted as I glanced out the window.
Malcolm watched me, and I eventually turned to look at him. “What is it?” he asked me.
“What?”
“Why isn’t she dead?” he pressed.
“If she becomes a threat, she will be,” I told him offhandedly.
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Raphael—”
“If she becomes a problem, I’ll handle it.” My voice was firmer than it had been. Malcolm paused and then shook his head slightly as he got out of the car. Les and Wayne were already waiting to take him into the house. They would check the house was clear before Malcolm settled for the night.
Before he closed the car door, Malcolm bent down to look at me. “Handle it. Now.” He slammed the door closed, and I watched him get escorted inside.
I’d handle her when I was ready. For now, she was going nowhere and doing no damage.
Devon was currently a puzzle. I liked puzzles.
The elevator that served the exclusive condos also served the penthouses, although the penthouses could only be accessed by fingerprint scanner. Katalina Vialli was a pain in my ass and had been for the four years I had suffered silently in her presence. I had been assigned to be her bodyguard for a brief time when she was married. Now that she was divorced, she was more of an irritant than usual. Probably more so because I didn’t have to put up with her shit anymore.
She stood waiting for the elevator, and I almost, almost, went back to the garage.
“Look who it is, my neighbour.” Her red hair was loose and her red lipstick smeared. Her dress was so short and skintight, she may as well have been naked.
I had even less tolerance for her when she was drunk. I glanced at her current bodyguard, and he rolled his eyes at me.
“Kat,” I greeted.
“Those assholes on the fourth floor have been holding us up forever,” Kat scowled at the elevator doors. “We should kill them.”
“Dramatic.”
“I hate waiting,” she slurred as she kicked the elevator doors. She raised her foot again, and I looked at her bodyguard. He moved forward and pulled her back a step. “I told you not to touch me!” she shrieked as she pushed him away from her.
For fuck’s sake. I yanked her away from him and held her close to me. “Shut up before you cause a scene.”
“You can’t talk to me like that!” Kat struggled in my hold, and I briefly considered knocking the stupid bitch out.
“Kat, it’s almost six in the morning, people will be going to work soon, do you want them to see you like this?” I spoke softly. Reasonably.
There was one thing Katalina detested, and that was people thinking poorly of her. Her narcissistic personality strived for people’s attention, the right attention.
“He humiliated me.”
“Who did?” I knew who she meant, but I took a perverse pleasure in her telling me again.
“Aiden!” she hissed, turning her hate-filled eyes up to me. “I hate him. And his slut.”
“Yeah, the secretary. Right?” I really shouldn’t encourage it, but I was bored and she was providing me with entertainment.
“Personal assistant.”
“Is that better?” I asked, pretending to be curious as I watched her face turn the same shade as her hair. The elevator doors opened, and the three of us entered.
“He builds this stupid building and only puts in one elevator, who does that? One! He’s a dickhead.”
I should have taken the service elevator, I thought as we rode up towards the penthouses. Only problem was the service elevator didn’t reach the top floor.
As we exited, Kat stumbled and then snapped at her bodyguard for not catching her. I watched him glare at her as she stalked to her door, knowing he was imagining strangling the bitch. She hesitated at her doo
r, turning to look at me. “Nightcap?”
The question didn’t merit a response. I heard her cursing as I entered the penthouse, closing the door firmly behind me. It wasn’t my penthouse, but I lived here now that the current owner no longer wanted to be here. Aiden was Malcolm’s son and a…friend. The term bounced around my head for a few seconds. Acquaintance? Friend probably worked better. As architect, he designed and oversaw the building of these condominiums. He absolutely loved this building. However, his ex-wife lived in the other penthouse, and since their official separation, he had moved to a house in Cherry Creek. Not far from his father in location, but it would take more than a few blocks to breach the distance between them, no matter what Malcolm said in the car.
I didn’t officially live here, and he didn’t care that I did. Our arrangement wasn’t so crass as to involve rent or anything as mundane as that.
I stared at the winding open staircase that led to the bedrooms on the upper floor and thought about checking on her. Crossing to the kitchen, I picked up an orange and a bottle of water before heading upstairs. Aiden had soundproofed all the bedrooms, much to my amusement when he told me. I would need to open the door to see if she was sleeping. The other times I had been in her room in the shelter, she hadn’t stirred. I was confident she wouldn’t be in a deep sleep tonight—morning, I corrected myself. No, it wouldn’t take much to wake her tonight.
Leaving her bedroom door, I headed to bed myself. I would check on her when I woke. I didn’t need much sleep usually, but right now, I was tired. It had been a long night.
As I finished my orange and drank my water, I thought about what Malcolm had said. I probably should kill her; she would be irritating if I kept her here for long. I would question her first, find out what she actually saw.
I could get rid of her after that. No one was looking for her. Girls like her, they disappeared all the time.
My stomach rumbled again. It was so loud that I was sure it echoed in this soulless bedroom. Crossing the room, I stared out over Denver. I think we were in Congress Park, the view of the mix of condos and offices was impressive. It wasn’t an area of Denver that I knew well—these kind of rich didn’t see the poor, even when we lay on their sidewalks. I turned in disgust away from the sleek, shining buildings. They sickened me as much as I am sure my class of homelessness sickened them.
Where the hell was he? I had been awake for hours. I had woken up this morning and decided I just wanted it over and done with. If I was going to die, then he could just come and get me already.
My fight for survival had taken flight after all. I’d hardly slept, every time I almost drifted off, I saw his frigid blue eyes staring at me. Assessing me. Weighing me. Judging me. I felt like he was an exterminator contemplating a rat problem. Was he going to use a traditional trap, poison or was he the cat?
I’d then distracted myself with the different breeds of cat, and it was a while later when I was considering the crazy tangent my brain had gone off on, that I’d left the comfort of the bed. I enjoyed another shower because I could. The simple reality was that the luxury of a daily shower was something I didn’t want to waste.
He had taken my clothes the night before, and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing them again. He would have burned them to get rid of the evidence. I was the only piece of evidence he had left.
From the bag of clothes he brought me, I had dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt. He may have gotten my size right for the clothes, but he hadn’t given me any underwear or socks. He kept forgetting it, and I wasn’t sure if it was a male thing, a sex thing, or he just wasn’t used to buying clothes for women. I was sans panties and braless. I had a good handful when it came to the girls, and I was not currently enjoying being “free.”
After banging on the door earlier to get his attention, I had abruptly stopped when I realised that although I’d accepted that I was going to die, I didn’t need to hurry the process along.
Now, the waiting was beginning to piss me off. It was cruel. He was cruel. Keeping me lingering like this, lording the hold he had over me. I looked around the room again, not one goddamn weapon in this whole place. Not that I thought I could overpower him, but cause him some pain? Yeah, I was down with that.
The door handle pushed down, and the door swung open lazily. That pissed me off too. Even the door was nonchalant about my upcoming demise.
He walked into the room, black slacks, black button-down. Blond hair styled in a low fade, hair long on top. Thick blond strands of textured hair, brushed up and styled messily, but perfect. Gel must have been used, but it looked so soft I had the irrational need to run my fingers through it. A sure sign I had lost my mind.
My eyes ran over him again. Jesus, he looked dangerous. The sharp cut of his cheekbones, the straight nose, those piercing eyes like chips of ice contrasted with his lips that looked soft, sensual.
I met his gaze, and he arched a perfectly shaped dark blond eyebrow in question. I’d just used the word sensual in regard to this man. This man who looked like the closest he got to sensual was drinking the blood of his kills.
“Time to eat,” he said as he left the door open and walked away.
I hesitated, pulling my long hair over one shoulder as I considered my options. Go with him and have maybe my last meal, or stay here and listen to the rumbling hunger in my belly. Why starve when you didn’t have to? I followed him. Added bonus if I threw up on him if he wanted to kill me.
As I descended the curved staircase, I couldn’t appreciate the view of the gilded shiny buildings outside, because this staircase had floating steps. I wasn’t good with backless stairs, and I held the banister a little tighter as I tried not to look down. The amount of white finishes in this condo was ridiculous. It was appalling, frozen, and sterile. A lick of colour would also stop the blinding bright assault on my eyeballs.
The kitchen was black and white and sleek. Everything was sleek. Clean lines, not a curve in sight, except for the staircase, which would have benefitted from being straight in my opinion.
On the island in the kitchen were two plates, both covered with silver domes. He was at the counter, and I hesitated by the kitchen stool as he stood with his back to me. It was then that I saw his gun tucked casually into the back of his pants. I felt my mouth dry as I stared at it.
He turned and placed two coffee cups down on the island and pulled out his stool. “Sit.”
Again, I paused. He completely ignored me as he removed his silver dome and uncovered eggs, bacon, pancakes, hash browns, sausage. The smells wafted over to me, and I was in the seat, uncovering my own plate with a speed that I should have been embarrassed over.
We ate in silence. He placed syrup in front of me, and I ate with an appetite that perhaps should have alarmed me, considering I had talked myself into being killed today.
I drank my coffee, and only once I had drained the cup did I realise that I should have thrown the hot coffee at him and maybe tried to run.
“Would have been a waste of coffee.”
My head snapped up as I looked at him in confusion. I hadn’t spoken out loud, I knew that. I had a mouthful of pancake.
“You’re easy to read.”
“Can you blame me?” I asked him once I had swallowed my food.
“Doesn’t really bother me.” He got off his seat and poured us both more coffee. My hand stilled in the air as I reached for the cup, and I met his gaze. Again the eyebrow rose, and now I wanted to throw the cup just to wipe the look off his face.
“I don’t waste food,” I murmured as I took a drink, wincing at the strength.
“You drink it black, but you don’t enjoy it,” he observed.
“Learned not to be fussy.” I took another drink.
He placed cream and sugar in front of me. “You can be fussy today.”
Today? My breakfast, which I had enjoyed, felt like lead in my stomach. Trying to keep my hand steady, I poured in cream and took a sip of coffee.
“Yo
ur hand’s shaking.”
“You scare me,” I bit out tersely.
“Good.” He stood and took his plate to the sink. My eyes stayed fixated on the gun. He had eaten breakfast with it tucked harmlessly at his back.
“Why good? What are you going to do with me?”
He turned and appraised me. After a moment, he took the few steps to the island and picked up my plate. He rinsed it in the sink and then wiped his hands. I sat and watched him, and he watched me back. I felt my palms begin to get clammy, and I wanted to bolt back up the stairs, away from him.
He had been silent for so long, I jumped when he spoke. “I haven’t decided.”
“So…I just wait?”
“Not much choice.” His gaze was unflinching, his tone easy. He was so completely closed off.
“I did nothing wrong,” I told him quietly. “I didn’t say anything. I’ve told no one. You can let me go. I’m nothing. Nobody. I don’t matter.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“You know what I saw.” I looked away from him, as his stare was too intense.
“Humour me.”
“Why?” I glanced at him, and he hadn’t moved. Leaning casually against the counter, like we were discussing the weather, not the fact he had just told me a mere moment ago he hadn’t decided if he was going to kill me or not.
“Devon.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Okay, tell me where you’re from.”
I slipped off the stool and stood. Pulling my hair over my left shoulder, I looked at him. “If you think you’re going to keep me alive for a while, I would like some underwear. I wear a thirty-four C bra, you know my waist and hip size, it seems. I need socks too.”
“Anything else?” The eyebrow twitched. Amusement?
“Slippers.”
“Slippers?”
Beautifully Broken (The Denver Series Book 2) Page 7
