Page 35 of Callum

“I’m not late. We didn’t designate a specific time to be here.”

“You should have been here before me, though. That means you’re late,” he counters, stepping out of the tree line immediately to my right. I may be the one who can silently creep through people’s homes, but I never mastered seamlessly moving through the forest the way Grant does.

“Yeah, well,” I huff, lifting the tailgate to point into my trunk. “I was a bit busy.”

He leans around me to look into the back of my car. “What the fuck is that?”

“It was all I had.”

“It’s…pink.” Grant snorts a laugh, the sound carrying through the stagnant air around us. It doesn’t take me long to realize why he’s so relaxed right now. Grant MacAlister loves exactly three things in this world: bourbon, books, and fucking over the GiGi’s.

“Again,” I groan, reaching into the trunk to grab the wriggling body of the woman duct-taped in the corner. I can see blood beginning to peek through the bandage on her leg. “It was all I had.”

“Why did you have hot pink sheets at all?” Grant sounds less curious and more like he’s trying not to laugh out loud as I heave Lista over my shoulder. She screams, the sound muffled by the gag in her mouth.

Turning to face him, I point into the trunk again. “Just for that, you get to carry the dead one.”

“Are you giving me orders, Callum MacAlister?”

“No, sir.” I shake my head exaggeratedly from side to side. “I’d be happy to give you this one.”

He eyes the wriggling ball of panic flopping around next to my head. She’s going to pass out if she keeps screaming like that, but I don’t particularly care. I’m just glad she woke up at all. There’s no way Grant would have forgiven me if I’d killed them both.

“Should we torture that one first?”

“Already did,” I do my best to shrug with the screaming woman pounding her fists into my back. “She told me everything, and I do mean everything.”

“And?”

“Ginetta Ricci sent two Girls to my home to find Rosalind. I’m pretty sure it was part of their initiation into the GiGi’s.”

“They’re prostitutes?” Grant’s eyebrows crawl toward his hairline as his gaze swings back to the hot pink sheet in the trunk.

“Yeah.”

“You have a dead prostitute in your trunk?”

My entire body locks up at his tone, the ill-disguised laughter in his voice making me regret every decision I’ve ever made. “No.”

“Callum,” Grant doesn’t try to hide his smile as he lifts Rita’s dead body over one shoulder. “I think you won.”

“Fuck,” I hiss, taking a knee to the diaphragm in my distraction. Lista certainly has found her spirit again. “This is not a submission to the game. You cannot tell our brothers about this.”

“I am absolutely telling them,” Grant counters, moving past where I’m stopped at the tree line. He slides easily between the dense foliage, melting into the shadows as if he’s meant to be there. “There’s no way anyone else will top this. Why didn’t you wrap her in a rug?”

“I didn’t have any rugs,” I sigh, stepping into the forest after him. Following Grant through the woods is basically impossible. The only way I can track his progress is by keeping my eyes on the bright pink sheet as it bounces between the trees. “Will you slow the fuck down?”

Grant’s laugh is soft, but I see the makeshift body bag come to a stop while he waits for me to catch up. “Your vision is terrible.”

“My vision is fine. You’re just a freak of nature.”

He shrugs, jostling the body bag unceremoniously. “Anything else I need to know?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s one of Harlowe’s,” I tip my head toward Lista’s wiggling body, tightening my arm around her legs so she stops kneeing me in the gut. She screams louder when the movement presses into her gunshot wound.

He’s about to say something else when a flash of headlights sweeps across the trees ahead of us. Grant turns a wicked smile toward me, letting Rita’s body fall to the ground with a heavy thud. He pulls a knife from his waistband before cutting the duct tape holding the sheet closed.

Grant yanks the sheet in one swift move, rolling the stiffened corpse onto the forest floor. Lista’s screams become sobs as her eyes fall on her friend’s body. At least she’s stopped trying to fight me so damn hard.

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