Page 95 of Locke

I was also able to stomp on his clown shoe, which was only thin. He barked in pain and then angrily swung me up into the air. He slammed my front down on the desk and just lay over me, panting as he squashed me.

“This is fucked up,” I shouted at him. “Just let me go, Dino!”

“I thought you’d agree,” he breathlessly retorted. “It was a good offer!”

“I don’t want to fuck you, Dino, what the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m sorry, but you’ll tell my wife.”

“I won’t!”

“Just…” he tried to catch his breath. “Let me think about this, alright?”

I waited, hardly able to breathe as he settled more of his weight on top of me.

“I don’t want my wife to know,” he continued to pant, his anxiety growing.

“I won’t tell her! I promise.”

“I don’t believe you.” His panicked breaths continued as he realized what he’d done. Had he truly thought I would agree to his fucked-up offer? “I made a huge mistake! Fuck.”

“It’s okay,” I squeezed out, feeling lightheaded now. “It’s fine, Dino, we’ll talk about it, okay? Just get off me!”

“Are you slowly dying like this?”

“WHAT?”

“Kelly, I can’t have you tell my wife—”

“I won’t!”

“She’s the one with the money,” he began to sob over me now. “She will fuck me in the ass in divorce court, and I will walk away with only my father’s fortune.”

Oh, only his father’s fortune?

Fuck this shit, I began to scream again, trying to move as he continued leaning his weight over me. What a weird way to die—as if my life couldn’t be anymore humiliating lately, my death had to equal it.

As I lay there, that fear still running through me, I wondered if Locke anticipated this, as well. And if he did? Fuck him, I would go to the ends of the earth to kill him.

But even then, as the acidic feeling of fear continued to churn through my stomach, I did not think Locke would have expected a man like Dino to go against his word to fire me.

The door to the office clicked open behind us, and Dino jumped in surprise as he twisted his gigantic body around to see who it was. Instantly, he climbed off me, sputtering apologies, “I tried to fire her, Mr Locke. She began to assault me, and I had to physically restrain her. I swear it.”

Heaving for breath, I sank to the floor, trembling as I turned around with tears in my eyes and stared at the suited figure standing in the doorway. He stared right at me, his face so dark and murderous, that monster in him slithering to the surface.

“You want me to kill him?” he asked me.

My lips were trembling. Getting a word out took effort, but I tried. I sucked in a breath, ready to tell him no, I did not want my fucking boss to die, when a bullet fired through the air.

Dino fell to the ground, a hole burned into his neck. He lay gurgling on his blood, his hands vainly trying to close it back up. He turned his head to look at me, and stretched a hand out to grab me, like he was begging me for help. But I quickly shrank away from his touch, sickened by it, feeling absolutely no desire inside me to aid him. The blood squirted everywhere, the puddle of it spreading close to my body.

“Get up,” Locke ordered me next, the gun now gripped loosely in his hand.

Oh, fuck.

Time was up.

Thirty-One

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