Page 30 of Killer Kiss

I ground my molars, pissed off I was being shut out of my own damn job. I was going to kill my mother for even so much as breathing a word of this in Riddick’s direction. It was fucking insulting the way he was carrying on.

I scooped up a set of keys from the ground where Gorman had dropped them and shoved one into the lock on his front door.

Gorman snapped out of his shock enough to struggle against Riddick’s hold, but it was pretty pointless. Riddick was a big guy, and Gorman had the physique of a math nerd who got bullied by the jocks.

I finally found the right key, and the lock gave way, the handle twisting beneath my grasp. The three of us fell through the door, Riddick kicking it closed behind us.

I rushed around a corner, checking there was nobody else downstairs, while taking in the posh formal living room. “Who else lives here?” I hissed at Gorman while Riddick hauled him onto a couch.

Riddick moved his hand from Gorman’s mouth to let him answer me, and the first thing the scared little man did was scream for help.

I rolled my eyes. “Are you happy?” I snapped at Riddick as he silenced the man again. “The whole fucking neighborhood probably heard that. Certainly, anyone who lives—”

“There’s no one else here,” Riddick scoffed. “Quit getting your knickers in a twist.”

“Gorman?” a voice called from the top of the stairs. “Gorman, is that you?”

I glared at Riddick who didn’t even have the grace to be embarrassed. He just stared at me.

“Oh,” I scoffed. “I’ll go get her, shall I?”

“You’re the one who keeps telling me this is your kill.”

Gorman whimpered pathetically while I stared daggers at Riddick. But he was right. He might have been ruining every plan I’d had for how this job would play out, but what’s done was done, and now I had to think on my feet. I stomped toward the hallway and stared up at the willowy blonde halfway down the staircase.

She screamed in about the same pitch as her husband and scrambled back up.

“Why must you run?” I muttered, sprinting after her, taking the stairs two at a time. “It’s too early in the morning for cardio.” But nonetheless, I thanked my genetics for long legs and caught up with the woman easily. With a sharp tug, I pinned her up against the wall.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged.

“I won’t if you do as I say. Understand?”

She nodded quickly.

“Good. I need tape.”

“In the garage,” she gasped.

Good Lord, some people were stupid. Why not say they didn’t have any?

I dragged her down the stairs and left her on the couch next to her husband, who was sniveling pathetically under Riddick’s quietly deadly gaze. I tried a couple of doors along the left side of the hallway, eventually finding the one that led to a neatly organized garage. A roll of duct tape hung on a pegboard. I grabbed it and returned to the living room, where the woman let me tape her mouth and wrists without so much as a complaint.

Despite my mask, the woman’s big eyes felt like they could see everything beneath, and I cursed Riddick again while I taped her ankles. This was so fucking unnecessary. This woman wasn’t the target. It wasn’t her fault someone had a grudge because her husband was messed up in shit that was bigger than he was. If I’d been left to do this job alone, I would have waited for her to be out of the house and spared her the trauma of what was about to happen.

I glared at Riddick. “Well? Is this what you wanted? An audience? You some sort of exhibitionist?”

He shrugged. “You don’t like it?”

“Do I like that we now have a witness just because you were too impatient to do your fucking job properly? No! I don’t like that. Why couldn’t you have just waited? She didn’t fucking do anything wrong. Her name isn’t mentioned anywhere in the job brief.”

He cocked his head at me. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

I blinked in surprise. That had been the last thing I’d expected him to say.

I was so shocked by his apology I reacted too late when he pulled a gun from the back of his jeans and shot the woman in the neck without even glancing in her direction.

I gasped, taking in the bullet hole through her throat and the wide, panicked eyes that said she felt every burning second of agony before the life seeped away and she slumped over onto her husband’s shoulder.

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