Page 25 of Killer Kiss

Augie didn’t seem bothered at all. He stood there so casually, like he had all the time in the fucking world, while I had a contract killer waiting for me across town.

Riddick would fucking lose his shit if I were late. Goddammit.

I got out of the car, slammed the door, and shouted across the parking lot, “The cops won’t tell me anything about their investigation on Fawn.”

He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “So you’re in the same boat you were a few days ago when you didn’t give a shit she was missing.”

I clenched my fingers into fists. This guy was such an asshole. “Why did you tell them you were her brother? You aren’t.”

He pushed off the car and stalked across the lot to stand in front of me. Anger sparked behind his blue eyes. “I’m well aware. But you know what the cops told me when I reported your sister missing weeks ago? And when I called up every day after? They said they couldn’t tell me anything because a family member hadn’t come forward as the contact person. So I waited. I waited for someone related to her to notice she wasn’t picking up calls or answering her door. See, I’d assumed that when she said she didn’t want anything to do with her family, she was exaggerating. That you guys had an argument but that you actually still cared. I figured you all at least checked in on her occasionally, seeing as she was—is—your sister and all. I waited for one of you assholes to give a shit. When none of you did, I eventually told them I was her brother.”

“You lied,” I accused.

“If you’d showed up, if you’d cared about her as much as you’re saying you do, I wouldn’t have had to!”

There was an anger in his tone that pissed me right the fuck off. This man had no idea what we’d been through with Vincent and Scythe in the last few weeks. I hadn’t deliberately lost track of Fawn. I shoved my phone in his direction. “You need to call the cops and tell them I’m the contact person from now on. All information about my sister’s case needs to be reported to me.”

Augie scoffed at the bright-pink phone hanging from my fingertips. “Yeah. I don’t think I’m gonna do that, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart? Oh, fuck no. Nobody called me that. And certainly not in the tone he’d just used. “Don’t call me that.”

A smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Why not…sweetheart?”

I realized my mistake. I’d given him a weakness to needle at. I’d let him know that something bothered me. A stupid, rookie mistake I couldn’t remember making in years.

I knew men. I knew how to control and manipulate them while keeping myself detached. It was one of the first things my mother had taught me, and it was a skill that came in handy when most of the people you were hired to kill were male.

Yet Augie had gotten beneath my skin in minutes. Not just tonight, but the last time I’d been here, and even that first time we’d met on the train as well.

I didn’t like that he knew it too. His expression was smug, and I wanted to slap it right off his face.

Except emotional outbursts never solved anything. They just showed more weakness. “Then tell me what the cops have done.”

Augie’s smirk widened. “Say please.”

I ground my teeth. I wasn’t going to fucking beg him.

He opened the passenger-side door of my ride without asking. “All good, sweetheart. I can wait.”

He slid onto the seat and picked up the job bag that had been sitting at his feet. “What’s this?”

I dove inside the car so quickly I smashed my head on the doorframe. But it didn’t stop me from snatching the bag from his grasp and pulling it onto my lap. “That’s none of your business.”

But I was too late to stop him from noticing the gun inside.

To my surprise, he didn’t ask about it. He reached for my head instead.

I flinched away on instinct. “What are you doing?”

He pointed somewhere above my line of sight. “You just cut your head open.”

I touched my fingers to the sore spot. “What?” Sure enough, my fingers came away sticky with blood. “Shit.” I searched around the car for something to stem the flow but I kept my car neat as a pin, so there was nothing. Not so much as a stray receipt.

Augie’s eyebrows were drawn together in concern. “You don’t even have a Kleenex?”

“Do you?”

He scoffed, “No.”

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