Page 65 of All Your Pain

“Something’s off with you. You’ve been weird all night.” He flips the passenger mirror down and starts gathering his long hair in his hands to fix with the hair tie around his wrist.

“I’m just keeping lookout. Since you don’t seem to be paying any attention, one of us has to.”

“Is it your girl?” He narrows his eyes at me like he’s trying to read my mind. “Things not going okay?”

“It’s fine. We’re fine. I think...I don’t know, it's hard to tell. I’m not exactly used to needing to know how someone else is feeling.”

“You actually care about her then? I know you said you loved her before but I thought you were exaggerating how good the sex was. Speaking of, how is it? I’m still thinking about finding my own personal slave. Just the thought of coming home to some sweet pussy and not having to ask her how her day was or worry if I’m going to catch something sounds amazing. Makes my balls ache already.” Bones adjusts himself and I swear he really is hard just thinking about it.

“I doubt you’ll find anyone good enough for your standards, Bones.”

“True,” he sighs. “You want to talk about your problems then?”

“Not a chance,” I say bluntly.

Bones scoffs a laugh then nods towards the window. “Look, that's our cue.” The large iron gates out front of the estate we've been staking out are nudged open and a torch flashes twice.

Grabbing our weapons and doing a final check of the street we pull black ski masks over our faces, then get out of the car and head over to the gates that lead up to a large brownstone house.

“How did you manage that?” I ask and the mask moves around Bones’s eyes as he wiggles his eyebrows at me, telling me everything I need to know.

Tonight’s kill has taken a while to plan out. The target is Tommaso Abato, a local politician, who’s going to start his run for mayor soon.

Whoever took the hit out remains anonymous but from the amount they’re paying they’re either another candidate or someone involved with the mob. Usually gangsters like to deal with things in house so my bets are on another candidate with a lot of money at their disposal.

It’s a risky job to take considering the level of security on the property but both Bones and I have turned in a few favors and we’ve managed to get the number of guards on the property down to just one on the front gate and two on the grounds.

It was up to Bones to sort out our access into the property and it seems his extracurricular activities have paid off.

A breeze makes the gate creak ominously and I push it open just enough for the two of us to slip through.

As soon as we’re through, a guard emerges from the shadows to our left. I raise my gun, immediately rounding on him. He’s young, barely in his twenties with glasses and a head of messy blonde curls. He looks like he belongs in a college library rather than freezing his ass off protecting someone like Abato. The guy’s involved in a lot of shady business and has his fingers in enough pies that I know to keep my nose well out of it. Until tonight that is, where my nose is going to be directly in the shit.

Opting for a quieter kill this close to the street, I swap my gun for my blade but Bones grabs my shoulder and pulls me back. “Not him. He's our inside guy.”

“Why is he still here?” I hiss through my teeth not taking my eyes off the guard, he’s not even reaching for his gun. He just stands there with his hands up looking at Bones like he’s actually going to help him.

“He’ll keep our exit clear. Don’t worry, he's good for it. Aren’t you, Donny?”

“Uh, it’s Danny. But yes I’m good. I swear. I’ll keep a lookout like you told me to and keep the gate unlocked for you.”

“See? All good.” Bones shoots the guy a grin before tapping me on the shoulder and we make our way up to the house, keeping to the shadows.

I don’t like that I have to trust a stranger with our main exit route but I do trust Bones.

During my research, I found the original blueprints from when the house was first built and ones for the recent renovations so we know exactly what route we need to take.

There’s a servants entrance around the back which I wouldn’t be surprised if Abato uses to sneak in his many mistresses past his wife.

Tonight, she's at a function across town and they don’t have any children so Abato will be home alone, save for the two security guards patrolling somewhere on the property.

I tap Bones on the chest when I see the red dot of a cigarette up ahead. We pause and wait for our chance to move. The guy takes another long drag then drops the butt stomping it out under his heel, as his back turns to head inside we advance on him.

Bones grabs his arms pulling them tight behind his back as I come to the man’s front placing my palm over his mouth before he can scream. Then I drag my knife across his throat and we wait for him to stop struggling before dragging his body into the shadows behind an obnoxiously large plant pot.

“That was easy,” Bones muses and I nod. Considering Abato usually has double the amount of security that’s on tonight I would have thought he’d have the few men here be on high alert.

The man’s probably so far up his own ass he didn’t even notice the change in protocol.

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