Page 88 of Wild Angel

“She’s a tomboy too.”

I turn and smile stiffly at the two goons. “Right, one of you has to piss off. Rock paper scissors?”

Matty glares at me, but he aims his words at Sam. “Message Vito, then follow us.”

Sam turns and jogs toward the side of the villa.

Matty points at the front door. “Well, get a move on, woman.”

I suppress an evil laugh. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure this would work, but in my mind, Viv is Bryan’s…well, whatever. Mistress, wife, I dunno. But if she can go where she pleases, and I’m withher, thenIcan go where I please. When I’m with her, of course.

Or maybe Sam and Matty are just so sick of me, they’re willing to claim ignorance when this gets back to Savage.

Either way, I’m getting out of the villa.

Stage one complete.

I pause as the driver—Pablo, I’m assuming—opens the back door of the limousine for us.

It’s not the same one I drove in with Savage, not unless their cars get paint jobs once a week. I don’t know why that should matter, but for some reason it does.

Was this another gift? And was this one perhaps for Bryan, not his son?

I shake off a sudden chill and smile at Viv when she glances at me over her shoulder. “Well, come on, doll! That sushi isn’t going to eat itself.”

I smile at her, but say nothing in case I betray myself.

Only one of us will be eating lunch today…and it’s not me.

Chapter Forty-Two

Savage

What do our men do with the money we pay them? I know for a fact Doc gets thousands of dollars a month in cash for his services to the cartel. And he’s worth it. He could bring a rare fillet mignon back to life with Lysol and some duct tape.

But his house is an underwhelming two-story colonial, and it’s not even in a good part of town.

It’s in aDomingopart of town…but that didn’t matter to whoever came in here and massacred him.

And his family.

There are flies everywhere. And they’ve had time to breed in the bodies. The carpet is a mess of dried blood splatter and crawling maggots. The smaller bodies have already started swelling in the heat.

Vito is smoking a cigarette, but I’m sure it has more to do with the stench in here than his nicotine addiction. We’ve both seen enough gratuitous violence to desensitize us to the point where, if I was hungry right now, I wouldn’t hesitate to raid the fridge and make a sandwich.

“This isn’t the Bogota,” I murmur, nudging a broken table leg with my foot.

Despite the smashed-up coffee table, the rest of the house is intact.

If I hadn’t known where to look, I wouldn’t even have thought there’d been any forced entry.

Whoever slaughtered Doc and his family, they were careful. Quiet. And they even took the time to stage the house for our arrival.

Doc and his family are seated at the dinner table. They might have been eating lasagna, but I don’t look too closely because strangely enough, decomposing food is more nauseating to me than putrefying bodies.

Everything has been arranged just so. Doc’s hand is even laid out on the table as if he’d been reaching for his glass of wine when…

When what?

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