Page 3 of Cruel Lies

"Would you fucking hold still? I don’t want to get any more dirty than I already am."

McClure stared into his eyes, hatred and fear warring for first place. I wondered if the man had an ounce of self-preservation?—

"Fuck you, ya sissy ass bitch. Just kill me already, and stop playing games."

Welp. So much for common sense. Angel was sensitive about his looks. Names like that were the quickest way to get under his skin.

"The fuck did you call me?" he spat, his eyes narrowing to deadly slit status. "Say it again, motherfucker, I dare you."

"Don’t do it," I supplied helpfully. "It’s a trap."

Apparently, Tanner McClure had realized by now his only chance at mercy was a quick death. He screwed his little fucking pig snout up and winced as he made one of the worst—or best—decisions of his soon-to-be-ending life.

"Sissy bitch," he repeated, a smug smile crossing his features. "And I’ll say it again, too. Sissy bi?—"

Angel’s knife came out in a flash, slicing across the man’s jugular in one precise, practiced move, spraying arterial blood directly at the chest of his brand-new grey button-up. I watched the blood blooming in the expensive silk fabric, like a flower made of the prettiest paints, weaving into the threads with each passing second.

"Aw, fuck, man, you killed him." I sagged against the wall, all the excitement drained from the chase now. "The fuck, Angel? You’re not supposed to make it easy for them?—"

"Suck a dick, Nash. You don’t have to fucking toy with every single one of them. Go get your rocks off somewhere else, youpsycho." He stared at the blade of his knife, his upper lip curling as he turned it back and forth. "Ugh. Fucking brand new shirt, too."

Of course that’d be his chief complaint.

We draggedhim back to where Rowan waited with the Torino, his muscled torso leaning against the trunk hanging open in wait for its next victim. And once we’d loaded him up, we drove to the fucking Dread River, our usual spot for body dumps and fucking secret murders.

I was currently waiting my turn to have a little fun, which wouldn’t make up for the quick death he’d won, but it was a start.

I shook my head like a dog, watching the droplets of sweat fly from my face. "Fuck me, it’s hot out here."

To my left, Angel swiped a hand across his brow and rolled his attentive, sharp eyes. "You’re always hot, you moron. If you ditched the leather getup, maybe you’d stop complaining about it."

I glared daggers at him and ran my hands down the form-fitting leather pants I loved so much. "You’re just jealous because I look better in them."

"Knock it off, you two," Ro grumbled behind us, dragging his blade across the thigh of his jeans. "This is no time to play around. We have a job to finish, and then we’re home free for at least a week."

The target, Tanner McClure, was a down-on-his-luck shitface of a man who’d sold his wife into the sex trade to cover his gambling debts. She reached out to the Guild. And our boss, Lilly St. Clair, was a sucker for the fucking sob stories.

I yanked my blade from my boot and grinned like a wildman, relishing the weight of it in my sweaty palm. The men, I didn’tmaul and mangle, but I still enjoyed slicing them up to lure in the gators.

The metal edge cut through his skin like butter, digging deep grooves and splitting the fuckwad like a fucking banana being peeled. Blood welled up in places, but not as fast as I’d like. He’d been dead too long, thanks to Angel and his quick temper.

Nobody with half a brain would have come down that dark alley at night. But Tanner McClure didn’t have many brain cells in that skull of his rattling around these days. I suspected he never had.

"Come on, Nash," Ro urged, his domineering attitude making itself known. "We’re wasting time. Just get him up and in the back of the car, and let’s head to the bridge."

"You’re so predictable, Rowan. It’s always the fucking bridge," I grumbled, tossing the bloody body over my shoulder. "We always toss the bodies off the fucking bridge. When are we gonna have some fun and do things a little differently?"

The limp shell of a man made a dullthudsound when I loaded him into the trunk of the Torino. Old beast was refinished, refurbished, redone, whatever fucking word you used when you entirely overhaul a classic car—so, of course, Angel had laid down a fucking tarp, so we didn’t dirty her up.

Killers, being anal retentive about their car’s interior.

Hadn’t he heard of having it steam-cleaned? The Neons didn’t bother washing the blood from their dirtbikes until they’d dragged a body behind them all the way back to the Guild. And St. Clair only bitched a little bit abouttheirmesses.

"We do things the way we’ve always done them because they’re efficient and they work. If it’s not broken, why fix it?" Ro slipped into the driver’s seat, his hands already gripping the wheel at ten and two like he was some sort of grandpa. Fucker was super controlling about the least little detail, and such a perfectionist. It was excruciating to watch.

"Sure, sure, keep that stick shoved up your ass. Maybe loosenthose locs of yours, man. They're sucking the fun out of your brain and leaving all the annoying logic." I slipped in behind Angel’s seat, frustrated with my asshole siblings. I always had to ride bitch. I was the shortest, so it made sense for me to ride in the back.

A lot of my life was the way it was, just because itmade sense.

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