Page 49 of Cruel Games

I knew it was the truth. I’d already planned for that very outcome, as well. Death was inevitable. As long as I achieved my goals and got my revenge, that was all that mattered. But was I really okay with the end? Was my story really over after this?

Was it worth it?

“Think about what we could do together.”

My eyes narrowed. Howdarehe insinuate that I’d ever pair up with the likes of them?—

“The good we could do?—”

“Ha,” I muttered, picking the discarded pocket knife up just as Jackal got close enough to touch it. “That’s a joke.You three, do good?”

“We’re some of the most feared killers in Port Wylde,” Dingo pointed out, wriggling uncomfortably atop the table. “Surely there’s people you want dead..”

“Other than us, of course,” Jackal threw in, his words like a taunt.

I pretended to think about it for a moment, the words nothing more than empty promises from a man who’d just as likely slit my throat and fuck my dead body if I released him as he would actually hold up a bargain to get released. “EverythingI’ve done to this point has been to serve you the justice you deserved. Anything beyond that is?—”

“Nothing to you, huh? What about all the pieces of shit we wipe off the face of the planet? Who’d deal with them if we stopped?”

That was laughable. They really thought they were helping the rest of us. That what they did was good. “My father was a good man. What’s your excuse for killing him? Was the money too good to pass up?”

Jackal started to open his mouth, but I watched curiously as Coyote cleared his throat and shook his head at the other man. Something he didn’t want me to know?

Interesting.

“Something you wanna share with the class, Coyote?”

He refused to lift those gorgeous green eyes to meet my own. “No,” he muttered, shaking his head so that curtain of hair fell between us once more.

Man talked more in this warehouse than I’d ever heard him say when I spied on them. Maybe he thought he’d better use up the rest of his talking allotment while he was still breathing.

“So, who wants to go first?” I wagged the knife in the air and grinned, waiting for someone to say something smartassed. “I don’t have all day to stay here and shoot the shit with you three.” I thought back on the dead-end bartending job waiting for me at home and cringed. “I have a life to get back to.”

“Don’t look too excited to go back to it, if you ask me,” Dingo pointed out, thrashing in his restraints again. “Must be a hell of a life. Living on daddy’s dirty money, no consequences for youractions?—”

“Don’t you dare talk about him, you scumbag!” I threw the knife in his direction, relishing the grunt of pain he made when it landed in the wood right next to his arm.

I fell to my knees, shattered pieces of my soul screaming for me to end this quickly, give them as good as they’d gotten, kill them,kill them, KILL THEM?—

But another part of me screamed no.

Another smaller part of me hesitated at the idea of using these dogs to do my bidding, intrigued and already contemplating the ultimate revenge. I could take down the system that allowed them to get away with what they’d done from the inside. I could take out evil people who’d stood by and let my father take the fall for something he hadn’t done. With this pack of dogs at my beck and call, I could do anything. Hell, I could even use them to find out who’d ordered the hit on my father all those years ago.

But to do so, to make a deal with them, felt tantamount to betraying his memory.

I felt like the worst kind of human, to turn my back on the revenge I’d fought so hard to get, that I’d killed so many and broken so many laws to reach. Everything I’d done in my life had led to this point, and yet?—

If I took this opportunity, I’d be throwing away all of that. It would all be worthless. All for naught.

My hands pounded at the sides of my temples as I struggled to return order to my mind. My life was shambles, my future bleak, and my prospects slim at best. Pairing up with them would only cause things to drag on longer. And then I’d truly have nothing. The heels of my palms were turning red where I’d slammed them into my head over and over, as if beating myself senseless would change the fact that I was suddenly doubting my own carefully-laid plans.

I’d done so much to get here. So. Fucking. Much.

But you could do so much more.

I could simply postpone the ending of their lives, until such a time as I was done with them. I could use them, like the tools they were, to do whatever I wanted, and then, when I’d tortured them with my presence, when I’d done all I wanted to do, whenevery person who deserved to die in my father’s stead was buried in a watery grave . . .

Then, I could kill the dogs and have my final revenge.

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