Page 119 of Cruel Games

“You were just a catalyst. The people behind the hit are who I should be upset with, no?”

Technically, that was only partially true. Who I should really be upset with was a man who was long dead and buried. These men had made sure he’d gotten his just desserts.

“That’s confidential,” a voice said snarkily from the doorway, stepping into the room with all the swagger of a man who didn’t just force a woman to her knees in the pouring rain in a dingy alley with brain matter still clinging to her dress. “And if youthink you’ll get St. Clair to give up anything, you’re smoking better rocks than Bonnie and Clyde were.”

“Nobody asked you, Jackal,” Dingo huffed from the cough, the leather creaking beneath his bulky frame as he stood and crossed his arms.

“What, can I not speak in my own home now, Dingo?” His eyes drifted to me, assessing me up and down. “She must not be too broken, considering she’s wearing one of Coyote’s bathrobes.”

There was no conscious decision to snap. The act itself was more of a final culmination of all the things he’d said from the moment I first laid eyes on him. Jackal was, for all intents and purposes, comedic relief in the body of an asshole. And he seemed determined to piss me off until there was no other choice but to gut him for the sake of my sanity.

So, of course, I couldn’t validate his need for attention by giving it to him. Instead, I just walked past him into his bedroom, shoved him out, and closed and locked the door, grinning to myself as he pounded on the barrier between us, shouting for me to let him in.

He could get fucked. And not by me this time.

I ignored his increasingly arrogant, sarcastic, and mean remarks from the other side of the door as I moved easily to the bathroom and turned on the hot water, pleased that it’d returned to a scalding temperature while I slept. His bathtub filled slowly, and while I waited, I took in my reflection in his floor-length mirror.

My cheeks were a bit gaunt, my eyes sunken in and red from the crying. I had scrapes and scratches here and there from the rough treatment in the alley, as well as a neat little bruise forming under my ribcage from where I’d fallen over the back of the couch as I wrestled Jackal for the TV remote.

I’d looked better. But there had been a few weeks, months, even, where I’d looked much worse. So I’d take it.

I soaked in the hot bath until the water turned cold, and was in the middle of drying off my hair at the edge of Jackal’s bed when the door swung open and he marched in with a determined look on his face, threw me over his shoulder, and carried me out into the living room.

My ass hit the couch with athud,and I protested until Coyote’s arm moved around to rest along the couch behind my head. On my other side, Dingo sat there watching me like he half expected me to start laughing again.

I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t.

Jackal cleared his throat and drew all our attention to him. Legs splayed, he held a manilla folder in his hand that looked vaguely familiar. When he slapped it down on the coffee table in front of me, I knew why.

It was my father’s hit file.

Their contract.

“How?” I whispered, reaching out almost far enough to touch it before I instinctively curled back in on myself. “Why?”

He was wordless as he tugged my backpack off the floor and dumped it on the coffee table next to the file. Out fell the notebook, as well as a few odds and ends I’d packed for ajust-in-casemoment. As we gaped at those finds, he tossed the stupid infinity pin at me, and as I caught it, he set down a single, final item to join the rest.

The flash drive.

It must’ve fallen out of my dress when I was getting ready for the shower with Coyote. Or maybe I’d lost it on my way into the apartment.

Either way, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was on it anymore.

“Why are you dragging these things out?” I set the infinity pendant down with trembling fingers, recoiling from the whole lot of items like they might bite me. “Aren’t you scared I’ll still kill you?”

He crossed his arms and grinned. “If you were gonna kill us, kitten, you would’ve done it ages ago. You’re just stalling to avoid the truth: a couple of wild dogs have started to grow on you.” His eyes challenged mine, but he dropped them to the floor almost out of nowhere in a show of submission. “You’re not the only one around here who can break into Lilly’s office and get away with it. Might be theballsiest,but I’ve got experience.”

I blinked stupidly down at the file. “You knew I’d go after it eventually.”

“We did,” Dingo murmured, “but we hoped to shield you from it for as long as possible.”

My brows creased as I continued to stare daggers in the direction of the file. “Why would you do that?”

Coyote inched forward, his free hand settling on my chin as he tugged me away from the folder to look at him. “Because I asked them to.” Those eyes darkened as he flitted that gaze from one side of my face to the other, something hiding in their depths. “Because I knew you’d come for us one day.”

Suddenly, Mr. Silence was all words all the time. “So youdoknow how to put more than two words together in a sentence, huh?”

I was deflecting. He knew it. I knew it. Everyone in this room with ears and eyeballs fucking knew it.

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