Page 57 of Cruel Games

“Why the hell are you starkers, mate?”

Now, both Jackal and Coyote looked at me likeIwas the weird one. “Woah, wow, where did that thick accent come from all of a sudden?” Jackal eyed me from top to toe, taken aback by my heavy accent. “You ain’t talked like that in years.”

“Pardon the fuck out of me, my good sir,” I mocked in a high-society British voice, “but I don’t stop to filter out my accent and slang when my brain is firing a fucking million miles a second.” I turned to Coyote with a scowl, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt to haul him forward. “This fucker here best start talking, because I want the reason he got us into this mess, and I want it now.” I shoved Coyote back, then jabbed my pointer finger inJackal’s chest. “And you’re going to make him, or I’ll kick your ass next.”

“You ain’t kicking anyone’s ass, ya banana bender,” he tossed back, shoving my chest pointedly, dick still swinging free. “But you’re welcome to try.”

“Put some fucken pants on, mate; that fucken trouser snake’s staring me in the eye, and it’s unnerving,” I sputtered, turning away pointedly.

When I turned back, Coyote had taken a seat on the end of Jackal’s bed, and his buddy posted up right next to him, thankfully wearing a pair of sweatpants that clung low to his hips.

At least he’d covered his fucking cock.

Fucking uncivilized assholes I lived with, man.

“You have something to tell us, Coyote? Like why you decided to bargain our lives with her? And why you’re not fighting any of this?”

He hung his head, hands balled into fists on his knees. “Because?—”

A knock sounded at the door, accompanied by an annoying ass voice demanding to know what we were plotting in here.

“Boy’s meeting, no girls allowed, sorry. It’s a circle jerk; you wouldn’t wanna join anyway.”

I turned back to the guys and put my hands on my hips, staring daggers into them without another word. Finally, Coyote cleared his throat, hands wringing in his lap, and opened that seldom-used mouth to explain.

“She doesn’t know.”

That wasn’t really an explanation.

“What do you mean?” I jerked my thumb back at the door to the commons. “You mean her? What doesn’t she know?”

“About her father.”

If my eyes rolled any further into the back of my head, they might get permanently lodged there. “Obviously, she’sdelusional. We’ve never killed an innocent. And I’m sure whatever her father did, he deserved?—”

“Danny Cullough.”

I knew Coyote committed all our kills to memory, but I didn’t, so it took me a minute to place the name. Once I did, though, it still left questions unanswered.

“So what about him? He was a trafficker. Jackal linked him to his sister’s death, and we broke into his house and killed him in his front yard. No witnesses. Dead of night.” I waved my hand in a circle, waiting for more. Hoping for something I’d missed. “What makes that special?”

He heaved a sigh that deflated him like a leaking balloon. “She saw us.”

Well, fuck.“I don’t remember anyone being around?—”

“Through the window.”

“Coyote, you’re just imagining things, man. There was nobody there, we made sure of it?—”

“Isawher,” he insisted, shooting up from the bed to grip my arms as he shook me gently. “She doesn’t know.” His face fell, and he released me with a huff, turning to Jackal for assistance, reassurance, something that I wasn’t able to give him because I couldn’t read well enough between the lines to figure him out.

“She wouldn’t believe us even if wedidtell her,” Jackal started, understanding dawning in his eyes. “And she would hate us for it, when she finally saw the truth.”

Ah, there was the rub. “You like her, don’t you, Coyote?”

His silence said enough.

“Well,” Jackal said, rubbing his palms together. “I’ll just give her his file, clear things up, and she can be on her way. Who cares if she hates us, right? She was planning to kill us a couple hours ago.” He stood, but Coyote reached out and yanked him back down to the bed. “Hey, bro, what gives?”

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