Page 57 of A Game So Reckless

This is Mad Darragh. Bloodthirsty, cruel, possibly sadistic.

This is the man most of the city, if not most of the country, fears.

So why am I not afraid? I am tense, I am anxious as hell, I am afraid of what this night is turning into…

But I’m not afraid of him.

“It’s the truth,” I tell him quietly. “Nowhere else.”

Darragh stares at me for a beat, his chest rapidly rising and falling as Connor struggles weakly beneath his boot. He looks like a demon or a monster or a fallen fucking god. So angry, so powerful, that he could implode the entire world.

“Fine,” he hisses at length. Moving his boot, he kicks away the rock he used to break Connor’s wrist. He seizes the back of Connor’s polo shirt, dragging him up into an unsteady standing position. Then, he places his gun against the back of Connor’s blond head and orders him to, “Walk.”

“Where are you going?” I demand as Darragh forces Connor towards the darkness of the road beyond the cottage. “What are you going to do with him?”

He sends me a piercing look over his shoulder and says, “Use your fucking imagination, Valentina. Now stop asking me stupid questions and go home. Otherwise,Iwill be the one to take you home.”

The darkness swallows him. Turns his last words into a bodyless threat on the air.

“And I will fucking lock you in.”

Chapter25

Darragh

Ikeep my gun trained on the blond shitbag while I steer my boat one-handed. He’s lying flat on his belly at the bottom of the boat. On the off-chance that someone sees the boat out here tonight, no one will know he’s in it.

I allow myself a glance at him – just a glance. If I spend too long looking at him, rage will take over. I’m trying to keep this clean. If I want to keep the cops away from questioning Valentina, I’ll have to make this look like yet another tragic, self-inflicted ending. Just like Dario.

Even if I don’t want to. Even if everything inside me is screaming to slice this man up while he’s still fucking breathing.

“So, Connor,” I bite out as I direct the boat into the choppy middle of the bay.

He flinches at the sound of my voice.

“How do you know my name, sir?”

Sir. Fucking sir. What a worm.

If you’re going to be a piece of shit, just be a piece of shit right until the fucking end. Go down fighting and biting and spitting and swearing.

The way I would.

The way I think Valentina would, too.

How do I know his name? Same way I know everything important about him. Same way I know all the shit about the other two couples who were staying in that cottage.

Connor McNair. Twenty-seven years old. Works for a small financial firm in Toronto. Has a long-term, twenty-five-year-old girlfriend named Diana who couldn’t make it to this sunny little retreat because she’s studying for the bar exam. His parents are Shelly and Robert McNair. They live in Kingston. They have a new laberdoodle puppy named Peanut.

And they’re about to be very fucking sad.

I leave Connor’s question hanging unanswered in the air. When I decide we’re far enough from shore, I kill the engines and leave the driver’s seat. I sit in one of the back seats, right beside the place where Connor is dutifully digging his forehead into the floor.

“Sit up.”

He scrambles to do it, his gaze flicking to the gun I’ve still got on him. He’s shaking. The wind out here is cold. And he’s afraid.

I fucking bask in it. My mind goes back to where I heard him. Saw him.

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