Page 6 of Ride with the Devil

Cross raises his eyebrows as soon as I send my reply. “Gotta go?”

“Yup.” I pocket my phone, swapping it for my keys so I can head on out. But first… “You don’t happen to have any extra tarps lying around, do you?”

TWO

THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND

KYLIE

Itold myself I would have to be super bored, plus offered the shot at a high-profile hit, to drag my ass back to Springfield. Especially after what happened last time.

See, I don’t like to fail. I pride myself on completing every job, no matter what. Finding out that, against all odds, Carlos da Silva survived the fire? That pissed me off. I would’ve done a u-ey, marched right over to the West Side again and finished the job if it wasn’t for the fact that my client seemed to fall off the face of the planet the same night.

Mickey Kelly never paid me the second half of my commission. Way I saw it back in July, I did what the first fifteen grand bought him. For the second fifteen grand, I’d go after da Silva again—but Kelly disappeared. Considering I left him lurking around Sinners and Saints as the fire caught, I wouldn’t be surprised if da Silva got to him first.

After all, the artist made it out in one piece. Kelly vanished. It doesn’t take an experienced hitwoman to put two and two together and figure out that the Sinner 86ed my client. At least I got my first fifteen thousand, and when I dug a little deeperand discovered that my suspicions were right, that Kelly was the one who went after the Libellula chick while da Silva only did what he did to protect her, I wrote off the failed hit and the big criminal hotspot of Springfield.

It’s been five months. I’ve pulled off four successful hits since, but the last one was right around Halloween. I made it all the way to Thanksgiving without a job—and then, two weeks ago, Johnny Winter came calling.

Winter runs a nationwide enterprise of crooks, thugs, chemists, and gun runners. Though his home base is in Nevada, the aptly-named Snowflakes are spread out from coast to coast. There’s a cadre in nearly every state, with their fingers in every single enterprise you can think of.

Guns? They sell them?

Girls? They traffic them.

Drugs? Winter has his own lab set up to develop the most dastardly, addictive junk on the market. He also takes shit that already has a rep—like the new designer drugs of choice, Breeze and Eclipse—and laces them with his concoctions to make it deadly as hell.

I should know. I bought a bad batch from one seller to target another in Camden after his dirty shit killed a couple of middle-schoolers. Not as fast-acting as the strychnine I keep on me as a back-up plan, but it was a gnarly way to go.

And he fucking deserved it. I don’t often take charity cases, and while I’ll go to my grave believing that I’m a hedonistic bitch who just wants to find pleasure before I go, I have a couple of hot buttons.

Stuck in a DV relationship? The Hummingbird will get you out of it.

Kids are involved? I don’t give a shit if they’re assholes, I’m on their side.

Winter’s chems might’ve made the product that caused those tweens to OD. Fuck knows, my latest client has done enough to earn a target on his back. My own sense of morals say that he didn’t take those kids’ crumpled twenties and sold him the Eclipse that killed them. So I offed the dealer at a discount, then later accepted Winter’s contract on a dentist that fucked him over without batting an eye—even if I did nod when I saw how much he was willing to pay.

This past year, Winter’s had his sights on Springfield. Word on the street is that he wants a slice of the Libellula Family’s counterfeiting ring. That’s just an excuse. Johnny Winter wants revenge, and he’s convinced that, to get it, he needs to eliminate both the Sinners Syndicate and the Libellula Family before turning their former territory into his East Coast headquarters.

I knew all that. Kelly heard of my rep through Winter, just like I knew Winter’s rep through some of the clients I’ve worked for these past couple of years before he hired me himself. Winter’s the one I got into contact with when Kelly up-and-disappeared on me—and the one who had no problem telling me the truth about what one of his former goons was up to while Carlos da Silva and Genevieve Libellula were Winter’s… guests.

Guests. Right.

And I’m the Queen of Sheba.

Not like I give a shit what Winter does to get ahead. That’s why I jumped at the chance to d a job for him when I was just starting out—well, his twin, and that’s some other weird thing I don’t really get because he was Jimmy, now he’s Johnny, and it seems like there weretwoof them before Damien Libellula offed Winter’s twin—plus the new leader of the Snowflakes hired me for two of my four most recent kills. All I care about now is that Winter’s money comes through on time, and he’s generous, too. Like me, the second Winter gets his kicks at my poetic justice, and he’ll throw me some extra bucks if I amuse him.

Johnny Winter is as sick and twisted as I am, and I almost decided it would be fun to seduce him and see what he was like in the sack. The fact that, during our sporadic meetings, I get the feeling that he’d rather gut me and see what my insides looked like rather than see how tight I am wrapped around his cock kept me from pursuing my curiosity about the gang leader. I’ll take his money, and find my pleasure with the nobodies I’ll pick up between jobs for a one-night-stand.

I usually troll the local hotspots. Bars, sometimes, or maybe nightclubs. I know what I look like. Depending on how I wear my hair or what outfit I pull on, I could be that sweet-faced innocent in over her head or an experienced woman just out for a good time, looking to end the night even better. It’s easy to get attention when I want it, but in my line of work, it pays to be able to blend into the surroundings when I need to.

Like now.

It’s mid-December. I pulled on my leather jacket over a deep red sweater, plus a pair of tight dark blue jeans that are molded around the curve of my ass. Black boots so that I don’t slip on the icy remnants of an early snowstorm from two days ago. My curls are loose, though I pinned the front pieces back to show off my expertly made-up face.

The turquoise neons around the nightclub are amplified by the white Christmas lights strung up all over the nightclub. The air pulses with the rich beat of the electronic song blasting out of the speakers; no ‘Silent Night’ or ‘Jingle Bells’ here, despite the nod to the season in the Christmas lights and the red bows plastered to the edge of the bartop. While some of the city folk are out there, visiting Santa Claus and getting their holiday shopping done, you wouldn’t know it was well into December by the warmth in the club or the half-dressed dancers writhing on the floor.

Carrying a barely touched cocktail in my hand, I weave around them, edging toward the tables surrounding the dance floor. I’ve already had to tell three guys to buzz off since I’ve been here, and my poor libido is telling me that I should’ve at least taken one of them up on their offer to either go upstairs or find a little privacy in the club’s bathroom.

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