Page 93 of Caught Up

It swung open a few seconds later, no “who are you?” or “what are you doing here?” to precede it. In front of me stood a short, balding white man dressed in slacks and abutton-down. He looked clean and put together, but I could smell the alcohol on him even before he opened his mouth.

“Can I help you?” he asked, looking me over.

I had worn my best suit, the starched white collar of my shirt hiding my neck tattoos, hands shoved in my pockets for the same reason. Like this, with my hair slicked back, I could have passed as Tyler’s fellow finance bro. “Are you Patrick McKinney?”

He frowned. “Yeah, who’s asking?”

In answer, I surged forward, shoving him into the apartment and slamming the door behind us. A punch to his gut aborted his shout of surprise. I kicked his knee out, stepped behind him, and twisted his arm behind his back, much like I had that drunk man at Velvet, only this time, there was no one to stop me as I dug a pair of pliers out of my pocket and fit them to McKinney’s pinkie.

“Scream, and I’ll take it off,” I told him.

He wheezed, cheek pressed to the carpet, trying to regain his breath. “What do you want?”

“You owe Mr. Strickland two million dollars and you’re late with your monthly payment again.” Why Tyler had chosen that name for a cover, I hadn’t asked, nor did I really care. As far as aliases went, I’d heard much worse.

“I can pay,” McKinney hissed, trying to squirm away from me.

I squeezed the pliers hard enough to pinch. “Stop moving. Mr. Strickland has given you more than enough chances.”

“Wait!” he said. “Icanpay! I’m just waiting for a check to clear from a bunch of dirty perverts who rent one of my units.”

That almost made me laugh, thinking back to the other night and Taylor calling me a dirty little slut as I said goodbye to Lauren.

“It’s too late,” I said, dropping my voice to cover my amusement. “I own your debt now.”

McKinney’s breath wheezed out of him as he tried to get a better look at me. “Who are you?”

“People call me Junior, but all you need to know is that instead of owing a bookie, you now owe the mob.”

He made a distressed sound that made me think he’d finally realized just how fucked he was. “What do you want?”

“That building full of dirty perverts.”

“What?” he said, still trying to crane his head up.

I put my boot on his cheek and held him in place, twisting his arm a little harder, squeezing the pliers a little tighter. “The deed.”

McKinney started to struggle. “You can’t be serious!”

“Keep your voice down,” I said, my own deadly calm. “I won’t tell you again.”

A well of blood bubbled up around the plier jaws.

Beneath me, McKinney whimpered. “That building’s worth three million dollars, not two.”

“So?” I said. “Would you rather lose a million dollars and live? Or die? The choice is up to you.”

He went still. “You won’t do it. You won’t kill me. If I die, you don’t get anything.”

He sounded so sure, sosmug.

Some people just had to be taught the hard way.

I clipped his finger off.

Before he could register the pain, I had an arm around his face, muffling the delayed screaming, the spurting hand held out wide to keep from getting blood on my suit.

“No,” I said, close enough for him to hear the menace in my voice, “I won’t get anything if you’re dead, but there are a lot of body parts to carve off in the meantime. You’re going to sign the building over to me, and you’re going to drop the rent on all your other tenants, or you and I are going to be seeing a lot more of each other.”

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