Page 1 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

ONE

TAVISH

Sometimes I wonder if the people I’m watching have any idea that their life is about to turn to shit.

Like are they just going around, being absolutely miserable assholes and thinking, “Boy, I bet I’m going to live a long fucking life while destroying the lives of people around me”? Or are they paranoid someone’s going to put a bullet in the back of their head and end their miserable existence like they’ve done to all the innocent people they’ve destroyed?

Let’s take this asshole here, for example. He’s beaming at everyone he’s talking to because they have absolutely no damn idea how many people he’s terrorized before murdering them.

He just smiles and they laugh and laugh as he passes their cat or dog back to them. He probably started killing little animals, many do, and it’s likely why he went into the veterinary field, so he had access to unwanted pets.

What a sick fuck.

But after today, he’ll never have to worry again.

Well… I assume today. There’s always the chance that I’ll fuck up and he’ll slice and dice my ass up first.

An older woman heads toward the clinic and he just fucking jumps up and rushes over to hold the door for her and her giant dog, probably assessing whether or not she’s worth killing. She seems to be a bit old for his tastes. He likes them significantly younger.

So I sit in my car and wait and watch until the final client heads home for the night, leaving only him, the vet he works for, and some other vet techs.

I’ve noticed that he takes the trash out every night before heading to his car, so I start my car and move it to a different road where no one will see as I drag him over to it. The trunk is all ready, a beautiful first-class ride reserved just for him.

Then I wait and watch. And when he heads out through the back door, I’m already walking toward him.

He lifts the lid of the large metal dumpster as I get close, and it’s like something in him tells him that I’m coming. He hesitates before leaning back to look at me. Has his desire to hunt made him more proactive? More paranoid?

But I’ve watched him long enough to know that he’ll put on a good act for me.

“Heya!” he calls, sounding irritatingly cheerful as I walk up.

“Evening,” I say. “My car stalled, and I saw you out here.”

I point at it and his dark brown eyes shift over to where my car is parked. From what I’ve read up on him, he’s twenty-eight and is half Latino on his mother’s side, but I couldn’t find much else out about him. He’s probably been doing his best to keep his head down so he doesn’t draw any attention. Clearly, he wasn’t careful enough.

“Oh! You need a phone to call someone? Or you need a ride? I’d be happy to give you a ride.”

I’m sure you would. But you’re sorely mistaken if you think you’re going to end my life.

I plaster a smile on my face, laying into my accent which weirdly makes people gravitate toward me. “Would you really? That’d save me so much trouble, you don’t even understand,” I say as I reach out, grab the back of his head, and slam it right into the side of the dumpster. Dazed, he stumbles back before he reaches for something—does he have a gun or weapon on him?—but he doesn’t have time to before I slide an arm around his neck.

I squeeze it tightly, so he’s well aware that I am in control of this situation, as I press a gun against his head.

“There are only two ways this will go,” I say as he looks up at me, stunned. I bet he never fathomed his prior deeds would catch up to him. “You’re going to be so motherfucking quiet not even a damn owl will hear you or?—”

He’s tense, trying to figure out how to get the upper hand in this situation as I hear the back door opening. I drag him fast to the back of the dumpster where I crouch down, pulling him with me, so neither of us can be seen as I listen to the sound of someone’s shoes crunching on the gravel as they make their way over.

Why the fuck is someone else coming out here? Can he not even take the trash out correctly?

I press my mouth against his ear. “If you make a fuckingpeep, I will put a bullet right into this head of yours. You wouldn’t enjoy that, would you?”

He’s frozen in place, not even choosing to answer how much he wouldn’t enjoy that. I can hear footsteps as I try to think about what I’ll do if he does call out. My client wants him alive, hoping he’ll tell him what he did with the body of my client’s daughter, but if he shouts out, I can’t let him go. And I don’t necessarily want to shoot anyone else. Although, I can threaten them with ease and likely won’t have to harass a bystander.

They’re getting closer as we remain pressed up against the back of the dumpster. One of my hands is clamped over his mouth, my other still on the gun. He’s frozen in place, eyes wide. Maybe he’s concerned that if he does call out, I’ll reveal all of his nasty secrets for others to hear. There’d be no coming back from that. This man doesn’t live in the shadows like I do. He can’t just “disappear” if his secrets are revealed. He has a house here, a family, he has so much shit that he would never recover even if the police couldn’t pin all of the deaths on him.

The dumpster lid opens, and I hear the bag of trash fall in it before it slams back shut.

His eyes are darting around, he’s thinking as fast as he can, aware that his one chance at life is getting farther and farther from him.

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