Page 2 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

I dig the gun into the side of his head, prepared to remind him why making even a fucking peep is a horrible idea.

And then the person is gone.

“Bravo, splendid job on keeping your head from having one extra hole in it,” I say. “Now off we go. We have a date with Death.”

I have to stop cupping his mouth to give him a little shove. I need to drag him along to the car before someone notices he’s missing and starts looking for him.

“W-Why?” he chokes out.

“Just take a wild guess,” I say. I love it when they act so confused. Like they have absolutely no idea that what they’ve done to so many others could happen to them. But men like this… men who kill for sport think they’re gods who could never be touched.

“P-Please,” he whispers.

“Did you stop when they begged? Did you ever listen to their cries? Or did you just enjoy them? Trust me, I’m going to like it when you cry,” I say as I reach the car where the trunk is alreadyopen and ready. I pick up the tape and wrap it over his mouth. Then I shove him forward and start taping his hands behind his back. I get them nice and tight before tipping him into the trunk so I can work on his ankles.

Panic starts to set in now and he begins to flail and thrash. Did he finally realize what’s going to happen to him?

There’s plastic in the trunk so he doesn’t get blood anywhere from where his head had smacked against the metal dumpster, but it makes a noisy racket as he flails about.

There’s so much mumbling and a decent amount of thrashing as I tip him the rest of the way into the trunk and slam it shut. I’ve removed any possible way for him to get out, so I get into the front seat, pleased with a job well done.

He explodes in the trunk, kicking up a storm, making it bounce all over the place.

“Now, now, no sense in wasting energy. I have a quick stop to make, and we’ll be on our way!”

He oddly doesn’t seem as thrilled by this as I am. I guess with death waiting at the end of the ride, I don’t blame him. Karma truly is a bitch.

The drive is rather short and when I arrive, I park right in front of the building I need to go into since the street is pretty quiet this time of night.

It’s a detective agency called Wellstone, which is owned by my nemesis as well as the man of my dreams.

The real issue with this situation is that my nemesis ismarriedto the man of my dreams. But sooner or later, that sexy manhasto realize what a grave error he’s committed. There must be some level of confusion for him to have chosen to marry such an obnoxious man.

I strut up to the front door, pretending not to notice the way my car is bouncing about and hoping that no one driving by takes notice of it.

“That… seems concerning,” Jackson, the man of my dreams, says as he opens the door and looks out at my car.

“What the absolute fuck?” Leland, my nemesis, growls as he comes rushing out and looks at the trunk. “What the fuck did you do and not invite me to?”

I scoff at the very idea. “Why the hell would I invite a weasel like yourself?”

The man gasps, like I’ve possibly said something wrong when I’ve said something a whole lot right. Especially when it comes to that dreadful man whose goal seems to be irritating me.

I met Jackson and Leland on a mission I was hired to do a while back. While they were both working as private investigators at that time, it didn’t take long at all to realize that Leland wasn’t your typical PI. When he wasn’t busy being an absolute irritant, he was quite skilled.

Not that I would ever tell him that.

Leland grumbles some more. “You know I love abducting peopleandthrowing them in trunks. You would dare deprive me of thatandcome here to irritate me? I even have a song for it.”

“Jackson called me here,” I say as I waggle my eyebrows at Jackson. Oddly enough, the handsome man ignores it. It’s simply because he doesn’t know what he’s missing out on. He has absolutely no idea how much better life could be with someone who isn’t so strange.

“He needed some information from Cassel, which is why he’s here,” Jackson clarifies as he holds out an envelope that I take as the car gets bouncing real fucking good.

“Do you have a fucking mountain lion in there?” Leland asks.

“Serial killer,” I say.

Delight spreads across Leland’s face. Too bad I can’t delight Jackson like that. “Ooh, what are you going to do with him? Are you going to hunt him down? Chase him? Call him bad names? Iam the master of torture timez if you’d like some pointers. I can actually volunteer to torture him for you.”

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