Page 32 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

ELLIS

Arthur is waiting out front as we roll up. He gives me a huge smile, like he’s excited to see me as the guy who beat the shit out of me stands to the side.

“Wow, do you look like shit,” he says, like he was under the impression I’d slipped out to get my hair done.

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” I respond sarcastically.

“Did you guys shoot Tavish?”

“Not yet. This guy proved to be a bit more… irritating than we anticipated,” Danielle says as Arthur gets a good look at the guy she’d sprayed in the face.

“He got you good, didn’t he, Terry?” Arthur asks.

“Yeah, yeah he did,” Danielle says, talking over Terry who sure sounds like he’s trying to explain that it wasn’t me who did it. “I practically had to save Terry’s life.”

Arthur has me dragged back into the house and returns me to his torture room where he sits on the couch and looks bored as I get smacked around some more. I really wouldn’t recommend it.

“I’m getting tired of this,” Arthur says as he yawns.

“How do you think I feel?” I ask. I’m starting to question if I made the wrong decision running off alone as pain wraps around my body and blood drips from my face.

“Just give me something,anything,and we can be done.”

“Can you give me a hint about what you want to know?” I ask. “Maybe that’ll spark something? But I really want it very clear that I don’t know anything.”

“My hint is that if you don’t tell me something about your father or where he is, I’m going to make you wish you were dead.”

“That’s a really shitty hint,” I mutter.

There’s a knock on the door and a “Sir?”

“What?”

“I need you for a minute,” a man says. Since he’s behind me, I don’t get a look at him before he disappears. Arthur sighs but gets up to his feet and follows him out, leaving me alone with the smaller guy, Miller, who punches far too hard, as well as the guy I stole the phone from.

“Hey, hey you,” the guy whispers, and when I look over, I realize he’s talking to me.

“Me?”

“Eugene, don’t talk to him,” Miller says. “And stop talking to my mom.”

“I’ve never talked to your mom.”

“I know you fucking talked to her,” Miller growls.

“Oh shit, it’syourmom he’s fucking? He was telling me some real nasty and kinky stuff he was doing with her,” I say. “Like graphic stuff.”

Miller turns on the other guy, who holds his hands up. I kind of feel guilty and don’t like that they’re going to fight because of me, but at the same time I’m just happy I have a moment of reprieve. “Dude, I did not. He’s lying. It was a different lovely woman.”

“What’s her name, then?”

“Uh… Bea…leigh.”

“Bealeigh?”

“Yeah?”

Miller punches him right in the face, which is all I need to flash his phone at him and unlock the screen. I scurry over behind the couch as I quickly type the number from Tavish’s phone into this one and send a text to the number. I don’t have long, so I simply write “HELP” before the toe licker is flung over the back of the couch I’d been hiding behind. He crashes into me, and I nearly drop the phone before cramming both back into my underwear, too afraid I’ll lose them.

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