Page 4 of Claimed By the Psychos
The carpet squelches when I roll it, blood seeping through the fibers like the world's most expensive sponge. I check the watch I lifted off some hedge fund prick in Monaco.
3:43 AM.
The guard shift change happens at 4:00, which gives us thirteen minutes to finish cleaning up a murder scene that looks like a particularly violent Jackson Pollock painting.
Efficiency is everything in this business. Sentiment gets you caught. Emotion gets you killed. But it's a hell of a lot easier than the one we left behind.
I secure the carpet with zip ties, methodical as a surgeon. Each movement has a purpose, each second accounted for. The senator's blood has already started to congeal, turning tacky against my fingers. I'll need to burn these gloves. The suit too, probably. Shame. I liked this suit, but the guy caught me off guard. No point in denying that.
Juniper is probably right about the drugs.
Across the room, she hums something tuneless and sweet, her fingers dancing through the stack of bills she pulled from the senator's wallet along with the ones he paid earlier for her"company". The sound bounces off the cream walls, filling the space where our moans of pleasure and the senator's dying breaths were not too long ago. She's sitting cross-legged on the marble counter like a child counting Halloween candy, completely unbothered by the corpse dissolving in industrial-grade acid three feet away.
That's going to be a fun surprise for the cleaning crew, but this place pays well and the lack of a body will slow the cops down long enough for us to get far and away from dodge.
"Felix, look." She fans the bills out like playing cards. "There's so much. He was carrying at least ten grand just in his wallet. And he already paid six."
"Rich assholes always carry too much cash." I test the carpet bundle's weight. Heavy, but manageable. "Makes them feel important."
"Would you pay this much to fuck me?"
The question catches me in the middle of tying the last knot to secure the carpet. I look up to find her watching me with those hazel eyes that see too much and understand too little. Or maybe it's the other way around. With Juniper, I can never tell.
"You just let me do it for free," I point out, going back to my work. The knot needs to be perfect. Can't have the carpet unrolling mid-disposal.
"Yeah, but if you couldn't. Theoretically."
I abandon the carpet and cross to her in three strides. My hand finds her chin, tilting her face up to mine. Her skin is still flushed from our earlier activities, a pink that has nothing to do with shame and everything to do with satisfaction.
"I would pay every cent in existence just to kiss you." The words come out matter-of-fact because that's what they are. Facts. "And the amount that's about to hit our account is going to make that stack look like pocket change."
Her eyes go soft in that way that makes my chest do things I don't have names for. "But we need to leave." I release her chin, already missing the warmth. "I still need to handle the security footage."
"Right." She hops off the counter, bills disappearing into her bra with practiced ease. "Can't have our Oscar-worthy performance going viral."
Together we haul the carpet to the window. The dumpster waits in the alley below, positioned perfectly because I always plan ahead. The carpet makes a satisfying thud when it lands, just another piece of rich people's garbage in a city that produces nothing but.
We slip out of the suite hand in hand, her fingers laced through mine like they belong there. She's humming again, something different this time. Maybe a lullaby. Maybe a funeral dirge. With Juniper, they're often the same thing.
My mind keeps circling back to that moment during sex when she saw something that wasn't there. The way her eyes went wide and distant, focusing on shadows that only she could see. She said she was fine, but Juniper's definition of fine includes active hallucinations and the occasional murder, so that's not exactly reassuring.
I know better than to push. Pushing makes her retreat into that maze inside her head where even I can't follow. Better to wait, to watch, to be ready when she needs me.
The hallway stretches ahead, all muted gold and burgundy like the inside of an expensive coffin. Our footsteps sink into carpet thick enough to hide bodies in. Not that I'd know from experience or anything.
"Shit," I mutter, spotting the guard outside the vending machines by the station up ahead. The one who should still be there slipped out early, just like he has every day the last week I've been casing the place, but the new guard is alreadythere, fifteen minutes early like an overachiever. His uniform is pressed sharp enough to cut, and he's got that eager look that says he actually gives a fuck about his job. The worst kind. But at least he's not gone inside yet.
"Don't worry." Juniper squeezes my hand once before letting go. "I've got this."
Every instinct screams at me to stop her. The thought of her talking to another man, an alpha especially, makes something primitive and possessive claw at my insides. But this is what we do. This is how we survive.
"Make it quick," I tell her, already reaching for the device in my pocket.
She saunters toward the guard like she's got all the time in the world, hips swaying in that ruined blue dress that's worth more than his monthly salary. I don't have any clue how she managed not to get blood on it. Impressive, really. Too bad we still have to burn it, considering how beautifully it hugs her curves. Curves that were barely there when we left the hellhole my brother rules over like some twisted god. A tangible reminder of the fact that I've kept her safe and provided for ever since we escaped together.
I watch her work her magic as I fade into the shadows. Not the kind Juniper sees, but the real ones that hide people like me.
"Excuse me?" Her voice carries down the hall, sweet as arsenic, and she flips her long, luxurious brown locks behind one shoulder so he gets a good whiff of her scent. "I'msosorry to bother you, but I think I'm lost."
