Page 23 of Keeping Her Under
“Okay!” he shrieks. “I’ll do it!”
“You will not go into her room at all during the night. At 5:01, you will make sure the floor is empty again for the next ten minutes. Failure at any of these steps will lead to your corpse being picked apart by the crows.” He sways the blowtorch back and forth.
Ryan starts to cry. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll do anything you want. Just please step back.”
Asher smirks, and I step forward before he can give my colleague the choice to suck him off.
He sighs as he looks at me. You owe me, reads so clearly in his eyes.
Stepping back a few feet, he returns his attention to Ryan. “If you don’t, you’ll cause a gang war. She is the girl of a capo in the Shadow Domain.” They’re a rival Family, on the outskirts of the Blood Fang’s territory. The two gangs are currently at peace, but it’s a strained one where capos aren’t allowed to cross the territory lines without express permission. If she really was what we’re claiming, and one of them did, nearly every hospital in the South would be overrun with casualties.
“Then we’ll kill you,” Asher says, “and everyone in your contact list.”
I set down the can of gasoline, then pick up the phone on Ryan’s nightstand.
He starts to move towards me, just a shift of his weight.
“Ah ah ah,” Asher says, waving the gun, and the man freezes.
“Please –”
“You don’t need to beg unless you fail. Now tell us what your password is.”
He whines, refusing to give it up with more gusto than he ever did with Summer. My jaw is back to being tight again, and I eye the lamp on the nightstand beside me.
Asher shrugs and starts to toss the blowtorch towards him.
“Okay!” He screams out his four digit password. I test it, and it works. Slipping his phone into my pocket, I pull out the one I took from the glove box and toss it to him. He’s lucky I don’t grab the lamp cord next and wrap it around his neck.
“Text the saved number when the floor is empty,” Asher says as Ryan fumbles to catch the phone.
He nods at the door, telling me to leave first. I pick up the can, still half full of gasoline, and start pouring a line on the ground as I leave. I make sure I don’t walk with the same arrogance as I do at work. I make sure to move my shoulders more, put in more of a swagger. I don’t want to give him any reason to think Dr. Rath Slader was in his home tonight.
I wait in the hall for my cousin to join me, the blowtorch still burning bright, then together we take our leave, a trail of gasoline leading all the way to his door.
Once in the car, I pull out his phone, unlock it, and scroll through his call log. I want to know who called him while he was at lunch the other day. When his face lit up and he forgot all about his food.
At her name, I smile wide.
I click back to the home screen and look at the older woman smiling up at me. Of course.
“Anything good?” Asher asks as we pull out of the drive. I toss Ryan’s mobile out of the window. There are too many ways to track lost phones these days to risk taking it with us. Besides, I found all that I need.
“The thing I owe you...” I say with a smile. “You will get it by next week, probably earlier.”
He looks at me curiously, but I leave him in the dark. Even when he nags me, I keep my lips sealed.
“Come on!” he says as he takes off his balaclava and pulls onto the highway, heading back towards my house.
I do the same with a chuckle. “No.”
This is payback for him having hidden her phone from me. The fucker.
He knows it too. He lets off a string of curses. Of promises to fuck me up if I don’t tell him right now; he never did like surprises.
But even if he really meant them, nothing could bring me down.
Because tonight, I’m going to fuck my future wife.
