Page 51 of Broken Queen
“Let me tell you something,” I said, pressing my thumb knuckles together. “I don’t give a fuck what happens. Dead or alive; it’s all a good time to me.”
Carter cracked his neck. “You want to die?” he asked.
Maybe I did. “It’s. All. A. Good. Time,” I said slowly so he could understand every word. “Give me the fucking ride.”
He tossed his head to the side, withholding his emotions, like it made him a better man than me. But fuck that. He was too rigid to be worth a damn.
“Tell Zira I tried. You have my number,” he said.
I threw a sideways glance at him as he got in his SUV, driving out of the motel parking lot. There was something about him that made my skin crawl, like he thought he could control everyone, if he just fit them inside of his little box.
Zira was like that too, but she guided you into it, made you think that’s what you wanted. Sometimes, I was like that too. I liked manipulating people into doing what I wanted; it took a subtlety that I often skipped, but once in a while, I liked to switch things up. At least with Zira’s manipulative side, she had that edge of violence lurking in her soul. She was more human to me that way. More like me.
But that didn’t mean that she would let me do what I wanted.
All day, I waited at the motel. Zira had convinced me to hire someone else to play Chris Cox’s role, just to make sure her precious daddy didn’t catch on now that I was an official board member. Another damn way to control me. But as soon as night rolled around, I drove through Opulent Gates.
Ernest Dumas’s house was like a fairytale home, complete with spires and a tower looming over the driveway. Four guards were stationed out front, and who knows how many were posted around the back. I kept driving slowly, but not slowly enough to draw their attention. I was good with a gun, but this was like a mini-army. I wasn’t trained for this.
Zira was right. I did need backup. I groaned, then called back Carter Care.
“Yeah?” Carter answered. Even hearing his stern, gruff voice irritated me, but I was man enough to know when I was wrong. I might have been ready to die, but getting annihilated with bullets before I had the chance to enjoy the whole ride, wasn’t my thing.
“All right,” I said. “You’re on.”
That next night, the cameras were busted, and the guards had been knocked out, but Carter kept to his word; by the time I came through, there were no visible assassins anywhere.
As I crept through the property, I wished that there was something to give me a little bit of trouble. I needed some entertainment.
“You hear me, you animals?” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “You want to kill me? Do it now!”
But nothing happened. The wind rustled the leaves, and a curtain in the window of a tall spire flapped in the wind. Even when I came to Ernest’s bedside, he stayed still. The asshole was unconscious, like Carter had said. It was all under Zira’s calculated instructions, and it was boring. The skin at the back of my neck prickled with annoyance.
But maybe there was a need for that; she knew I had a habit of letting my indulgences get the best of me. But fuck, I wanted the adrenaline. The laser focus. The blood on my hands. I wanted the rush of knowing that my life was on the line.
This was like picking up my girlfriend’s laundry.
As I threw Ernest in the back of the truck, tying his wrists and ankles and gagging his mouth, I realized that it was exactly what I was doing: picking up Zira’s dirty laundry and taking it to the cleaners for her.
Maybe she didn’t trust me to keep him alive for the both of us. After all, she had made me promise, practically with pinkies and all, that she could share in the fun. And if it was like that, all desperation to get a taste of his murder, then maybe I could admire her. She wanted her revenge piping hot, and so did I.
I carried him into the motel room, grunting as I opened the door. I threw his limp body on the floor with a thud, then pulled out my phone, about to dial Zira, when lo-and-behold, the hostage opened his eyes.
He had a decade on me, but I understood immediately why my sister would accept the offer to marry someone like him. Even disoriented and in his long-sleeved pajamas, he seemed stable. Reliable. The kind of man that would take care of you, as long as you let him.
But he had put her life at risk. He had let her die.
“So the bastard lives,” I said.
Ernest wiggled on the ground like a snake, drool spilling out of the side of his mouth. His moans were stifled through the gag, and he huffed through his nose. Out of sheer boredom, I ripped the gag from his mouth.
“It’s you,” he puffed, his eyes coming into focus. “Hazard Boucher. Chris Cox. You got on the board.”
I blinked. No one knew I was impersonating some man named Chris Cox except for Zira. Yet, Ernest knew. He had been hunting around.
I popped my jaw, letting it hang open for a second longer than usual, like a snake unhinging for a big, juicy piece of prey. I snapped it back into place.
“Ernest Dumas,” I said. A twinge of nerve pain surged through my system. “We officially meet.”
