Page 5 of Reaper & Ruin
His mouth twitched, barely. “Don’t.”
“Too late.” I smirked, nerves easing with my distraction. “You’re Brick now.”
He went silent again, like he was hoping I’d shut up.
“So why’d she take you, Brick?” I asked. “She just grabs random dudes for fun?”
He stared ahead, voice flat. “I’m a hitman. Someone probably paid her. Happens sometimes when you’ve pissed off enough people.”
Pretending not to be instantly concerned about Brick murdering me, I tilted my head. “Sounds fun.” I looked down at my bare knees again, brushing away dust with my fingers. “Well, I’ve got no idea why I’m here. Maybe she just wanted a challenge. Or maybe she’s a new stalker. I’ve got a running collection.”
He finally looked at me properly, eyes narrowed. “You collect stalkers?”
“Apparently,” I pulled my fishnets to keep my hands distracted from the current situation, and the earlier headfuck ofknowing that I’d not caught Missy’s killer yet, and now it might have been too late. “Some girls collect shoes or degrees. I get psychos. Which has been great so far, but my previous stalker did laundry and cooked. This one is not up to scratch.”
“Right.” He said nothing after that, just kept watching the ground like it had something more interesting to say.
“Well, I know you’ve been here a while, but we’ll be out soon.” I filled the silence again because silence was torture. “I’m not worried. My boyfriends will find me.”
That got his attention again. “Boyfriends?”
“Yeah, plural,” I clicked my tongue. “Giovanni’s one of them. He’s mafia but not the gross kind. Flirty, talks too much, thinks he’s charming—and he is, but I’d never say that to his face. We do this thing where I pretend to hate him, and he likes it.” My throat got tight, hands shook. “He’ll call in every favor he’s ever owed to find me and use his gang. And then there’s Atlas. He’s the other one. Hitman, hacker, scary as hell to other people, but super smart and sweet to me. He’ll have me tracked already. He’d never let anyone hurt me or keep me in the dirt like a pretty pre-corpse.”
Brick stayed quiet, still not giving much away as I forced myself to focus on my own words.
They were true. Gio would help find me with his gang ties. Atlas would find me himself.
I gave it twenty minutes before I saw a ghost mask bursting through the door, and all our enemies dead.
Thirty minutesmax.
I looked back up at the ceiling vent, forcing my brain to keep working instead of panicking. “Missy,” I said out loud, like she could hear me. “You always said I’d end up in some creepy guy’s basement. Guess you were wrong. It’s a creepy lady’s basement. So technically, you owe me twenty bucks and were a terrible feminist. Turns out women can be kidnappers too.”
The guy across the room finally made a sound—a short snort, quiet but still very much real.
I grinned. “So you can laugh, Brick?Nice.”
He shook his head, green eyes rolling. “You’re a strange little thing.”
“Thanks,” I pretended that my heartbeat wasn’t louder than my headache. “I try.”
He opened his mouth, then the lock on the door clicked. Metal scraped; a key twisted. We both looked up as light spilled in, bright enough to make my eyes water, as hope blossomed in my chest.
Then swiftly died.
A woman stepped inside. She wore black jeans, a fitted shirt, gloves, combat boots, and a black balaclava with little devil horns stitched on top. She stopped just inside the doorway, tilted her head, and I swore she smiled under the mask.
“Hello, beautiful,” she purred at me, her faint Russian accent making my heart hurt more. “I think it’s time us girls had a little chat.”
Chapter Two, Worst Man Alive
The strange woman was loud. She had refused to be silent since waking up and looked like a violent rainbow. Bright enough to make me squint.
I presumed she was in her early twenties at best, which was why I kept my eyes firmly on her ever-running mouth, and not on her clothes. Even if she was too much for a man who’d been stuck in the dark and quiet.
Her legs were covered in black fishnets, and her ‘outfit’ was some form of lace underwear thing. Tiny shorts, a low-cut top, and most of her tanned skin on display. I had no idea what she’d been doing before her kidnapping, but she’d clearly been enjoying it.
Enjoying it far more than I’d been enjoying myself lately. Even more so now that I knew I’d missed my thirty-fifth birthday last month because I was too busy being in a dungeon.
