Page 56 of Thief

“I said, look at me!”

Carlos pried open his beady black eyes.

“I’ll ask you one more time, then your shit-for-brains hit the desk. Where. Is. My. Porsche?”

Carlos stared straight into John’s dark, steady gaze. When he said nothing, he was treated to another sharp dig in the head with the gun.

“Iwillkill you, do you think I won’t?” John said quietly and calmly.

Carlos squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ll tell you,” he muttered. “I’ll tell you alright. Just get the hell off me.”

“Talk!”

“West Hampstead.” Sticky white spittle clung like a cobweb between Carlos’s lips. He clenched the desk, the letters h-a-t-e standing out on his knuckles as the blood drained from the skin.

“Address?”

“I dunno. I…I can’t fucking remember.”

The trigger on the gun flexed—a deadly click.

“132 Priestly Ave. 132 Priestley.”

“Yeah,” John said. “And what damn colour is it now?”

“I dunno. I can’t fucking remember stuff like that that,” Carlos whined. “Honest. I got no idea.” He banged his fist on the table in frustration, a small, futile act of defiance.

“Would a bullet to your fat leg jog your memory?” John removed the gun from Carlos’s temple and shoved it to the back of his thigh, folding it deep into the soft, giving flesh and feeling hugely tempted to pull the trigger anyway. It would feel good to send a bullet ricocheting into the prick who’d had Kat doing his disgusting dirty work and been just about to…

Bastard.

“B-blue, it’s blue. Metallic blue.”

John pulled up, leaving a grovelling Carlos slumped on the desk, his arm hanging formlessly towards the floor. He looked at Kat shrinking into the corner with a sheet-white face and her wide eyes unblinking.

He shoved the gun into his waistband again and held out his hand. “Come on.

She didn’t move. Not a muscle.

“Time to go, Pussy Cat,” he said in a gentler voice.

Kat kept her eyes fixed on Carlos, who was pushing up from the desk with his one good arm.

Carlos then shifted towards her with his right arm hanging at a weird, unnatural angle and the other fist clenching and unclenching. His face was contorted with pain, hate, and vengeance—all directed Kat’s way.

John took a step towards him and, in an effortless movement, knocked both Carlos’s feet out from under him.

Carlos hit the floor, landing flat onto his dislocated arm, the entirety of his own body weight slamming onto the twisted limb. His face puffed up, and he screamed like a wild man.

Perfect.

John leant down. He waited until the scream had died to a whimper then spoke in a deadly tone. “Stay away from Kat or you’ll have me to deal with, and I promise on my mother’s grave, if I have to see you again, you’re dead. Do you hear me?”

Carlos said nothing.

“Do you fucking hear me?” John shouted and lifted his boot ready to slam into Carlos’ head.

Carlos nodded frantically.

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