Page 73 of His Puppet

“You know, I’m not super confident in our agreement for you to keep your mouth shut,” he says, trying to be lighthearted but not able to mask the nervousness.

“If I didn’t know you any better, Victor, I’d say you were scared.”

He laughs, but again, it comes out nervous.

“Just leave me the hell alone for the rest of the time we’re together, and I won’t say anything to Blade.” I mean it, but mostly because I don’t want to go ripping open old wounds.

I don’t care what Blade did to his mother. Not after hearing what she did to him. Fuck her. Fuck anyone who has ever hurt him.

Anger rises in my chest, and I find myself wishing I could go back and kill them all myself. It’s a foreign feeling, so it takes me a moment to realize it’s protectiveness that’s making my heart beat faster. I’ve always been on my own, never caring for anyone but myself. That’s all changed.I’mchanged.

Do I like this?

I don’t have a chance to think about it because Victor parallel parks on a light-trafficked street and shuts the car off. Up ahead is the bar I’m guessing we’re supposed to be going to. Except it’s actually a pub and has a neon sign in the shape of a clover.

“Show time,” Victor says, reaching over me and popping open the glove box. I push into the seat as much as I can to keep him from touching me, and when he laughs, I glare.

He pulls out a velvet bag, like one a miniature liquor bottle comes in, and tosses it in my lap. It’s damp, and I stare at it confused. He pulls out a gun next and slams the glovebox closed with it. Leaning back, he tips the gun at me and winks before putting it behind his back and into the waistband of his jeans. He pulls his shirt down over it and wags his brows. “Let’s go.”

He opens the car door and walks around while I eye the black bag in my hand, feeling the weight of it and squinting like I’ll be able to see the object inside through the velvet. Victor opens my door for me, and I step out.

“What’s in here?” I ask, pointing my squinted eyes up at him.

He shrugs. “You can look if you want.”

Don’t do it.

Don’t.

Don’t.

I pull the bag open to peek inside. The first thing I notice is the fleshy smell the object gives off and the white bone surrounded by red, bloodied tissue. Nearly melted ice cubes encompass it.

A finger.

The large, sparkly diamond wrapped around the pale appendage shines morbidly, and I quickly close the bag and drop it at my side, my instincts telling me to hide it.

Victor laughs beside me. “You’re pale again.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I growl, whipping my head toward him.

He chuckles but faces forward, a satisfied smirk on his face. I want to ask if she’s alive so badly, but I already know it wouldn’t be a good idea. She’s either dead or a prisoner somewhere, and neither would be satisfying to hear.

I shouldn’t have looked in the fucking bag.

Victor stops me outside of the pub, and he puts his hands on my shoulders, removing them when I glower.

“I’ll do all the talking. You just need to put that in a man’s pocket without him noticing. Cool?”

I swallow and take a breath. This isn’t the type of crime I’m used to committing, but I’ll live.

This is life in the Gruco Crime Family.

“Which guy?”

“I’ll put my hand on your back when I speak to him so you’ll know which one.”

I glance at the door, then back to Victor, my walls raising up and my spine straightening like it does every time I’m about to do a job. “All right.”

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