Page 21 of Fear the Reapers

“What about the therapist? What happened with him? I’m sure he’s wondering why we missed our last two appointments.”

One of the first contracts I had worked on with Dimitri involved a sex therapist who made off with millions after murdering his female clients. A client of his, who enjoyed the smoky atmosphere of Heaven’s Lace, Cole Andretti’s exclusive gentlemen’s club, had hired us. Before we punished the therapist for his transgressions, we wanted to collect as much information as we could about his clients for future use.

“At first, we all thought it might have been the therapist that had you,” Dimitri responded.

Dimitri and I pretended to be a married couple with a lack of passion in our relationship. We’d had multiple appointments with Dr. Hundley, but he remained unmoved by our attempts to lure him into action.

“I’m glad you guys dealt with him. I don’t know how much more I could have handled him,” I groaned.

“We had no choice but to finish what we started,” Dimitri replied, then explained exactly what had gone down between the therapist and them.

They couldn’t exactly take him home after they had removed his fingernails and bent each finger back, breaking them one by one until they got every detail out of him. He would have confessed where the Holy Grail was if they hadn’t killed him. Despite all the stories we had heard about him, it was startling to hear how swiftly they were able to break him.

“How did you find me, anyway?”

“We had almost exhausted every option when Prez got a call from Cristobal Moreno. He told us about a shipment of girls trafficked to Granville that reportedly had a special item that they hoped would make them a fortune.”

I shook my head, the feeling of revulsion washing over me.

“Since when did the Crows work with the Cartel?” I asked. Whenever I thought of human traffickers, I felt a burning rage inside of me. When Andria Andretti suggested infiltrating the auction being put on by Auberto Di Maggio, one of the local capos, I was quick to form an alliance due to this one particular reason.

“Around the same point that the Bratva ceased providing them with women for their trafficking operation.”

“Why would they do that?”

“When Alexei learned we might be having problems with someone from the Crows organization, he stopped working with them.”

“Out of respect for you?”

“I don’t know. The more I learn about Alexei, the more I think he pisses people off for fun.”

“So then, what made Alexei get involved with finding me?” I asked Dimitri.

“I called him.”

“So, he just dropped everything, just like that, to help. From everything I know about him, he wouldn’t do anything for free.”

“If I haven’t shown you already, I would do anything for you,Kisa.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine, pulling back all too soon. They continued to treat me with kid gloves and had been since I came back.

I wasn’t happy about it.

“It’s my fault for being so foolish. I could have sent a text or told you what I had planned that night. We could have had regular check ins, instead of me just going off half-cocked.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dimitri assured me. “It’s not like you went out that night knowing you’d get kidnapped by your psycho stalker.”

“We still haven’t dealt with him,” I huffed.

“We have people out looking. A couple nights ago, someone spotted him in River City, but they haven’t seen him since.”

“So he left town then?”

“As far as we can tell, he hasn’t been seen here since you disappeared. We all thought he escaped to River City assuming the Crows will protect him.”

“They probably will. That night I saw him sitting at the table across from Loraine in her trailer.”

“We’re gonna kill him slowly,” he growled.

“That’s the plan,” I agreed.

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