Page 43 of Pretty Dark Vows

I slip behind the wheel and run my hands over the smooth leather covering the steering wheel, my body humming with the power I’m holding even before I turn the key.

“You know you’re just as bad as I am,” Dante comments as I back out of the garage. “Hell, the speeds you like to push it to? Maybe worse.”

It’s true. I do drive fast. Fast and aggressively.

“It’s not about speed,” I tell him. “It’s about precision.”

“I’ll give you that,” he says with a laugh as I thread through traffic, analyzing the driving patterns around us and overlaying my knowledge of the city’s grid to get us to the casino by the most efficient possible route.

Our destination is on the outskirts of Halston, and by the look of the parking lot, it’s not crowded. Not surprising, since the night is still pretty young and the place is a bit of a shit hole even at the best of times. Its current patrons are mostly the sad, compulsive gambler crowd who’ve probably been here since the sun was high and look pathetic at any time of day… but in my opinion, even more so under the cheap patina of glitz and mystique that the casino tries to put on at night.

It disgusts me. The stains on the carpet. The smell of cheap booze, stale sweat, and empty desperation that permeate the air.

Theydisgust me. They’ve got no control over themselves, and unlike me, they don’t even try to master their basest impulses.

We head to the back, striding side by side. Mario’s security makes a half-assed attempt to slow us down when we pass through the discreet doors marked as employee only, but they back off quickly when we deploy some of the tools at our disposal to convince them it’s not in their best interests.

Dante gives me a look when we reach the closed door to Mario’s office, reminding me with a single glance why he’s one of the two people on this earth that I trust enough to kill for on his word alone.

I should hate everything about him. He’s the polar opposite of me… on the outside.

But inside?

Dante truly is my brother. We share certain traits that make words completely unnecessary for the two of us to understand each other.

We burst in, and Mario lets out a frightened shout. He scrambles up from his desk, tipping over the chair he was sitting in as he backs away, his face going pale with fear.

Fear is a valid response. Maybe the man isn’t quite as stupid as I’d assumed.

Dante and I slide around the desk with smooth coordination, boxing him in. I slide a small, lethal blade out of the wrist sheath I always wear and hold it to his throat as Dante frisks him, removing a weapon from a side holster.

Just one.

The man is a joke.

A joke whose mouth won’t stop moving.

He’s dripping with whiny excuses and the rancid stench of panic. He fits right in with the disgusting patrons of his establishment… and I’m going to need a second shower once we’re through here.

“If you piss yourself, I’ll gut you,” I inform him courteously, flicking a second blade free from its sheath at my lower back and using the tip to trace the pattern of his intestines through the strained fabric of his dress shirt.

Not to scare him, but simply to map out his vital organs.

The fear is a useful side effect, though.

“N-n-no,” Mario stutters, shaking so hard he almost disembowels himself without my intervention needed at all. “Please. I’m… I’m sure we can work something out.”

I’m sure we can too, but I’ll leave that part to Dante.

And it doesn’t change the fact that if the man defiles me with his urine, I’ll make him bleed.

I always keep my word.

“You’re sure, are you?” Dante asks, cocking his head to the side as he smiles at the man. “’Cause that’s not the impression you gave me over the phone.”

It’s a beautiful smile. So… disarming. How no one ever seems to see the sinister promise of violence-when-necessary underneath Dante’s personable exterior never ceases to amaze me.

Then again, people as a rule are stupid.

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