Page 15 of F*ck Steal Kill

Was it because of Mr. Magic Fingers?

Or perhaps Max was someone I didn’t know if I could fuck and pretend to be someone I wasn’t? He had a way of looking into my eyes and seeing my soul. I was worried if he looked too closely, he’d find all the dark and twisted things I’d done in my life in order to survive and wouldn’t like me then.

Though that wasn’t entirely accurate. It hadn’t always been merely to survive. A certain percentage of me enjoyed punishing bad people, stealing from the corrupt, and fucking without feelings. It kept things clean and simple. I only had two people I cared about in my life, and they were in this room.

“So, should I reach out to our hopeless savage?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

“Might as well. Never hurts to get more information. In the meantime, we need to pick our next three for the week. Who are the contenders?” Lacey asked, pulling out her tablet.

Joy kept dusting, ensuring not to touch any of the occupant's belongings. She was humming a song, almost like she was in her own world.

“There were three kill requests,” I said, keeping an eye on Joy. I had a feeling I knew which one would make the list this week, but as part of our rules, I read them all off to be voted on. “The first is for a cheating boyfriend. The requester wants him to lose an appendage.”

“My favorite type,” Lacey said, rubbing her hands together. The sound caught Joy’s attention, and she turned, looking between us.

“What did I miss?” she asked, blinking her big eyes.

“A reverse pig in a blanket. I haven’t gotten to the other two yet.”

“Ah, those are always fun,” Joy said, chuckling. She sat in the chair next to the bed, motioning for me to continue.

“The second one concerns a woman whose boss continues to deny her request for time off so she can take her sick child to his chemo appointments.”

“What a bitch. I’d do that one for free,” Joy said, sitting forward. I had a feeling she’d feel that way. She had a penchant for sick kids, having been one herself.

“She just wants her boss to have some payback. Her car towed, her identity stolen, suddenly gets bed bugs, etc.” I shrugged. “The basic bitch package.”

“So, what’s the last one? These have both been usual winners, which means the last one has to be a doozy for you to leave it,” Lacey surmised, eyeing me as she typed in her notes.

“You know me,” I said, smiling until I remembered the request. “A flying-the-coop request came in. A woman’s husband continues to beat her every time she tries to leave, to the point she doesn’t know if she can. We’re her last hope before she takes things into her own hands and ends her life. We need to fake her death and help her escape with a new identity.”

They both cursed, sitting forward. “What do we know?”

I filled them in on the details that had been sent over. As we finished the last of the room, we created a system to dig for more information so we could do all of them. Taking on multiple jobs at one time meant we all had to agree and have a solid plan in place or risk making an error. And mistakes got you killed, caught, or hurt.

We’d be busy over the next few days, drilling in the reality of our lives. Murdering schemes didn’t leave extra time for relationships, and why fucking was part of the list. So, I pushed thoughts of cute nerdy guys, bathroom bad boys, and mysterious elevator men aside so I could focus on my job.

I was a serious businesswoman, after all—even if it was at murdering people.

CHAPTER 6

MAX

Placing the new towels on top of the other ones, I picked up the shampoo and conditioner, smiling at them. When I realized I was grinning at hair care products, I stopped, trying to control my face.

But she’d given them to me, and that was something. Women didn’t often notice me, so the fact she’d flirted back had felt nice.

Pocketing them, I decided to hide them so Q wouldn’t know I opened the door. Not that he could have ignored the beautiful woman standing there, either. It was just easier sometimes to follow Quentin’s rules. It kept us safer, which was important in our line of work.

As I fiddled with the bottles, I knew it was something more than that. For the first time in our friendship, I wanted to keep something purely for me.

Q had been my best friend for so long that it was hard to remember a time when he didn’t know everything about me. It was a blessing and a curse. I sometimes worried he only saw me as that scrawny kid who needed him as a protector, not the man I’d grown into.

There was something about Holland that felt special, and I wanted to protect it. Not listen to him ruin it by listing all the cons of why it would never work. Why relationships weren’t for us.

I couldn’t help being the only hopeless romantic in our group, refusing to hook up with strangers in every town we traveled to like they often did. Or at least, I assumed they had. It wasn’t like we sat around and talked about our sexual conquests.

Sighing, I sat back on the bed, pulling the longest relationship I’d ever had onto my lap—my MacBook. My computer had never failed me, and I could always count on code to lead me to the right answer.

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