Page 94 of Dark OZ

With a dismissive sound of disgust, I lifted my head to look at him fully. I told Berret to return with either a head or an emerald in hand, and he currently held neither. Rather, he was holding a tablet, and the palor of his skin had paled to a sickly grey, as spineless men always did in my presence.

“There were complications.”

“Show me, Orin.” I snapped in the air and crooked my finger. If he had to interrupt me, then the least he could do was be quick about it. All this pussyfooting around was giving me a headache and ruining my buzz.

His eyes flicked hesitantly to the foot of the chaise. “Madam, I think this is best discussed in—”

“I don’t ask for things twice.”

The leader of the Winged Monkeys sidled warily to my side, intently keeping his eyes on his shoes as he approached. Smart boy.

He quickly tapped the screen, pulling up several angles of surveillance footage from the Emerald City Central Bank. Our source had tipped us off to the emerald exchange happening at the historic bank. Orin had one simple job, retrieve my emerald and kill the girl—not necessarily in that order. Twice now he’d failed me.

“I practically gift wrapped this hit for you. How exactly did you manage to fuck it up?”

The footage appeared to be old, by several hours. He should have brought it to me immediately, I’d killed men for less. Zooming in, I watched Dorothy follow the bank manager to the vault elevator, hesitating for several long seconds before entering. Was it being below ground or small spaces that unnerved her? I’d file that under possibly useful information.

“Fast forward an hour,” Orin leaned over my arm and tapped the corner of the screen.

A bomb blew apart the front corner of the bank. The heat of the blast turned the copper of the dome bright red. Whole sections broke free of their mountings, spilling in large globs of molten metal and glass onto the screaming bank patrons.

“That’s a shame. The bank was a beautiful building.”

“Keep watching.”

Glowing beams of laser sites cut through the smoke, quickly shooting everything that moved. They didn’t bother assessing their targets, perfectly fine with a massacre so long as it got the job done. Ruthless, but efficient. I couldn’t say that I disapproved, except that it had apparently fucked up my own plans.

“Those aren’t my men.” Orin pointed at the masked mercenaries swarming the floor and taking up new attack positions, one of which waited directly in front of the elevator doors.

How in Oz had this other team gotten tipped off about the bank drop?

Orin clucked his tongue. “This team is sloppy. WM hits have more finesse.”

“For all the good they’ve done. Maybe next time you should try the bloodbath approach.”

Skipping further in the footage, Dorothy remerged from the vault behind a wall of blazing gunfire and fighting muscle. Say what you will about those boys, they definitely were good at what they did. Precise headshots dropped person after person. Sending a small army to apprehend one girl might have felt like overkill, but this obviously wasn’t enough.

“What happened to Eastin’s emerald?” I fingered my own, looped on a long chain between my breasts.

“From the readings, it remained in the vault. Thanks to the bug we placed in the YBR cab, we know that they think the emerald is untraceable. It’s given us a keen advantage, but all of our information tells us that it’s still in the basement of the bank.”

Anger and frustration boiled within me. The E.C. Bank vault was the single most secure location in all of Oz. We had fuck all chances of retrieving the emerald now. The only one who’d be able to access that vault would be Dorothy, or someone with her key and code.

With a foot into the neck of the young man kneeling between my spread legs, I kicked him away. He made a pathetic sound as he fell back to the ground, sliding his bare ass across the marble with a squeak.

“You were boring me.” I rolled my eyes, not bothering to look at his dejected puppy expression. What was his name? Adam…Alex…It didn’t matter.

“Mr. Courtland—” The guard at the door met my gaze. I pointed dismissively at Aaron…or Avery… “This one is to be removed from my vessel, immediately. He wouldn’t know how to properly tongue a cunt if it was made of lollipops.”

Courtland looked between me and the boy. “Madam, we’re currently at sea.”

I blinked at the man. Of course we were at sea, we were on a massive fucking yacht. What were we going to do, stay in port and wait for the hit teams to come to us? “I don’t see how that is my concern.”

The young man, Andy? No, that wasn’t it either. Mr. Flacid Tongue made a tiny whimpering noise. He might have been begging, but I stopped caring and didn’t really hear him anyway. He crawled back to my feet, clinging to my ankles like a toddler throwing a fit.

I kicked free of his hands. “I’ve heard enough. Take…Ah—” I snapped at…Anthony? “What’s your name again?”

“Roger.”

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