Page 45 of Deadly Obsession

He grins smugly and shakes his head, almost laughing.No way. I’ve got to admire his confidence. His helping me only affirms he thinks there’s something to find. He wouldn’t risk it otherwise, right?

I hold up the laptop screen for him to see through the hatch. “What now?”

He rolls his eyes and points at the search bar at the top of the screen like I’m a total dummy.

“How am I meant to know it’s the same as websites?” I mutter.

He clears his throat to catch my attention and writes a note:

Put your search terms inside a *

“I’m not a complete idiot,” I say, quickly adding in the stars before he sees I missed them.

I search for Christopher Trout.

No results.

“Nothing.” I sigh. “See?

If he’s sent me on a wild goose chase, I’ll break into his cell and strangle him.

Bram scribbles:

Try Fishy.

Bile rises in my throat just thinking about his nickname. Fishy is what Spencer used to call him. I swap out the search term, and my heart drops into my stomach when it returns one result.

With shaking fingers, I glide the cursor to the text and click it. When I do, a client profile appears. My stomach lurches—okay, I couldreallyvomit this time seeing Christopher Trout’s face staring back. The leering son of a bitch who raped and killed my sister deserves to die.

Bram knocks on the door, but I can’t look away from the screen. I scroll, reading through his personal details and a list of all the jobs the Killers Club has completed for him. There are names on there I recognise. Names of marks I’ve killed. People I’ve killed for him!

Bram knocks again, louder this time.

“What?” I retort. His gaze softens as his eyes meet mine, making my skin crawl. “Don’t look at me like that!”

He raises his eyebrows.Like what?

He can shove his pity right up his fucking arse. My entire life has been blown to smithereens with a simple search, just like the bomb that tore Lord McGowan apart limb from limb. There’s no returning from this.

I thought Alaric was my saviour and looked up to him like a father figure. He reassured me that he had my best interests at heart and told me we were waiting until I had control of my anger to work through my hit list, but everything was a lie.

A name on the bottom of the job list makes my stomach churn.Anthony Steel. The date next to the job matches when Alaric said I could start working through my list. He never thought I was ready or that enough time had passed. No, it was always about the club. He knew I wanted to kill Anthony and used it to his advantage. If he’s done this, what else is he capable of?

I’ve seen enough. I key in the command Bram taught me to shut everything down, then slam the laptop shut, resisting the urge to hurl it across the dungeon.

I’ve always known the Killers Club worked for bad people. Yet, I always saw us as helping to restore balance. I thought a minimum requirement for taking on a client would at least involve not killing an agent’s family member.

Bram slides a note under the door.

Are you okay?

“Am I okay?” I take a deep breath to compose myself, but it doesn’t help me from feeling like I’ve run a marathon. “What kind of question is that?” I hiss. “I’ve found out the club I’ve sworn my allegiance to is working for the man who killed my sister.”

He tilts his head to the right.What did you expect?

“I knew they weren’t perfect.” I’m not naïve. We’re assassins, not soup kitchen volunteers. But, whenever I killed someone, I knew it benefited others and the people I murdered weren’t innocent either. “But to be working with him…” My bottom lip starts to tremble, and I sink my teeth into it to stop it. Bram can’t see me like that. “Alaric knows what he did.”

A war rages on inside my head. I want to scream! I want to tear this whole place down! I want to find Alaric and kill him myself! He’s a liar and a manipulator. He’s been using me—all of us—as his puppets for years. Bram was right; loyalty doesn’t exist. The Killers Club doesn't care about us.

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