Page 10 of Shockproof

“He said like Kayley on prom night.”

The reference to his twin sister who opted to go out of town for a spelling bee tournament instead of dealing with spiked punch and bad music sparks a smile, although it doesn’t quite reach my expression.

Reynolds rests his back against the wall upon his return. “Who’s Kayley?”

Not critical information for him to have at this time.

I shift my stare over to the problem we’ve got strapped to a chair and continue to interrogate, “Why were you still here? There was plenty of time between when we left and when we got back that should’ve had you completely done with this op. Why the delay? Why the fuck were you still here?” Watching his eyes begin to roll back into his head has me delivering two hard slaps to the side of his face, metal scraping into the skin, creating new scratches alongside the ones already established. “Eyes. Open. Shitbreath.”

An unpleasant grumble is given as he finds my glare yet again.

“Why the fuck were you still here?”

“Traffic.”

“What?”

“On m-m-my way back there was…an…an…an…accident on the freeway. Tried to get around it and ran into c-c-c-construction. Tried to get aroundthatand…and…and…went on a lengthy fucking de-de-detour. Then…I got…I got…everyredlight.” He sneers in disgust and frustration alike. “It was like…like…like…shit just…k-k-k-kept getting in the w-w-w-way.”

Or like angels were answering prayers.

Doing the exact thing we light candles for every night.

Protectingher.

Protecting the one person, I consider to be a piece ofme.

The most important piece.

“And then wh-wh-when Ifinallygot back here…the signal scrambler they gave me to deal with security communications –which was left inside the cereal box– wasn’t working, so I h-h-had to wait for that shit to get smoothed out.”

“What a clusterfuck,” Reynolds snorts in amusement.

“O-o-only reason I d-d-didn’t just…abandon the whole thing was b-b-b-because I had already b-b-b-been paid.”

The unexpected drop of information has me quirking an eyebrow. “In full?”

Our prisoner rapidly shakes his head. “H-h-half now. H-h-half after the job was done.”

His choice of words has me clenching the weapons in my grasp tighter and preparing to forgo the foraging for information to obliterate the person who came to kill the love of my life.

“Dead or…alive…contracts…get so…so…so…messy…” he lets his voice and head sink towards the ground until a harsh backhand straightens out his curling spine. “Fuck!”

“Pimp slaps always hurt,” Reynolds nonchalantly announces. “No brass knuckles required for that shit to be true.”

I palm his entire, blue-shaded face with my hand making sure to dig my fingers sharply into the crevices they land into for maximum pain. “Tell me somethin’ worth hearin’, or I’ll rip off your ears to guarantee you never hear a fuckin’ thing again.”

“Tyson style,” the other male in the room jeers.

“Talk.”

“I-I-I-I didn’t have a good feeling about this shit, okay?!” Our detainee tries to shout, prompting me to drop my grip. “All the…traffic shit just left a b-b-bad taste in my mouth, so when I-I-I-I got back to the building I used the burner phone that was also left for me in the cereal box to send a text to the only number on the phone. Thesamenumber I was supposed to s-s-s-send proof of completion to.” He makes sure to bore his hooded eyes into mine. “And f-f-f-for the record I wasn’t gonna k-k-kill her. I don’t kill.”

There’s no stopping a sardonic expression from crossing my hardened face. “You had a gun.”

“People don’t listen the same when you point a taser at them.”

Fair point.

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