Blood to Dust(72)

“Put the gun down.” I hear Nate’s low growl dripping authority and immediately come to the depressing realization that I needed someone like him all this time. If he were by my side when I first tried to take my enemies down, they’d be long gone by now. “The chick behind me has two Magnums, and she won’t hesitate to make Swiss cheese out of your saggy ass if you point that shit at me. Pull your sleeve up and gimme your arm.”

“And why the hell would I do that?” The muscle man panics, waving the gun in the air but not at anyone in particular. “Whaddaya’ need my arm for?”

“Baby-Cakes,” Nate signals for me to come closer. The broken armed guy foams out of his mouth, gagging as my lethal cocktail fills his blood stream with pure venom, but Candy Crush can’t see it, since his friend’s upper body is spilling out of the window in the opposite direction. I eat up the space to Nate and the armed muscle guy. “Tell the man why you need his arm.”

“So I can poison you,” I smirk. The guy turns around and tries to bolt for the apartment building, but Nate hooks his fingers into the back of his collar and swings him effortlessly into a back alley behind a local restaurant. Muscle Man is slammed against a trash dumpster and crashes to the ground. Nate picks up his gun and unloads the revolver, throwing the weapon into the trash.

We could have used that gun.

I know he says guns are for pussies, but what the hell does he think I have between my legs, an In-N-Out Burger?

“Give me the keys to his apartment,” Nate barks at Seb’s bodyguard, his voice uncharacteristically loud.

“I don’t have them.”

Kick to the stomach. Muscle Guy rolls into the fetal position, wincing and hugging his middle. Nate picks him up, opens the heavy lid to the dumpster and shoves his face into it. The guy’s limbs are flailing. He can’t breathe. Lifting the lid, Nate yanks him up by his hair, and the guy gasps, gulping oxygen.

“Keys, *. Don’t make me fondle you.”

“I don’t have keys to his place!”

Another kick, this time straight to the face. Blood. Blood and dust everywhere. The scent of his life seeping away makes me gag and shiver, but on the outside, I’m leaning a shoulder against the wall, crossing my arms and snickering.

This guy didn’t flinch when Seb kidnapped me from that Oakland Street.

“Do you want to know what it feels like when your organs explode from the inside? It’s about to happen.”

“I told you! I. Don’t. Have. . .”

Another kick, this one to his back, but he doesn’t scream and writhe this time, which makes me put a hand on Nate’s lower back. Peace can be violent. I’ve learned that from my short time with him.

“Baby, time is wasting. He’s not worth killing. Let’s go.”

My lover squats down and looks through the guy’s jeans to see if he has the key. He doesn’t. I think the man is either out or dead, but we don’t bother checking as we make our way back to the main street.

We wait patiently behind a giant plant decorating the entrance of the building, and once a drunken man in a suit uses the touch-screen keypad and pushes the front door open, we muscle our way in, shoving him deeper inside. We bustle into a lobby that’s probably wired with countless cameras. Doesn’t matter, as our faces are covered down to our necks. My Frankenstein mask is anything but sexy, but it does the job.

“What the. . .?” The young, suited man stumbles his way past the plush sofas and toward the elevators, and we follow him, Nate holding the middle of his dress shirt like he’s a dog on a leash, jabbing the elevator button with his gloved finger.

“Good evening, Sir.” Nate’s voice is as cheery as his Guy Fawkes mask. “Had a good time tonight?”

The guy stares at him with eyes like two, shiny moons and nods his head slowly, not paying me any attention. Despite my scary mask, you can still see that I’m small, curvy and a woman.

The silver doors slide open and the three of us walk into the elevator, Nate still holding the poor guy by his shirt.

“Floor?” he asks politely.

“Two.” The guy’s throat bobs, and our masks turn toward one another in a silent celebration.

“That’s exactly where we’re heading. What apartment does Sebastian Goddard live in?”

The guy’s lips are pursed. He’s looking at Beat’s mask with fear, watered down by suspicion. “Look,” he starts. “I don’t want any trouble. . .”

The elevator pings again, and Nate thrusts him into the hallway of the second floor in a firm shove. “I believe you. Which is why you should start singing right about now. Apartment number?”

“But. . .”

“Number, kiddo.”

“I don’t know,” the guy exhales. He’s lying. It’s that little twitch in his lips that gives him away. The building complex is small, and there are no more than ten apartments on every floor.

“Let’s try again.” Nate throws the guy’s back into the wall, hard enough to break a bone or two. “This time, we’ll use a little thing called honesty, okay? Keep in mind that it’s late, and my companion has a curfew. She should be in my bed in approximately forty minutes, and every minute I’m here, talking to you instead of f*cking her, is a terrible inconvenience for us both.”