Page 76 of Cunning Lies

“What about Patrick Petrus?” I swallow a lump in my throat. “Vivian Petrus?”

“Not ringing a bell.”

It’s the tail end of summer, over a hundred degrees. The blue sky is a goddamn insulting tease. I can kill this CEO for irritating me. It’s technically in my future plans anyway; I can make Legendary Analysis our next corporate payout,orI can murder this asshole. Let him die for Vi’s lies.

But that’s just it. It’s a fucking lie. And killing him would only prove that I believe the lies she’s feeding me.

“Who are they?” the CEO asks. “The Petruses.”

I clear my throat, running a hand over my jaw. My composure is slipping one drop at a time.

The Petruses are supposed to be my legal family. Vi is supposed to be my wife.

But she’s a liar. A traitor. And she’s beenusingme. Yet I’m still here, indulging in her lies.

I need to do something before I rip this kid’s head off.

“No one,” I say. I get up and offer my hand. “Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice.” We part ways, but then I spin around. “Oh, one more thing—” I wait until he’s completely turned toward me. “Make it worth my while not to tell the rest of the investors about your high stakes poker games. I want your company to succeed, but I can’t do that if I’m not happy.”

He gawks at me and I walk out of the building, smoothing my suit jacket. I’ve got to get this itch out of my body before I do something stupid, like fuck Vi again. I’m losing my mind.

I call Dice. “Send me an address,” I say. “I feel like enforcing today.”

As soon as I hang up, my phone vibrates and I race between the cars, the itch building like hives. I need to kill and get this out of my system. Someone needs to die, and apparently, it’s not going to be the startup CEO.Or Vi.

So I find this middle-class rental in Henderson. A single-story with a bright green plastic lawn. I scan the doorway as I reread the information Dice sent.

Single man. Owes money to our casino. Tried to pilfer his gun.

He’s armed, then.

I crack my neck, sliding my gloves over my hands and grabbing my own gun. This should be simple. An easy kill.

But god, I want him to feel everything. My frustration. My rage.

My fucking desperation.

A man with a silver cropped hair opens the door. He’s my height, but softer than me. He opens his mouth to greet me but I punch him back into the house, kicking the door closed behind us. He grabs for his gun and I shoot his hand. He wails.

“You yakuza son-of-a-bitch!” he shouts.

I smack the back of the gun into his face and blood oozes from his bottom lip, his cheeks jiggling. He cracks his neck, renewed with vigor. He punches me and I let him, only so that I can jab him deep in the stomach. He whimpers and I take his gun, shoving it to his face. I want him dead right fucking now.

“You don’t fuck with the Endo-kai,” I warn.

I shoot him in the forehead, his body slumping down before me. The blood oozes on the hardwood, and I let the silence rock through me. I kick the corpse until he’s on his back, then I send a quick mass text to our cleanup crew, then another to Dice, thanking him for letting me take his job.

Be there soon,he texts.

My head aches. Why is he coming? Does he think I need a babysitter right now?

Dice arrives, taking up the whole hallway, and nods at me. I acknowledge him with a dip of my chin. Usually, I’d usually slap him on the back and brag about the whole experience. Even if he’s silent as a ghost, I can usually get a playful grunt out of him, but I don’t have the energy for that.

I rub my forehead. This corpse—whoever he was—was always going to die. Vi should be just like him.

But she’s still alive.

The cleanup crew arrives—thewakashudo as they’re told without question, even if that means cleaning up a bloody mess. You get good at cleaning blood out of carpets before you make it to enforcing.