Page 109 of Dangerous Men

“How’d it go?” I ask Viper, keeping my voice neutral and unconcerned as I lean against the tiled wall.

“It went.” Viper grins. One by one, his instruments go into a white gallon bucket, which he carries to the industrial sink. “Seneca is ours.”

“No issues?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Viper chuckles. He hums to himself as he opens a jug of haemoscrub, an enzymatic cleaner made for dissolving blood, and scoops some into the bucket. Hot water comes next, and after they soak, he’ll spend the next hour or so carefully scrubbing every one of his tools clean.

Viper may be crazy, but at least he follows my rules for a clean and orderly torture.

“Sterling has another job for you,” I say, keeping my face blank and tone even. Practiced. “But it’s an easy one.”

I hope I’m imagining the almost imperceptible way Viper tenses. I must be, because his tone is completely unchanged as he asks, “Oh? What job?”

“Anthony Reicher,” I tell him, giving no other information.

Anthony has been a pain in our side for months, a mid-level thug constantly needling us with small acts of disobedience. But he’s so low on our radar that he’s been little more than a nuisance, a small ignorable annoyance we haven’t bothered to deal with.

And just this morning, someone sent Anthony a whisper through back channels that it was time to up and run. He’s had a long head start to buy us time.

A perfect distraction.

Viper laughs.

“What did Anthony finally do to piss off the big man enough to get me involved?”

I shrug, even though Viper can’t see it. The movement is casual, unconcerned. It’s the shrug of someone with nothing to hide, no secrets to keep. It’s perfect.

“Don’t know,” I lie. “But Sterling wants him gone. As soon as possible.”

Bait.

That’s what Alec wants. He wants to buy a little more timeto ease Sydney into our world. He sees her as too breakable right now, too fragile, to handle Viper, just as I had. But…

I’ve seen it. Little flashes of what lies beneath her innocent exterior. She’s not as weak as she pretends to be, not as pure of heart, no matter how much she wants to think she is.

“Consider it done,” Viper tells me, reaching into the near-boiling water to pull out one of his tools and start his cleaning. I turn, moving toward the exit, when Viper adds, “You can tell the boss I’m giving it my full, undivided attention.”

His laughter follows me out and into the hall.

38

SYDNEY

The next morningI wake up wanting nothing more than to cancel.

I don’t want to go to another of these barbecues. Katie and her husband throw a few of them every summer, inviting our gang from college, their friends and acquaintances from work, and all their favorite neighbors from their ritzy neighborhood. I used to think I enjoyed them. It was a chance to work on perfecting that persona I’d curated so carefully over the years. I would laugh at the right times and chat with the right people, I’d stand quietly beaming up at Chase once he started joining in.

Those parties were a way to prove I wasn’t a dark, twisted person. I was perfect. Sweet.

Maybe that’s why I feel so stressed about going now. I feel like I’m becoming something new, maybe not the angry girl I was when I was younger, but maybe not that perfectly curated version of myself, either. I don’t have the energy for that version of me anymore, I realize.

But this newer version of me is so fresh, I’m not sure how to act. How tobe.

And even worse, this will be the first barbecue I’m attending without Chase. The first one I’ve been invited to since we broke up.

Sure, my friends were bad back then, constantly nagging me about when we’d be getting married and if we were planning to have kids. But at least my relationship with Chase was something they approved of.

Not like every other decision I’ve made.