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CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

PERRY

I’m starting to suspect there’s a very high probability that I cannot do this.

The fake handcuffs I’m wearing fakely feel a hell of a lot like real ones. I know they’re not. I’ve practiced with them, but after the Tommy betrayal, I’m not sure I trust Arlie’s word anymore. It’s lucky I met St. Clare because there’s no way I could marry her under these circumstances.

“You good?” Arlie asks, hauling me out of Tommy’s car.

It’s not like I can answer her around my gag, so I make a noise that hopefully translates as “yeah, great, just hoping you don’t double-cross me, but so long as you don’t, I’m fine.” Whatever she gets from the sounds that I’m making must satisfy her because she takes hold of my upper arm and marches us into Lethal Poison.

I flinch instinctively the second we hear those tiny bells announcing us, expecting any one of the people here to shoot me in the head. It doesn’t happen, which feels like a win, but I’m tense the whole time we cross the bar area until we reach the hallway to Luther’s office.

Then I’m even tenser.

Lethal Poison smells like it always smells, looks like it always looks, sounds, and feels like the warmth I always expect it to. Bad things don’t happen to the sound of “Miles on It,” even though I absolutely know that bad things start their happening here every day.

Arlie gives my arm another firm squeeze, and I’m torn between whether it’s supposed to be supportive or a warning. Either way, I’m both supported and warned as we head up the hall and reach Luther’s office. The heavy door is closed, and if he meant to intimidate me more, he’s succeeded.

Arlie casts a quick glance over me before she knocks.

I know how this is going to go down; we’ve been over it a million times in the last twenty-four hours, and everything up until my actual part in it is planned perfectly. It’s what they do. There’s nothing for me to worry about unless Luther suddenly decides that I’ll look better dead, which I wouldn’t completely put past him. I just have to hope that he’s still as fond of me as he’s always been.

“Come in!”

Suddenly not feeling the fondness. My gut clenches as Arlie inches open the door and pulls me through after her.

Luther is the only one here, gun on his desk, relaxed back in his chair as he watches us enter and take the seats across from him. There’s something curious in his stare as his eyes roam from Arlie to me and back again.

We wait him out. Arlie, because she has the patience of a saint, and me, because she had the good sense to gag me and make sure I can’t give anything away.

“Where’s Colin?” he finally asks after the silence has gone stale between us.

“Contained.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need more proof than that.”

Like it’s some huge imposition and not at all planned, Arlie logs into the security footage they set up and turns it so Luther can see. Even without a view of the screen, I know what it shows. Colin, bound and gagged like me, sitting in a chair in the middle of the warehouse we just left, with Ever standing over him, gun in his hand .

Arlie manages a smirk, which isn’t something she does lightly. “Ever isn’t happy that he doesn’t get to play with him.”

Luther goes on studying the screen. “After all the headaches this man has caused me, I want him dead already. No more fucking around.”

“Cool. Give me the address, and I’ll make the call.”

Luther freezes for a second before leaning back in his chair. “The deal was that you’d exchange them both.”

“Yeah, but I’m smarter than that. I brought this one”—she nods my way—“in good faith. Once I have the address, you can either choose for Everett to bring the job here or get rid of him immediately.”

Luther looks me over. ‘‘You’re okay with turning your friend over like this?”

Arlie shrugs, and if I doubted she was the right person for the job before, I don’t now. She’s perfected the complete level of disconnect needed to sell her answer. “Perry’s not my friend. He’s a mildly annoying cling-on that refuses to leave us alone at our table no matter how many times I ask him to.”

Luther huffs a laugh, and I remind myself that we planned for her to say that, and it’s not at all true. “He’s not that bad,” Luther defends, and I can’t stop myself making an ank oo through the material stuffed in my mouth.

Arlie throws me a shut-the-fuck-up look, and I don’t know if it’s real or if she’s still in character. “He botched a relatively simple job. He’s exactly that bad.”

“Okay, then.” Luther reaches into his desk and pulls out a business card. “This is all I have to go on. Carson Alexander is a middle-aged white man.”

“They’re my favorite,” Arlie says, taking the card. She glances over it. “You know I won’t be happy if this isn’t legit.”

“It’s legit. But if anyone asks, you didn’t get it from me.”

“No one is going to ask.”

“Good.” Luther points at her phone. “Make the call. I want this over with. Now. ”

Arlie closes the footage, brings up Everett’s number, and then hits Call.

“Put him on speaker,” Luther demands. “And put the footage back on.”

A spike of worry hits me because that wasn’t part of the plan, but Arlie doesn’t react. She hits speaker, then flicks back over to the footage.

With the way she’s holding her phone, I have a perfect view of the screen, where Everett takes a step away from Colin to pick up his phone.

“Yeah?” he barks.

“It’s me. You’re on speaker,” Arlie says.

“Don’t care. Is it done?”

“It’s done. Take him out.”

There’s barely a heartbeat of time between the final word passing her lips and?—

Bang.

I jump as the gunshot echoes from the speaker, and Colin’s head …

I bow forward over my knees, gagging. The thick stretch of material over my tongue doesn’t do much to stop it, and my throat triggers again and again at what I saw. Even reminding myself it was fake and this is all part of our plan doesn’t help at all because … was it ?

That looked way too fucking real.

My forehead is prickling with sweat by the time I finally get myself back under control. I try to tell them I didn’t need to see that, but it comes out as a stream of mangled vowels.

Arlie tucks her phone back away. “What are you going to do with him?”

“Undecided.”

“Cool.” She’s still gripping the business card tight. “You two have fun, then.”

She makes it all the way to the door before Luther speaks again.

“Wait. ”

Arlie’s hand tightens on the door handle, but when she glances back over her shoulder, there’s no surprise in her expression. Mine though? Lots of surprise. It’s supposed to be the part where she walks out, and now she’s not walking out.

See? This is why I don’t like planning things.

“Yeah?” she asks.

Luther gestures at me. “You shoot him.”

My shock all but flies off my face.

“What?”

I echo her. “ Air ut? ”

“I’ll match what was paid for Colin St. Clare. I’m over this whole ordeal. End it.”

She holds up the business card between two fingers. “I’ve actually got plans.”

“I promise it’ll only take a second.” There’s a warning in those simple words. “I won’t even make you clean up your mess.”

Arlie’s hesitation lasts too long, but what the hell else is she supposed to do? Shoot me? Not an option I’m comfortable with.

“Unless you’re more friendly with Perry than you made out?”

Arlie rolls her eyes, pulls out the gun, and stalks toward me instead.

It happens so fast I don’t have time to think beyond fuck, she’s throwing a Tommy . Whether Arlie actually would do it or not is way too uncertain grounds for me to rely on, so instead of waiting to see what she has in mind, I let my instincts take over.

With Luther’s attention on Arlie, he doesn’t see me coming. I push from my chair, set my heavy boot on the edge of Luther’s table, and flip that fucker onto him. It hits Luther somewhere in the midsection before his chair flips, and he goes down under it.

There’s a huge crash as everything slides off onto him, and before Arlie can react, I snap the fake cuffs and tackle her into the ground.

“Perry, what are you?—”

With one hand, I yank down the gag and hiss into her ear, “Pretend to be knocked out.”

Her eyes immediately close .

I’d bet anything Luther has security cameras in here, and it’s still better for us that he doesn’t know we’re in cahoots and are secretly the ones after Carson. Without a second thought, I fish the business card from her pocket and climb to my feet.

There’s a grunt and heavy shifting, but before I can leave, the office door flies open.

The man who’d tried to intimidate me last time barrels through the door, gun out, ready to take me down. I yelp at the sight of him, but my brain is still offline, and before he can turn in my direction, I bulldoze him.

He’s strong. Way too strong. I think I only get him down because I caught him by surprise, but as we wrestle and shove and scratch—well, I scratch—he’s quickly getting the upper hand. The problem is I’ve never been in a tussle like this in my life, and now that we’re tussling, it’s not as easy as the movies would have you believe. I can barely see. Barely have time to process I’ve been punched before the next one flies at my face.

None of it hurts, so my adrenaline must be running deliciously high. I stop shielding my face, and before the guy on me knows what’s happening, I grab a fistful of hair and pull like I’ve never pulled in my life. Strands snap loose, and the more I pull and he pulls back, I feel the way it’s trying to tear from his fucking head.

Bile rises up at the feeling, but I don’t let go, not even when he aims a bruiser right at my cheekbone. I gag some more, but finally, his head jolts back in my hold, and I get enough space between us that I can bring my knee up hard and fast between his legs.

“ Fuck !” he roars. The split-second distraction is enough to throw him off me and scramble back to my feet.

I don’t stop, don’t look around, don’t know where Luther or Arlie are or what they’re doing, but as I yank the door open, hands latch around my wrist.

Luther’s thrown himself across the room to get to me, and he snarls up through bloody teeth. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

I try to shake him off, but his grip gets painfully tight. I’ve already had to fight more than I have in my life, and as my ragged breathing gets my head all spinny, I’m acutely aware that this is my last chance to get free, and I gotta use it.

I twist and shake and yank in his hold, sure I’m destroying my shoulder more even though I can’t feel it … and then I remember my gun.

Motherfucker.

My hand closes over Judy, tucked in my waistband, and I bring her out and into contact with his forehead.

“Let me go!”

Luther laughs, eyes unnervingly locked on my face. “You’ve never shot anyone.”

You know what? I’m getting sick of being known for that.

With a flicker of something , I lose my goddamn cool.

Judy redirects to Luther’s arm, and I pull the fucking trigger. The gun is still shockingly loud, and I can’t stop my flinch as the bullet sinks into his arm and splatters me with blood.

Luther’s smothered scream sounds like it’s dying in his chest. His nails cut into my arm as he folds over in pain, and it takes herculean strength to yank myself from his grip.

I had to do it. I had to do it.

My brain is stuck on that as I back up, almost tripping over my feet, seeing the way his skin tore open again and again.

I won’t throw up. Won’t do it.

My back slams into the wall in the hallway, and it’s the momentum from the sudden collision that redirects me and gets my feet moving.

I fly down the hallway, lungs burning, and stagger into the bar area. Unfortunately, my very obvious I’m fucked demeanor, along with the cuffs dangling from my wrist, catch attention—probably the sound of my gunshot didn’t help things—and Danvers jumps up from the nearest table.

“Going somewhere, Perry?”

“Ah …” My eyes dart around. “I’m trying to.”

“Well, why don’t you—” Danvers doesn’t finish what he was going to say before he’s shoved from behind. One of Onyx’s friends—I want to say Viktor—lands on top of him and sends a barrage of punches down on Danvers’s head.

It’s like a spark in a gun barrel.

Viktor’s friends immediately jump into the fray, and familiar faces from Lethal Poison join them. There are chairs thrown, glass smashed, tables upended, and I watch for too much longer than someone who should be running should watch.

It’s not until there’s noise from behind me that I jump forward and run.

Dodging fists, shaking off hands that cling to my ankles, trying not to slip over debris, I’m wheezing and sweating and worried about chafing all over again as the bar I love so very, very much descends into chaos around me.

A guy I swear I’ve done shots with before throws himself at me, and I flinch back in time for him to sail past and hit the ground. Fuck me. Do these guys see a fight and immediately lose their minds?

My hands close over the nearest bar table, and I fling it backward, then break into a sprint.

The door is close.

Closer.

Closer still.

I get my hand on the handle and tug, setting off the golden bells and a screeching “ Perry !” behind me.

Then I’m out, running so hard down the street I swear I’m about to go ass over.

St. Clare is in the waiting car, and as soon as I throw myself into the back seat, he banks it into traffic.

Away from Lethal Poison.

And hopefully toward somewhere I can catch my breath.