Page 54

RHAIM

“ C lip him!” Sable shouted out of my phone—in Zane’s dealer’s AI’d voice.

But Zane was running too erratically to safely shoot, because I didn’t want him dead.

I wanted him to suffer.

To pay for the sins of his father—even though he had plenty of sins of his own.

Plus, running was my hobby.

Running numbers.

Running books.

Running assholes down.

I caught up to him before he could get his driver’s side door open, and slammed him up against it instead. “You fucking fuck,” I laughed, one hand in his hair as I bashed his pretty-boy face into the Porsche’s side, the other wrenching one of his arms up behind his back.

He groaned and thrashed, trying to look back at me, and I could see him attempting to calculate just who he’d pissed off with his beady eyes.

It was probably a hard task, with his list being so long.

“My—dad—” he stuttered.

“Yeah? He proud of you?” I asked.

My original plan had been to beat the shit out of Zane till he passed out, and make it look like he’d barely saved himself from Bix.

But after seeing how eagerly Zane had walked up to Bix’s car, with Ramona as bait…. “I’m getting another shitty idea!” I announced for Sable’s benefit.

She didn’t turn her voice chanter off, “Oh, fuck?—”

“Yep!” I announced, hoisting Zane up, before body slamming him to the ground. I felt a strong urge to start kicking him and just keep going—but my other idea was too poetic to pass up.

Instead, I picked him up again like a sack of potatoes, and dropped him back down on the asphalt, where one of Sable’s cameras could see.

“Keep an eye on him,” I commanded, and walked back to Bix’s car.

I undid the tape around Ramona’s ankles with a knife, and then started hunting through the Charger.

Any self-respecting heroin dealer had Narcan—you couldn’t get people to pay for drugs if they were dead.

And sure enough, Bix had two little plastic field goals, tucked inside his glove box. I snapped open the cap of one and shoved it into Ramona’s right nostril, then hit the button, so it shot up into her sinuses.

She woke up slowly—and pissed off—because taking Narcan was like getting the warm blanket of your addiction ripped away from you, on a cold-ass winter night.

“What the—hey!” she said, spotting me—right as she realized her wrists were taped. “Oh my God—” she started—and I caught her jaw, before she screamed. She kicked against me, ineffectually, trying to shove me off, but she was about as threatening as a stick insect, all limbs and bones, no meat.

“You’re in the middle of a drug deal gone bad.

” It was why I’d gotten the syringes from Enzo the other night—to add ambiance.

But that was before opportunity knocked in person.

“You’ve got two options,” I told the girl, trying to make my voice more gruff—unlike Sable I didn’t have another voice available on command.

“Work with me and live—or die like your boyfriend.”

I angled her head up and over, so she could see Bix’s brained corpse lying on the ground.

“We clear?” I asked, and she nodded, hard. “I’m gonna let you go. You try to scream, you try to run, you do anything stupid, and it’s over. Understand?”

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Okay,” I said, with a nod of my own. “I’m going to cut your wrists free.”

She nodded again, her eyes wary.

“I need you to do me a favor. I need you to find your kit—and I need you to cook.”

Her eyes widened instead, becoming impossibly round.

“I’m not joking,” I said, grabbing her jaw again, hard.

“And it’s gonna be the last time you do.

Not because I’m gonna kill you—not if you behave—but because after this, you’re gonna understand why you need to get fucking clean,” I said, letting her go and shoving her back. “Now—where’s your stuff?”

“My purse,” she said, gesturing toward a leather bag in the foot well.

I picked it up—she wouldn’t have been the first dealer’s girlfriend to be armed—but all I found inside was a phone, a Prada wallet, and a beautiful black leather case.

I pocketed the phone and unzipped the case to find it full of all the supplies a modern girl needed to get high.

Cotton balls, syringes, a lighter, a torniquet, and a gold compact mirror.

I was surprised it didn’t come with a monogrammed spoon.

“Designer?” I asked, giving her a look, before glancing over at Zane, who was rousing. I hadn’t found a gun in the glove box, so I felt safe leaving her alone. “Get going,” I said, taking the tourniquet and bringing it back to him.

I picked him up, and set his back against his car, before stripping off his coat, to yank his sleeve up.

“You think it’s fun to hurt people, yeah?

” I asked him, as he shook his head dizzily.

Between the tinted tactical glasses and balaclava I still had on, I wasn’t worried about him ever identifying me.

“I get that,” I said, looping a stretchy band of plastic around his upper arm.

“And I agree. It is fun. It absolutely can be. But here’s the difference between us—when I hurt people?

They deserve it,” I said, and then paused.

“Well—most of them. How’s it coming, sweetheart?

” This last part I shouted over my shoulder.

“I’m finished—” she said, timidly holding out a syringe.

“Good girl,” I said, and went to claim it from her.

She flinched after I picked it up, and I set it on the Charger’s roof.

“Nah, don’t be like that,” I said, taking her kit and tossing it aside so I could put it into my bag later.

I didn’t trust her to go huddle in a corner and shoot up the rest of her stash out of fear.

“Can…I have my phone?” she asked.

“Nope. You can keep your bag though—take it and walk out,” I said, backing up. “Just remember—don’t talk. Because you have no idea who the fuck I am—but I’m sure I’ll remember you. Got it?”

“Yeah,” she quietly breathed, edging away from me.

Zane tried to hold a hand out to her—and she edged away from him as well.

“You come forward, people will know your boyfriend was a bag of shit—and I’ll tell them you helped me kill him. How much of this should I use?” I asked.

She didn’t answer me—she just ran away at full speed, so fast she fell over, but then she picked herself back up and kept going.

Hopefully she’d keep running all the way home.

I left the syringe on top of the Charger, and went through my bag again, putting on clean gloves, before taking out the phones Sable had given me.

Despite what TV shows you, most cops don’t want to look too hard—especially when the story’s already been handed to them. And what they’d see when they got here was just like I told Ramona: a drug deal gone bad.

Zane had tried to buy from Bix, they got in a fight, and Zane got the shit beat out of him, before he got lucky with a tire iron.

And, courtesy of Sable, both of their new phones would have the texts now to prove it—because she’d bought phones identical to theirs and spoofed them accurately—only now there were texts that show showed a relationship between them that’d been escalating for weeks.

I found Bix’s phone, and Zane’s phone— his new one clean and sans pornography—just to let him know someone, somewhere, had the real one, full of blackmail—and swapped them.

By then, Zane’s arm was as red and swollen as his face was, and getting a syringe full of heroin inside a vein was as easy as throwing a dart.

I undid his torniquet when I was finished, pulled his sleeve down, coat on, then staged the rest of the scene.

I put the tire iron near Zane, and adjusted Bix’s body so it looked like he’d put up more of a fight, and made sure the angles worked—and like Zane had stumbled back to his car, trying to get into the safety of his Porsche’s handcrafted leather interior, with his phone out but hadn’t made it before he succumbed to his injuries.

And when I was finished, I took those gloves off, and put on a new pair, before taking my phone off speaker, so Sable could talk without the world listening in.

I got into my BMW and drove well around the scene to get out, confident that Sable’d looped the security cameras long enough for my safety.

“And you’re sure the phones will work?” I asked her, on my way back to the chop shop, so they could detail the beamer just in case and take the tinted cling off the windows.

“You’re an asshole, Rhaim.”

“Why? I mean—this particular time, not in general,” I said, pulling my balaclava off.

“For doubting me,” she sniffed, laughed, and then hung up without an answer.

After that—I checked my other phone—and found I’d missed a bunch of texts from Lia.

I skimmed them at a stoplight and smiled—I’d only missed the last one by fifteen minutes.

The adrenaline I’d denied myself while working was soaring now, and the temptation to call her rode me hard, but I was stronger than it was while I still had work to do.

She deserved a response though—and it was easy to send her the truth.

Of course I’m proud of you. No matter what.

I love you.

See you tomorrow night.