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48

COHEN

I spent six fucking hours watching Tate Prescott die and come back to life. Over and over again on that metal slab. The irony not fucking lost on me and the stupid nickname. Tonight I really was Dr. Frankenstein, my current monster a serial cheater who’d obviously scorned the wrong woman.

The thing was, it didn’t matter why the fucker was here. In front of me. Stitched together like some practice cadaver and being pumped with the same kind of adrenaline that ran naturally through my veins with the rush of holding his feeble life in my hands. Because my skin was buzzing, sweat clinging to my overgrown beard as I watched the steady rise and fall of Prescott’s chest. His respirations and oxygen level decent enough for me to move ?em from critical to stabilized.

I tossed my seventh pair of gloves into the red bin and approached the metal door, knowing someone was out there watching me. I had no doubt every frantic moment was caught on live video feed and streamed into Dr. Dick’s office, his feet kicked up on his desk and a permanent smirk on his face. Though that might have been a bit of an exaggeration. Adrian wasn’t the kick up his feet type. But that smirk? That shit was dead-on.

And glaring at me from the other side of the glass again as the door creaked open. The prick didn’t say a word. Just pivoted on his heel and strolled down the hallway, veering left before stepping into his office. Carefully lowering himself down on his chair and waiting until I took the seat in front of him.

Then he reached a hand inside his top drawer. Pulled out a stack of cash and plopped it down on the desk between us.

I eyed the—going by a quick perusal—ten grand. Then peered up at him again. “What the fuck is that?”

“Your cut.” He lifted a challenging brow. “Unless you prefer to work for free?”

I swiped out the stack before the fucker could pull some BS and try to snatch it back. “Thought you said we didn’t get paid until the live drop?”

“Oh, my mistake. I was using the universal we . Really leaning into that whole working as a unit thing. What I meant was you weren’t getting paid. We…” He gestured to the air around him. “…get paid upfront of course. With a signed risk-agreement listing fatality as one of the possible outcomes. I’m a businessman after all.”

“You son of—” I jumped across the desk, my knees knocking over his carefully laid-out piles of paperwork and my arm outstretched and ready to strangle the fucker with my bare hands the moment I made contact. Only to pause when he waved a disciplinary finger in my direction. I was more curious than I was intimidated. That’s what kept me from following through on my very real threat.

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“Yeah? And why the fuck not?” I threw myself back in my chair, my posture open and my legs wide spread. Fucker didn’t scare me. I had a good fifty pounds on him. And all he had was quick access to a needle. That would only get him so far now that I was aware of his tricks.

He shrugged a single shoulder. “Because you’re so focused on the resources that got you here you’re missing the objective.”

“Is that your bullshit way of telling me the ends justify the means?”

He arched that eyebrow again, which only seemed to enhance the smugness of his expression. “It seems withholding your funds is a decent enough motivator. Good thing too. At least it is for that pretty little college girl you’re so fond of. Inch upon inch of flawless skin. Would hate to have to give her a scar to remember me by.”

I leveled Adrian with my glare. He wanted me to react. And I refused to give him what he wanted. “Emily is off the table.”

“Then don’t make me put her on mine.”

I grunted in response. Saying more would have been dangerous. The fucker liked to play mind games and I wasn’t about to let him probe around in my brain anymore.

I pushed up from the chair and stalked back towards the door before slamming it behind me. Which, I suppose, told him exactly what he wanted to hear anyway. He’d gotten under my skin.

By the time I made it back down the hall towards the bunks—the basement was too far from our liquor stash—I could sense Casper trailing my steps. Couldn’t hear him but I knew the creepy fucker was there. Almost as if the temperature had dropped a few degrees. There was just this odd chill to the air whenever he was lurking in the background. Like every time he sucked it in through his lungs it came out colder.

Maybe the guy really was a ghost?

“Do you know anything about the job we just did? Specifically the client? Prescott’s wife from what I hear?” My gut told me that something was off. That this target was personal somehow. To Adrian. I was certain tonight had to do with more than just teaching me some fucked-up lesson.

I needed to find out what that more was. Gain some leverage and tip the scales so the sick son of a bitch didn’t have me by the balls anymore.

I stopped short when instead of replying, Casper started humming a familiar nursery rhyme, the haunting tune bouncing around the corridor and echoing back on all sides of the stone walls.

“Mary had a little lamb whose coat was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went that lamb was sure to go.” He alternated between singing and mumbling, the lyrics slightly different from the way I remembered them. But fuck if I cared enough to ask him why.

Guy was seven sorts of crazy on a good day. Definitely swinging towards the manic side of bipolar from what I could tell.

I didn’t have the time or energy to figure out the other six.