Page 22 of The Wicked

When I opened my eyes, my gaze came in contact with the first comfortable thing my brain could register.

I sighed in relief as I dragged myself forward and picked up a triangle-shaped shard of glass.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Zahra

“It’s almost as if they stocked this place knowing I would come,” Dog said, taking the fresh beef out of the freezer. Milk helped herself to sliced vegetables while Upper and I sat at the kitchen table.

Dog dropped the meat on the table, slapping it almost sexually, before giving me a silly wink.

“You’re gross,” I told him.

“You love it.” He grinned.

“So according to my info, Dion has changed his bodyguards three times in the last two months,” Upper cut in, adjusting his glasses as he clicked open another window on his laptop screen—they must have searched our studio apartment because we were provided with all our gadgets the moment we returned from the meeting with Elio.

I jotted down that information. The only reason he changed his bodyguards was because of the three consecutive attempts that had been made on his life in the past four months.

His paranoia was probably responsible for why he changed his bodyguards. He trusted no one—not his mother, not his boss, not even his right-hand man. Getting to him might be hard.

“That’s suspicious,” Milk said as she gathered chopped vegetables into a bowl. “Intuition tells me he wasn’t just annoyed one of them had a mole on the face.”

Dog nodded. “They probably weren’t as guard-y as their resumes implied.”

“Or he just didn’t trust them,” I contributed, toying with the pen in my good hand.

“They made him feel unsafe,” Upper reasoned. “Can’t be a coincidence Marino wants intel on the Pablos now. Dion’s the weakest link, and Marino probably tried to take him out, hence the change in bodyguards? Thewhycould possibly be a very bloody impending hostile takeover.”

My tongue poked the inside of my mouth, knowing the threats on his life had nothing to do with Marino.

“That or Marino is interested in the same reason we paid Dion a visit,” Milk said.

I halted my toying with the pen, my brows dropping. We had gotten a private mission months ago to find a painting, but after we got paid, the client disappeared, so we couldn’t get more information about the mission, and Dion’s lead was a dead end…

Dog frowned, shaking his head. “I doubt it. What the fuck would The Wicked want with some dumb painting of a chihuahua, and why would he kill for it? At least with Dion we know he’s a big lover of dogs, hence why our lead for the painting got him on our radar in the first place.”

“Marino doesn’t exactly scream ‘dog lover’ to me,” Upper said.

“So it’s gotta be something else then,” Milk concluded.

I blinked, coming out of my thoughts. “Who knows? It’s better not to get involved in their shit and just get the job done.”

“On a scale of one to ten, what are our chances of actually pulling this off?” Dog asked.

“A ten. It’s not the hardest job we’ve ever done,” I answered.

“But it’s the only job where we’d be seen for the first time,” Milk said.

“Disguise has never hurt anyone,” Upper responded, looking up from the laptop with a double take towards the front door. His brows drew down in a concerned frown, and I followed his gaze to find Devil walking towards us. His features were tight, frown hard, and knuckles… bruised.

Silence settled as he walked past Upper and me, and then around the kitchen counter to the fridge. Wordlessly, he opened it, grabbed a beer bottle, uncapped it with his teeth, and took a big gulp before he walked out of the kitchen without acknowledging any of us.

“Something’s up.” Milk’s voice came out in a whisper.

“Boy’s fuming,” Dog pointed out.

I got off the stool the same moment Upper did. “I’ll check—” we said simultaneously, and I paused, frowning in confusion at him.