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‘What better way to learn about it than from professionals? Being around an entire club worth of sex-positive people? You’ll learn loads, and you won’t even have to do much. Serve drinks, flirt, and dance a bit. There are even non-sexual performances you can do, and you get paid really well for them.’
I closed my eyes, feeling my resolve crumbling as it did far too often whenever my twin sister was involved.
‘Like what?’ I asked, hearing the resignation in my voice.
‘Spanking. You being the spanker, or the spankee. Walk a guy on a leash and make him lick your boots. Being tied up. That’s a fairly easy one, especially if you ask Rob to go lightly on you.’ Ruby grinned as I slumped down beside her, throwing an arm around my shoulder and pulling me into her side. ‘Thank you. I owe you big time.’
‘I haven’t said yes yet.’
The grin that crossed her face let me know she knew she’d won without me having to actually agree to it.
When it came to Ruby, resistance was futile. As far back as I could remember, she had always been our ringleader, the one pulling me into adventure and chaos. For better or for worse.
All I had to do was get through a couple of weeks.
I could do that.
Right?
FIVE
EWEN
The snivelling dirtbag tied to the chair cried out as I heaved the garden shears closed. His blood-curdling scream echoing in the cavernous warehouse.
‘Tell me who the fuck you’re working for,’ I grunted, the bone finally cracking. The severed finger falling to the floor with a splat.
‘Fuck. Stop. Please?’ The man’s babbling pleas were barely coherent through the heinous sounds he made as pain wracked his battered body.
‘Who are you working for?’ I asked, rolling up my sleeves and grimacing at the splash of crimson marking my shirt cuff. Thank god I didn’t have to do my washing. Between a sex club and trying to track down the rats nibbling away our profits, the bodily fluid levels were excessive.
‘I don’t know.’ Great heaving breaths punctuated his words as his face took on a squalid shade of pale. Time was running low. The fucker was going to bleed out on me. He’d held out for hours.
‘Who do you report to?’
The man’s head lolled back, his swollen eyes closing for too long. There was a definite rattle in his breath, too.
‘Hey,’ I said, pulling his face up with a hand beneath his jaw. ‘Talk to me. Tell me, and I can make the pain stop.’
The glassy eyes blinked open, focusing on me for half a second before closing again. ‘Burner phone… don’t know… paid cash.’
With icy rage bubbling through me, I pulled my knife from my pocket, flicking the blade out and aligning it with the weakly pulsing point on his neck. The breath he exhaled was almost palpable with relief when the sharp metal point nicked his flesh. Instead of trying to escape, his body pressed closer. He knew as well as I did that the punishment for rats was extermination. I only hoped that what he got out of it was worth the price.
Lifting my left hand, I cradled his other cheek and ran a thumb gently over a tear rolling through the bloodstains. ‘Go well. Make better choices if you get another go around.’
The knife slid into his neck with only a brief resistance. Blood gurgled as his body fought the intrusion, jerking against his bonds. While his mind may have been resigned to death, the body didn’t give in so gracefully. I held his face as he bled out, letting comfort be the last thing he felt. Ultimately, he was just a small piece in someone else’s much larger game, paying the price for those pulling the strings.
The man’s head rolled forward limply as I stood, removing my hand from his greying skin. Using his trousers, I wiped my knife clean before clicking it closed and setting it back in my pocket.
Pulling out my phone, I rang one of my trusted guys. ‘Gerald, I need a clean-up crew. I’ll send you the coordinates.’
Great red splashes stained my hands, drying into the myriad of lines that made my skin look like an aged map in the dim light. The adrenaline waned after the tension of torture, and it left me as hollow as ever. His death didn’t matter to me, per se, but every life I took stole a little more from my soul. He played stupid games and got caught. Over the past few years, I’d learnt just how much I’d do to protect my family. What I needed was someone to go home to. A warm body I could sink into and shed the day’s stressors with. Someone who needed the pain I offered. Someone who craved it. Someone who needed me. Someone I could cherish.
Instead, I had a cold bed waiting.
SIX
CORA
