I lift my chin before joining her on the middle landing. “To the T.” As the grate I dumped her personal goods in creeps across the room via wireless control, I show her the still shots Rocco took before conning me to be their lackey, then I move onto video footage. They expose how truly unhinged she is. She gets off on K’s fear. I can smell how aroused she is, much less see it in her massively dilated eyes.
Once the faintest noise of rubber tires rolling over concrete is no longer sounding through my ears, I switch off my phone, stuff it into my pocket, then walk down a smoke-damaged corridor.
Partway down, Smith prompts me that he needs India to talk. She’s barely said a handful of words to me. I jog to catch up with India. “What’s with the mind games? I thought you wanted this girl for her kid?”
Her nose screws up from me referencing K as a girl, but she keeps her annoyance out of her tone. “If you don’t make things interesting, Jamie, you’ll live a very boring life.”
She slips in my alias on purpose, hopeful it will have me on the back foot. What she doesn’t know is Smith leaked my profile information on purpose to authenticate our ruse that I’m a bottom-dwelling gangbanger willing to do anything for a bit of coin. I did a brief stint in juvie when I was seventeen, have been busted twice for narcotics, and enjoy beating my misses on the weekends. As far as India is concerned, I’m the scum on the bottom of the ocean. She has no fucking clue she’s even lower than me.
“Yeah, but what kinda thrill do you get witnessing carnage from afar? That would be like watching porn but never putting their actions into play. You get off on the idea of doing what they’re doing, not that they’re doing it to each other. Being in on the action is far better than watching it from the sidelines.”
“That’s true. Normally. But sometimes more important matters pop up.”
“Like avoiding police raids at private airstrips?” When suspicion darts through her eyes, I’m quick to shut it down. “When I saw the broadcast on the news, I fucking knew it was you. You’ve got badass mafia chick stamped all over you.”
I was hoping a bit of flattery would get her talking. Regretfully, it seems to have the opposite effect. “You’ve heard about me?” she asks, her tone snappy.
“None of it was bad,” I reply, continuing my ruse that I find her attractive. In reality, she makes me want to barf. You can’t have insides as ugly as hers and not see it when you look at her.
When I drag my teeth over my lower lip, she watches my teeth’s rake before raising her eyes to mine. “What have you heard?”
I don’t know whether to continue with the flattery or tell her what I really think, so I mix it up by giving her a bit of both. “That you don’t stop stomping until you get what you want.”
“That’s true,” she murmurs, her voice way too sugary for my liking. “So it won’t be any surprise to you when I say there’s been a change of plans.” Wrongfully believing she’s running the show around here, she plucks the revolver from the back of my jeans before she continues down the hall, barking out orders, “In approximately ten minutes, Trey Corbyn is going to walk through the doors of this compound.” Just before she reaches the secret stairwell, she spins around to face me. “You’re going to kill him.”
Even with my stomach churning from her confession, I keep a rational head. “That wasn’t part of our agreement. I got the girl you requested, so my job here is done.”
I pretend to take a stumbling step backward when she murmurs, “Will that still be your answer when I offer you a million dollars?”
I thought she used sex to brainwash the men who jump at her every command. I had no clue she bribed them with money.
Silly me.
“You don’t have a million dollars.”
A ghost-like grin stitches across her face. “I did, but I don’t anymore because I gave it to you.” She nudges her head to the pocket I placed my phone in. “Check your account. I transferred the money on my way here.”
I’m confident this is a test, and thank fuck Smith is as clued in as me. While I log into my online banking app, he checks the balance of the account we opened to authenticate our ruse. “There’s no money in the account we set up. She’s bluffing.”
I give India a look, one that says I’d spit at her feet if I could. “You’re all talk, lady. There ain’t anything in my account close to a million dollars.”
With a mocking grin, she slants her head to the side, then arches a brow. “There isn’t? Hmm… perhaps you should check again?”
“What the fuck,” Rocco murmurs in my ear when Smith announces the funds have now cleared. “She must have someone on the outside. I personally took care of the three johns in her car.”
I bounce on the balls of my feet when Smith requests for me to stand closer to India to see if our connection picks up any interference. “Holy fucking shit. I’m a millionaire!”
Much to India’s disgrace, I throw my arms around her neck and hug her tight. It isn’t a long embrace, but it gives Smith exactly what he needs. “She’s wired up. While waiting for the files in her phone to commence downloading, I’ll backtrack the signal, but for now, keep her talking.”
I inconspicuously nod before gesturing for India to enter the stairwell before me. “What exactly do I have to do for this money?”
Over the next five minutes, she discloses every sickening detail. How she’s going to lure Trey to the dungeon-like room by playing old videos of K’s assault. How she’ll force him through a second game of Russian roulette, and that when she signals for me to enter the room, I’m to gun down Trey while she takes care of the man he entrusted to look after his wife.
“That’s it? A straight-up mafia hit?”
While pushing video tapes into a set of old televisions outside the room K and Eight are in, she twists her lips. “Why complicate things with unnecessary details?”
The way she talks so nonchalantly about death agitates me to no end. She truly believes it’s her right to choose who lives or dies. She’s not God, and I very much look forward to announcing that to her. I just need Smith to hurry the fuck up.
