“Every couple o’ weeks or so,” Paddy replies, like it’s asroutine as playing a recreational sport. “We’d have to dispose of the bodies either way. May as well make an art out of it, ye know?”
I arch a brow. It’s all I can manage since I just used up every ounce of adrenaline carving up a human.
Lorcan comes to sit by me. “How did you know he was lying? I saw the pictures—thought he was telling the truth. How did you know she wasn’t really posing?
He seems genuinely keen to learn, but I find it hard to explain. Those years I spent disconnected meant I had to hone my instincts, sharpen my senses. I don’t just read words—I read bodies.
I breathe in deeply, then let it go.
“I’ve found that when you’re less concerned with what comes out of your own mouth, you learn to see things others don’t. And if you think that way for long enough, it becomes second nature.”
“Is that why they call you Il Diavolo? Because you can see things other people don’t? It gives you an edge over others?”
“Maybe.”
That, and I have a lot of pent up, bitter vengefulness in my system that only seems to have softened in the last couple weeks.
I watch Brody toss parts of Callum McAllister into the tub of acid and try not to vomit at the smell of dissolving flesh.
I turn to Paddy. “Thanks for bringing me here, and for letting me do the honors.”
“You’re welcome. It was generous o’ ye’ to cut us the Cuba deal. It’s us the fecker owed, not ye. We weren’t going to see any money from him so…”
He shrugs like Callum’s death was inevitable. I suppose it was. If I hadn’t killed him just now, they would have, and it probably would have been a lot more painful and drawn out.
My bones are stiff but I stand and brush myself down.
“Can I ask you a favor?”
Paddy looks up. “Sure lad.”
“Can I keep the machete? As a kind of souvenir?”
“Aye, take it. We’ve plenty more where that came from.”
Lorcan hands me a plastic bag and I drop the blade inside and let myself out of the shed.
“I’ll see you around sometime,” I say over my shoulder, hoping silently, that time doesn’t come around too soon.
“Ye too, Bellucci.” I hear the grins. “Ye too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Pfeiffer
Eight nights to go.
I’moutside the club walking to my car when I get a text from Fiero telling me to go back inside and see Vivienne. It’s long past midnight and it’s unusual for Fiero to request me beyond ten p.m.
Vivienne hands me a key card, but before I can walk away she makes a tutting sound. “You’re not going to the eighteenth floor.”
I spin around, glancing down at the key card in my hand—almost identical to one I’m always given for the Liberty suite. “What?”
“You’re going up higher.”
“Higher?”
“Yes. To the twentieth floor.”
