Page 119 of Pretty Lies

TWENTY-ONE

BY THE TIME Luis woke up, and Cory allowed the asshole to realize he was awake and still alive—although in a mighty world of fucking pain—the guy was in an entirely different place. Luis’s last memory was probably the way Della smiled at him, unfeeling, before he turned on Cory in that hallway. He took a sense of satisfaction in that.

Everything else was probably a bit fuzzy for the prick, though.

Confusing.

Painful.

Cory smirked to himself, appreciating how little effort it actually took for them to pull this off. All because really, some shit never changed. Same with people. He’d known Luis at a very strange time in both their lives. Wasn’t everyone’s teenage years filled with memories that made them and shaped them? Some of it, he didn’t want to remember. A lot of it, he would never be able to forget.

Back then, it had been Cory’s stubborn streak that really followed him down the worst of rabbit holes. Mostly because his stubborn nature was also heavily entangled with his arrogance and curiosity, though he’d never wanted to admit it. His issues brought him to a place in his life where there wasn’t a problem he couldn’t solve.

For Luis, it had been a bit different. The guy couldn’t let shit go.

Ever.

Something like that didn’t get better with time. That’s why he knew Luis would be back. He hadn’t thought the guy would return to take a pound from Cory as soon as he had, but he prepared for the chance all the same. Because the end result would never change.

They had unfinished business. Luis just didn’t get a say in the way it ended.

“Yeesh,” Cory whistled as Luis blinked up at the darkness all around him. Other than the strobe light at the other end of the warehouse—he found keeping one in places he liked to work sometimes served him well for many reasons—everything else was bathed in black around the man on the cold cement floor. “Look at you, yeah?”

Pain was a motherfucker.

Luis groaned when the stiff bones and blooming bruises on his body wouldn’t allow him to do anything more than roll to his side. Which put the asshole right in view for Cory in the darkness and how he stood directly in the path of the strobe light. The man’s gaze lifted at the same time Cory grinned. Pulling down the skull bandana down from his face, he lifted the burning blunt to his lips and took a hard pull.

The smoke blinked in and out of the darkness.

Black and white.

“Fuck you,” Luis grunted out through bloodstained, chapped lips. His arms wrapped around his middle as he coughed out a painful rattle. “Oh my—”

Yeah, that pain was wicked.

“Joe broke all your ribs,” Cory explained.

From the back of the warehouse where Joe sat alone in the darkness, the man called out, “Wasn’t a problem—took barely any effort at all.”

Luis looked like he was going to say something or try. Cory really didn’t care to let the man even make the attempt when it wouldn’t matter. What was it? More cursing? Threats? Insults? None of that shit changed anything now.

Look at him. The guy was already dead. Basically.

It was kind of sad.

Cory wasn’t the type to play with his prey. Joe did, though. Hence the ribs and everything else.

“I had a trip in the jacket,” Cory explained. “I knew the second you took it off the hook. You’re just that petty. She wouldn’t be enough, you wanted to really fuck with me because you thought I honestly cared about that piece of trash you’re wearing. A long time ago, maybe. From my position, it doesn’t look too good to be wearing it right now, though, huh? I really hoped you might let some time pass before you tried any shit with us—let J’s people have their moment to say goodbye. Should have known better.”

Luis opened his mouth, and one of his hands twitched when it fell to the floor like the man was going to reach out to Cory. Fuck that noise.

This was over.

It had been over the moment Cory got the notification from the wire that the jacket had been moved that day.

Keeping what remained of his blunt balanced between two fingers, Cory pulled the bandana up over his face again. Smoke still danced between the strobing of the light before it disappeared into the darkness.

Luis opened his mouth to shout. Or maybe scream. Cory just lifted the gun he’d kept tucked at his side where the man couldn’t see in the shadows and pulled back the trigger. Bone made such a morbid sound when it cracked against cement.