AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And why was her body left next to my home?
Anger boiled in my blood. Maybe there was another drug mule I had missed at the club. Perhaps someone had arrived late and saw me dispatch their friends. I sighed at the irritation of what having a body on my turf brought. I’d just dealt with the brainless runt dealer earlier, and now I had this, too. It took hours to scrub blood off any surface. Grumbling, I grabbed the woman’s arms and pulled her back toward my tent.
When the dim light hit her face, I instantly recognized her. She was a hooker from Child Street. I often dealt in sex work to get the girls’ intel and keep up on the fresh players. Most of the time, clients ended up dead mysteriously before they got anything out of me, and I wasn’t exactly known for being the most docile collaborator.
This girl’s name was Tanisha. She was a nice enough girl. Older than some of the others but not wanted as much by the clients. Still, it was a shame that she was killed. She wasn’t bad, just unwanted. I walked over to the dock and grabbed the bucket and scrub brush. Walking back over, I noticed a small object in her hand. Picking it out of her grip, I stared at an origami apple.
Mother fucker.
I needed to find this paper-folding stalker, who apparently had an affinity for knife work. I leaned down, staring more intently at the wound, the lines jagged—a pattern my dagger used to leave in my victims.
God, my back ached from earlier. Cleaning the vomit and snot off of the sniveling loser drug dealer was no easy task. Now, I had to clean up blood from a cheeky maniac.
With all my anger and frustration, I navigated back to the tunnel and began scrubbing at the pools of liquid. I doused the area in sudsy water and bleach and listened as it washed through the cracks in the foundation, dropping into the river below the concrete.
This asshole was trying to frame me.
I knew from the minute I heard cops were sniffing around the cove that I was being framed. I never left loose ends. Ever. I did my job and cleaned up like a good girl or at least left the low life in their own home or a random abandoned one so I could skip that annoying step.Who the fuck wanted to be a housekeeper?
I lived in a tent in an abandoned dock for a reason. Hell, I wanted to hire a maid for even my tent space, but something told me it would be frowned upon to ask a cleaning service to scrub up a hitman’s blood.
Finally satisfied with the tangy iron smell dissipating and being replaced by an eye-watering chemical smell, I walked back to finish taking care of the fallen hooker. Saying a quick little vigil for her and her family, I tied the rocks around her ankles, strapped a spare bag with a bowling ball in it to her back, and shoved her into the river’s dark depths.
* * *
Stalking back to the club, I knocked on the massive purple doors. The moose and bear gang stared at me with unreadable expressions.
“Let me in, losers. It’s midnight, and you’re clearly open.”
Exchanging another look, one man started to say something, but then that man, the playboy from last night, shoved the one guy aside, ushering me in with a devilish grin playing at the corners of his lips.
“Ah, malen’ kaya ten’. Welcome back.”
Nodding, I hid my smile. For some reason, knowing he called me ‘little one’ made me…I dunno, but whatever. Shaking that feeling off, I looked around at the club because I had work to do. The booming music that vibrated my bones before was now gone, replaced by a soft, jazzy beat. There wasn’t anyone in the large space either, no grinding, sweaty dancers, sweet-talking bartenders, or robotic guards lining the entryways.
Nothing.
Just this strange man.
And me.
Unease and suspicion heated my chest.
Stopping near the bar, I turned to look in the corner where the overhead lights illuminated the bathrooms. I had left that dress from the other night in there. I’d stashed it inside the toilet’s ceramic lid in the last stall.
I had come to retrieve it, taking any of my DNA with it. Choosing to ignore the fact that this place was deserted, I shoved my unease away.
“I just came to use your bathroom,” I said to the playboy.
The tall, dark-haired man smiled, a playful mirth swirling in his mesmerizing green orbs. “But of course, right over that way.”
He gestured, and I had a strange sense of doubt. Still, I ducked around him and charged for the bathroom, catching his broody reflection in the multitude of mirrors in his fun-house horror game as he watched my every step.
Feeling my way to the stall and ripping off the top of the toilet, I cursed when I found nothing nestled in the clean, clear waters. Panicked, I looked around, checking the back of each toilet in all six stalls.
“What the fuck?” I began pacing around and biting my nails.
Did that man know about the dress? Did cleaners find it and throw it out? Did the police come and take it?
