Page 53 of Pretty Threats

KILLIAN

Lying on the media room couch with her, I drift in and out of sleep. Raine lies in front of me on the sofa with my arms wrapped around her. With her body pressed against mine, I’m no longer itching to be anywhere else or to distract myself with video games. This is the place.

The flatscreen’s sound is muted, apparently to let me sleep. I guess she’s reading subtitles and watching shot compositions. I don’t know a lot about filmmaking, but I’ve picked things up from being around her and hacking into her electronic communications. I know there are different types of shots and camera angles. And tricks for making people and settings look better in videos.

My left hand slides down to rest between her thighs.

She turns her head so she’s looking over her shoulder in my direction. When she whispers, it’s in that sweet voice I remember from when we were younger. “I’m working. Go back to sleep, Killian.”

I don’t move my hand, but I also don’t use it to distract her. Instead, I touch my nose to her scalp, inhaling the scent of her and letting myself fall back to sleep.

When I get up in the morning, she’s finally asleep herself. I carry her into my room and put her in my bed while I shower.

Once it’s clear she’s not going to wake up and give me something better to do, I start digging into the Lambda Delta alumni, looking for NightOn from the wall. I find him quickly. Josh E. Jones, former president of the GU chapter. I read his bio. Born and raised in Connecticut, graduated magna cum laude from Granthorpe with an Art History major and Biochemistry minor. It says he planned to pursue a career in medicine.

Medicine? I scowl. This deviant fuck is going to be someone’s doctor?

I try to hack into GU Academic Affairs to read his file but can’t get in. That’s the one problem with GU. With most institutions, I can blaze right past their firewalls and unlock their encrypted files by injecting a worm into an unprotected computer and letting it give me access to the parts of the network I want. GU, however, is the alma mater of tech billionaire Drew Ralston, so parts of GU’s administration have cybersecurity that’s on par with the Department of Defense’s.

My online investigations reveal Josh E. Jones has finished medical school and is in a psychiatry residency in Cambridge. Psychiatry… That’s a good avenue for scooping up troubled young women. I bet he doesn’t last a decade before he’s caught sleeping with a patient or involved in some other misconduct scandal.

Given that he grew up in a different state and was long gone by the time Raine and I got here to GU, I can’t see how or why he would be the initiator of the Side post he forwarded. Still, his ties to a sketchy fraternity with long, powerful fingers and a recent history of vicious crimes is suspicious. Maybe he sent the post to me as a favor for someone else from the frat? But who? Wilson couldn’t have known someone would hire a killer to come for him and that that killer would be me.

Maybe it was just a coincidence that Jones spotted and forwarded the Raine post. When we met, he saw the kinds of scenes I engaged in and knew I was at GU. Anyone would’ve guessed the post might interest me. And he was talkative the night we met. Seemed to be looking to strike up a friendship.

I scratch my neck and tilt my head. Do I really think his sending the post could be a coincidence? In a vast universe, they happen all the time. But I’m just making headway into pulling Raine back into my life. If this is anything but a coincidence—If someone is trying to hurt her, I want to find him and kill him.

Of course, that would break the C Crue no-moonlighting policy. My gaze slides to the bed and Raine’s pretty face, half-buried in a pillow. I like working for C Crue, but they’re the moon and Raine’s the sun. The moon affects the Earth. Animal behavior and the tides would be fucked up without the moon. It matters. But if it were gone, adaptation and evolution would happen eventually. Now, the sun, though… the sun is necessary. Without the sun, life stops.

So yeah, if there’s a threat to her, I’ll kill it. The Crue trained me well, so if I’m careful, they’d never even find out.

The best way to determine how Jones got the Cabaret picture post is to ask him in person. If he hesitates to tell me, well, he’ll get to know the side of me I reserve for men who try to get close to Raine.

Just as I’m starting to run down NightOn Josh’s schedule and address, War and Jamie roll in. They’re noisy bastards this morning and Raine stirs, so I cover her ear with a pillow and close the door when I leave the room.

The pair are in the kitchen, talking softly. Two black bags sit on the nearby stairs. My eyes linger for a second until I remind myself there won’t be anything key in the bags, just personal gear. Extra street clothes. Maybe toothbrushes and condoms.

We rotate on the two-man jobs, but the third guy is ready to mobilize if a cleaner is needed. Last night, I wasn’t on call for them because they wanted me to have a chance to do some love-bombing for Operation Stockholm.

I assume they’ve disposed of any evidence, but if there’s something left to do, I’m the one who should do it. As proof that I’m still invested in the partnership and to keep them motivated to remain partners with me. At eleven-thirty, it’s full light. Whatever we do would need to happen in the shed for privacy. So, no barrel burning.

Leaning against the counter, I notice War has a red smudge on his neck near his left collarbone. It’s too smooth and bright for dried blood. Looks more like lipstick.

“How’d it go last night?” I ask.

“Yeah, all right,” Jamie says. “We were on a gun run, but they had an experienced crew on either end, and the route was quiet. Went so smoothly we finished early. We stayed away so we wouldn’t crash your party with the girl.”

“You didn’t sleep in the truck, did you?”

“Fuck no,” War grumbles. “Am I a fucking contortionist?”

Jamie and I smirk. We’ve started to suspect War has low-key claustrophobia. Whenever we’re closed up in a car or hole in the ground or wherever, he gets highly motivated to move things along.

“We visited a Crue sex club,” Jamie says. “Top tier.”

That explains the lipstick.

“In Boston?”

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