Page 75 of For Pleasure Or Worse

“Okay, the list, the fucking list.” I tapped on the paper and squeezed my eyes hard enough for a manual factory reset, sending a burst of color into my vision.

“Right, right. Back to that.” Angelo tutted, scanning the columns as two women in barely-there clothing sauntered by wearing large, extravagant wings and rhinestone heels. Their faces were painted and jewelry ran up their arms and around their necks. My brother's face lit up and he shoved the list into his pants pocket. “Here we go, we can check this one off right now. Photo with a street performer.” Angelo waved them over. “Would you ladies take a photo with my brother? He’s getting married.”

“No, come on, not me.” I backed away, but the two women surrounded me in a fit of giggles and posed.

Angelo pulled his phone out. “It’s all in good fun.”

My glare intensified as a foreign hand landed at the small of my back. “You get in here instead.”

“Too late, say cheese.”

His camera shuttered with a flash. I didn’t smile. I didn’t fucking move a muscle. My hands remained at my sides likea little kid whose father took him to Hooters on his bi-weekly custody visit.

Angelo leaned in awkwardly and cleared his throat. “You got a couple bucks on you?”

“Are you serious?” I deadpanned.

“I mean, you gotta tip the ladies. Look at this.” He fluffed a pink feather on one of the performers and jingled a hanging bead with his fingers. “Extravagant. Gotta be hell to dry clean.”

“After all that mushy, pour-my-heart-out shit and you’re still a goddamn pain in my ass, Ang.” Tugging my wallet from my pocket, I handed the girls a few bills and they skipped past my groomsmen who were heading back toward us juggling several tall drinks. Echo broke his neck to take them in from every angle.

Pike handed me a cocktail so strong it hit the back of my throat and burned like battery acid all the way to the empty pit of my stomach. “You guys good? Everybody sorted? Let’s get this party started.”

“One down,” Angelo announced. He rooted around in his pockets, looking for something, then came out with a tiny nub of a carpenter's pencil, crossing our item off. “Street performer.”

“What’s the game plan?” Wink was casing the streets with both brows furrowed, a habit he would probably never shake. Not that we ever let our guards down, but when he was around it was easier to. Sam had a distinct way of keeping us all at ease. He didn’t miss anything weird, out of place, unidentifiable. Perks of being a special operative sniper.

Pike swiped across a map screen on his phone, clicking on a dropped pin I realized was Ophelia’s location. I rubbed my bottom lip between my fingers, the necessity of knowing making my pulse thrum eagerly in my neck. “Where are they?”

“I feel like watching their every move on a map is cheating,” Echo pointed out.

“Like they’re not doing it, too.” Pike edged Tyler away with an elbow, shielding his screen. “Just keeping an eye on them in case.”

“Let’s ask ChatGPT,” Angelo suggested as the swooping sound of a text being sent came from his phone.

“Nowthatis cheating,” Tyler doubled down, pointing an accusing finger at my brother. “And insulting. We don’t need a fucking robot telling us how to win a hunt. Wearefucking hunters.”

“Calm down, John Rambo. You can eat a cheeseburger without shooting the cow yourself. It’s not telling us how to win, it’s guiding us in the right direction.”

“O purposely made the list AI proof. These aren’t tourist tasks,” Pike said. “Let’s start at a casino.”

“Is that where the girls are?” I asked.

“Cheating,” Tyler added once more.

A text pinged in my pocket, then Pike, Echo, and Wink’s phones simultaneously. I all but wretched my cell out of my pants. We all stared down at the message sent from Angelo to a group of the entire wedding party and a chill brushed across the back of my neck. “Angelo, what the fuck did you do?” My eyes snapped in his direction.

There on the screen was the photo of me between the two scantily clad street performers and the message,On to the next one,right underneath.

“What?” My brother looked around confused. “What’s wrong?”

“‘On to the next one’?” Pike pinched the bridge of his nose. “She’s going to fucking peel the skin off his sack, man. You don’t know Tally.”

“On to the next one, like, the next item on the list,” Angelo explained, a sliver of panic making his voice tremble. “How are we supposed to win if we don’t send our proof?”

I paced the dirty concrete sidewalk, feeling my blood pressure rise. The fear of death was somehow easier, and more peaceful, than the fear of my fiancée and what she could unleash if she ever saw the need. I was afraid of her in the healthiest of ways. The way a manshouldfear his woman. “I have to kill you,” I decided, taking a lunging step toward my brother.

“Woah, WOAH. Wait!” He threw his hands up, defending himself from mine finding their way around his thick neck. Sam put himself between us, and Pike pulled me back.

---