Page 3 of Perilous

Masks? Fuck that.

The door opens a few seconds later and Demo lumbers into the SUV. As soon as the door shuts, the SUV starts to move. Demo tears his mask off his face and throws it down to the floor.

“Fuck this mask stuff,” Demo growls. “And what the fuck is this about with thattarget? We’re not killing him tonight?”

“I guess not,” I say. “He’ll suffer though. He’ll feel like he’s having a heart attack. He’ll have to be taken out in an ambulance, rushed to the hospital. The whole thing. This is just to fuck with him.”

“Since when do we just fuck with people?” Demo asks. “He’s atargetnot atoy.”

“You got your dick sucked. You should be happy.”

“She was too nervous to really get into it,” Demo says. “I ended up grabbing her head and fucking her throat as hard as I could. She screamed on my dick. Cried and yelled. Then she started gagging and had to go throw up.”

“She come back for more?”

“I’m good,” Demo says. “I fucked her from behind. While she was hanging over a trashcan.”

“Romantic.”

“No such thing as that,” Demo says.

He puts his head back and shuts his eyes.

I look out the window.

Thetargetis probably starting to feel some pain. He’ll fight it off with more booze and taking his favorite stripper into a private room. It’s not good enough. We’re not here to poison someone into a hospital bed to teach them a lesson. We’re here to murder.

We’re killers.

We kill anyone we’re told to kill. No matter what. No matter who it is.

I close my eyes and instantly see the luxury SUV going over the side of the cliff. My eyes open and I lean forward. My hands start to shake.

I crave to kill…

… and I crave to care.

ChapterTwo

ANNIKA

I sitat the table near the front window and watchhimwalk around the coffeeshop likeheowns the place. At one point,hestops at a person who is clearly working on their laptop and reaches for the person’s bag, flips open the front flap and stickshishand inside.

I used to get secondhand embarrassment over this. Now I just watch almost as though I’m studyinghim.

The laptop person protests. Not a care in the world of what a blatant assholeheis.

Nowhewalks toward the counter andhestarts snappinghisfingers at some young barista. Oncehehas her attention,hesigns withhisleft hand, requesting a pen. The young barista is instantly flustered and quickly handshima pen.

Hegrabs a napkin, takes down a few notes, then finishes uphisconversation, which has been loud enough for everyone to hear. I’m not sure anyone really knows whoheis. If they did and they realized just how muchhewas worth, they’d all scramble to givehimpens, paper and anything else.

People with money and power had that attraction vibe, didn’t they?

Hewalks back toward me, to the table, and sits across from me.Hereaches across the table and pats my right hand.

“Sorry about that, dear.”

“No worries, Dad. You’re a busy guy.”

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