Page 32 of The Sinners Gambit

I roll my eyes at him as I kneel down and use my scalpel to go into the open cavity in his arm and sever another nerve. “I would’ve let it go after punching you. But then I decided to do a little research, Marty; younevertake no for an answer.”

“Wh-what?”

“There’s a long string of people who said ‘No’ to you, but you took it upon yourself to hear ‘Yes.’ So now I get to say ‘No’ to you. No, you won’t be making it out of here.”

“Please! Fuck! Pleeeease!” he yells.

I swipe down all of his major arteries. I’ve had my fun with him, now he’ll bleed out in a few moments.

There’s a creak from the floorboards of this creepy abandoned house.Fuck, who is that?My heart starts rapidly beating.

“Naomi!” my sister sing-songs, releasing the building anxiety.

“In here.”

“Nice! Looks like you had all the fun without me. Is this what you’re gonna do to Killian?” she asks.

I smirk at her. “No, he’s gonna get it much worse.”

I walk to where the bench for the weighted workouts is. “Do you kill with him?” I ask as I take a seat.

“Uh, yes and no. I support him if he needs it, and will kill out of necessity to keep our activities a secret. But it’s not something I seek out.” He pauses a moment before coming to sit next to me. “Killian, on the other hand, is—”

“Earns his nickname—Killer,” I finish for him.

Leaning forward on his knees, holding the water bottle with both hands, he looks up at me. “Yeah, that he does.”

I wonder if he knows about my mother. “Do you know about his early kills? When he first started?”

He turns his face at an angle. “Why do you want to know?”

I stammer out some bullshit I pull out of my ass. “Oh, ‘cause he’s clearly into the violent side of his nature. The doctor in me is curious how that looked when he was young.”

“Hmm. Okay,” he says, clearly not buying it. “I think he should be the one to tell you this, not me.”

“He started to,” I say faster than I need to, “yesterday in his trophy room, but it became a lot so I needed a moment.”

“Oh, he took you down there already?”

“Yeah, so I was just curious.” Internally I’m crossing my fingers and toes that he buys that, and gives me some information I can use.

“He started when he was eighteen,” Axel says. That would put him at the right age and timeframe. “It was a regretful kill for him though. Leaving that little girl all alone for no reason.”

“He regretted it?”

“Oh yeah. He made sure that the girl went to a good foster home, and he's been watching her from afar. She’s thriving now, even with the tragedy at such a young age.” He didn’t mention this stuff when he spoke about that man. Remembering the pocket watch he showed me, it had a picture of a couple and two kids. Not a single daughter. My heart skips a beat as I realize the slip-up Axel just had without even noticing. I’m a single daughter who lost my mother at a young age. One who ended up with the best family with every opportunity to help lead me to being a top surgeon in New York City.

“Does he have contact with her?” I ask.

“He—” His godforsaken phone rings at that exact moment. I see the screen when he pulls it out of his pocket. It’s a Detective Garrison calling him. “Sorry Naomi, I have to take this.” He quickly gets up and heads out. “One second, going to move for some privacy,” I hear him say as he moves down the hallway.

Of course they have the police force in their fucking billionaire pockets. They covered it all up. And now they’re trying to lure me into their club as some sort of sick statement.

Getting the daughter of one of his victims to fall in love with him.

Axel just gave me all the proof I’ve been looking for to make my move.

Checkmate.

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