Page 4 of Graveyards & Greed

“Fucking hell.” Letting out a long breath to get my nerves under control, I situated the syringe in my fingers, then bent over Eightball and stabbed him deep in the neck, plunging the deadly concoction into his system.

“This is for Camilla. I hope it burns like fucking acid in your veins, and yousufferbefore you die,” I croaked out, then stood back. He jerked as it hit his system, his eyes wide and scared before they rolled back in his head. When he went limp and stopped breathing, I turned only to find Drakos standing right behind me, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “So. You’re not here for a bump then.”

Chapter 2

Sylvie

I pointed down to Grunge’s crumpled body. “If you aren’t going to finish him off, I need to.”

He lifted his eyebrow. “He’s dead.”

“How?”

“I broke his neck while you were fumbling around with your syringe, leaving your back exposed. The crime rate in this area is at least five hundred percent higher than the national average.” He pulled out his phone and watched me carefully. The man calmly discussed murder methods and crime stats and wore custom-made suits to a biker bar. What a bizarre man.

He hit speed dial and put his phone to his ear. “Yeah, it’s in the alley behind Titties. New plan. I need a pickup for the bike. The key will be in the ignition. Send me the coordinates for the hole. No, I can do it myself. I threw a couple of shovels in.” He ended the call and turned to me.

I studied the alleyway and glanced at the street entrance, my insides tightening. “This could go one of two ways. We either try to kill each other, or we work together.”

He grinned. “I’d rather work together, but ladies’ choice.”

“Option number one sounds good. Do you have a plan for the bodies? Eightball’s death will look like an overdose, but two dead corpses—and one with a broken neck—are a problem.”

“I’ve already got a hole out in the desert. We can probably fit two bodies in, but we need to move.”

I’d planned to leave Eightball where he fell and hope the coroner blamed it on the drugs and alcohol in his system. I could also take the bodies and cremate them at the family mortuary where I both lived and worked, but it would be better not to have Drakos Creed know who I was. And I definitely didn’t want him to run into my cousins.

The hole in the desert would have to do.

I eyed Drakos warily. “Get your vehicle, and I’ll grab my cleanup kit. I’m driving my own car to the disposal site, though.”

Without waiting for a reply, I hustled to my untraceable car and grabbed my emergency kit, which held tarps, generic solvent, rope, rubber gloves, and a few other odds and ends. By the time Drakos pulled his nondescript vehicle into the alley, I’d gloved up and had Eightball already wrapped and tied in black plastic.

He stared down at the body, and then back to me. “What’s your real name?”

I ignored his question and handed him some rubber gloves. “Open your hatch and grab his torso.” We each took an end, then swung the corpse into the back of his SUV. We repeated the process with Grunge’s body.

“The night is long,” Drakos sighed.

“That never finds the day,” I finished the Shakespeare quote absently.

“And necessity acquaints itself with strange bedfellows.” His lip quirked up as he studied me. “Dark humor, dead bodies, and you’re not queasy. I’m starting to catch feelings.”

“Keep it in your pants, Romeo.” I slammed his trunk shut, the sound echoing off the alley walls. “While you went to get your car, I texted someone to let them know who to hunt down if I disappear tonight.”

“I’d be disappointed if you hadn’t. Do you know who I am?”

“We’ve never met,” I hedged.

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“We don’t have time for this. I’ll follow you.” I glanced around nervously. We’d been lucky so far, but we needed to get moving. The plan was simple. We’d drive the bodies out to the desert, bury them together, and never see each other again.

Drakos's red taillights seemed to mock me as we drove through the late-night streets of Vegas. When we hit the freeway and the sprawling emptiness of the Nevada desert, the city lights faded into the distance. The stars in the clear desert sky became visible, and I gazed up at the sparkling canopy above me as I drove.

My mind replayed the night, and I worried about the change in plans and whether it would all come back to bite me. The night air felt cooler out here without as much concrete and asphalt. We finally pulled off the freeway onto a deserted road just past Primm, that strange, plastic town straddling the Nevada-California border. I rolled down my window and smelled the sagebrush and baked earth in the air.

When I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror, the brown wig and heavy makeup still hid my features. My eyeliner and mascara were smudged, and I did, indeed, look like a cokehead. But the disguise worked. Drakos suddenly turned onto an unpaved track, kicking up dust that glowed eerily in my headlights. We drove for several miles, then made another turn and stopped. This had to be the spot. Creosote bushes and Joshua trees surrounded the clearing, and as I parked and got out, I wondered if Drakos came out here regularly to get rid of evidence.

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