Page 36 of Risky Passion

I'd learned that dance when I was fifteen, when my teacher, Mr. O’Leary, at Angelsong thought he was going to get a blow job down in the dusty archiving room. I’d made sure he never touched another girl again. Alice and I had laughed ourselves breathless that night, dragging his body to the back paddock. Though digging his grave had sobered us up quick enough.

I resisted a smile at that memory. Brian O’Leary had no idea how good my acting was, and I’d been perfecting it over the decades since. Just like the art of body disposal, only a handful of people who’d died at my hand had turned up over the decades.

My chest hollowed thinking of Alice. She was meant to rest forever beneath her beloved angel fountain. My jaw clenched against a scream. Those bastards had no right to disturb her grave.

I had to move fast and save her before they took her body from me forever.

Through the speaker came the sharp snap of Aria's fingers, summoning her elite dogs. Levi, Viper, Maya, Cobra, and that bastard Blade would be mobilizing now, acting on her commands. But even with their chopper screaming in from Risky Shores, they would be too late to catch me.

By the time they arrived, I would be gone, and I would have my finger on the detonator, ready to kill the lot of them.

Grant’s head lolled forward, then jerked back up. Shit, that drug washitting his system faster than I'd expected. His gaze locked onto mine, and his fear was so thick his eyes were bloodshot.

"How are you calling me?" Aria’s tone was suspicious and probing.

I nodded at Grant. I’d already anticipated that question and prepped his answer.

"The doctor who helped her," he stammered. "She . . . she shot him. In the hospital basement. He’s dead. I . . . I took his phone when she wasn’t looking."

Good boy.

His fingers dug into the chair's arms so hard his knuckles bleached white. Even now, hope flickered in his eyes with that desperate belief he might survive this. Fool.

As Aria's muffled voice fired orders, keyboards clattered in the background.

A smile tugged at my lips. They'd swallowed the bait whole and were probably frantically tracing the call. Perfect. Let them come rushing to their deaths.

"Why did she take you?" Aria's voice returned, sharp as a blade.

"I knew too much," Grant whispered, following our script perfectly. He slumped forward, and I shoved him back into the seat. Tears carved paths down his ashen face.

"Why hasn't she killed you already?" Aria asked.

"She was planning to," he slurred, fighting to stay conscious, “but she got some call about a plane crash. So she drugged me with something to knock me out."

His words grew heavier with each syllable. "I . . . I don't know where she went. But hurry. I don't know how long before she?—"

The phone slipped from his fingers, clattering against the floor as his eyes rolled back.

"Grant?" Aria's voice sharpened. "Grant, are you there? Shit!"

I kicked the phone, sending it splashing into the watery hole.

I tapped Grant's cheek. Nothing. He was out cold. Perfect. The sedative had taken him exactly when I needed it to. Aria had enough info to lead them straight into my trap.

I pulled my phone from my pocket to check the time. Shit. Threemissed calls from Diego. That incompetent ass better be calling to tell me the pilot was dead, and my drugs were secure.

As I strode toward the exit, leaving Grant slumped in his chemical coma, dread coiled in my stomach. With Diego, it was always bad news.

"About fucking time," Diego barked when I called him back. “Where’ve you been?”

"Watch your tone, Diego. What’ve you fucked up now?"

"Me? I ain't done nothing! But Bayani—" His voice cracked like thin ice. "A fucking croc got him and dragged him under. There was so much blood, man. Just . . . everywhere."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a migraine building. These morons couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. "Did you at least kill that pilot?"

"Jesus Christ!" Diego's voice rose to a hysterical pitch. "Did you hear me? A crocodile ate Bayani! Like some horror movie shit. One minute he's there, next minute—gone."

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