Page 221 of Craving Venom

“Luke had the truck bring you to the prison,” Terry says under his breath. “For burial... but it was all part of the switch.”

“Then I dug you three feet under,” I say flatly. “I made sure your casket had an oxygen supply, small, hidden, but enough to keep you breathing after the adrenaline kicked in. We embedded a micro-canister beneath the false panel lining the lid. Timed it with your vitals coming back.”

Mark swallows hard. “That’s why I could breathe. I remember… the air smelled like rubber and dust.”

“Because it was filtered through the padding,” I confirm.

“Why not just keep me in the truck?”

“Because the truck was only supposed to get us as far as the perimeter.” I flick a glance to the monitor wall. “After that, we needed a cover for a body being offloaded. Easier to log a corpse transfer than explain why a half-conscious man was getting shuffled out of a fire zone.”

He stares at me like I’ve grown horns. “You thought of that?”

“I don’t build plans with room for failure,” I smirk. “Only exits.”

Terry elbows Mark. “You looked beautiful. Pale. Peaceful. Like a virginal little corpse bride.”

Mark ignores him, eyes still locked on me. “So you… what? Just waited by the grave like a fucking crypt keeper?”

“I watched,” Terry confirms, stretching his legs out and flexing his fingers like the job was a casual favor and not digging up a buried, barely-alive man in the middle of the night. “After all, I wasn’t going to leave you alone in a prison graveyard before we cracked you out.”

“Prison graveyard?” Mark repeats, and huffs out a laugh, but it catches in his throat. He looks down, rubbing both hands across his thighs like he’s trying to scrub off the chill that’s only just settling in. “My family never claimed me, did they?”

I say nothing.

Because there’s nothing to say.

And he already knows.

“Right,” Mark huffs, shaking his head. “Yeah. Fuck it. Should’ve known.”

Terry leans his head back against the couch and closes his eyes.

“Okay.” Mark wipes his face once and straightens up. “What happens now?”

I rest my forearms on my knees. “I’d want nothing more than for you to stay here. But if you want out, I’ve got a guy. He’ll build you a new identity. Give you a clean slate. No priors, no flags. You can start over somewhere no one knows your name.”

“How the fuck do you have a guy for everything?”

I let the corner of my mouth tilt just a little. “Money may or may not buy you happiness…”

I spread my arms along the back of the couch.

“…but it sure as fuck buys you convenience.”

“And I’m guessing.” Mark bends forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “that kind of convenience is why Terry’s still breathing.”

Terry cracks one eye open and flashes the kind of grin that belongs to a man who’s already made peace with hell. “Still breathing, still ugly, still not sorry.”

“How the fuck did you explain an explosion that didn’t happen?”

“Oh, the explosion did happen. Only the fire licked one of the two of us, and it wasn’t me.”

“Two?” Mark questions.

I roll my neck once and ease into my seat, handing this one off to Terry.

He loves storytelling too much not to.

---