Page 36 of Love Her

I knew from tailing them casually that they were the type to stay out late at clubs and clock into Daddy’s offices after oneo’clock. Zane was the wild one, and Wes seemed intent on taking care of him, for some unknown reason.

“His sons are twats. And I’m saying that as a lesbian, Rhaim, so you know it’s bad.”

I chuckled, loud enough for her to hear. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Just your standard upper echelon entitlement. A few rumors about nasty goings on at a frat party—some girl and a forced DP?—”

“Wait, what?” I said, blinking down at the screen. “With the both of them?”

“Yeah—but I can tell from their Instagram posts they were both saying ‘no homo’ when it happened. And in any case—the frat, and their father’s money, swept the entire thing under the rug. There’s not enough juice there for me to bring it out to squeeze—not without hurting the girl involved, either, who appears to have been gifted quite a large sum of money and no doubt signed a brick of an NDA.”

“Hmm.”

“You get anything out of Nick yet?”

“Yeah. He whispered sweet nothings into my ear this morning.”

“Who?” she pressed.

“No one you’d recognize.”

Nick had given me two names—one was his daughter’s dealer, the other was his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. At the time, I’d been relieved that I wasn’t going to have murder anyone I might know—I meant to keep my word, and even if Nick had wanted a C-suite executive at his own firm offed, I would’ve had to step up.

But now, as amped up as I was, killing nobodies felt beneath me.

Entirely unchallenging.

Unless…“Have either of Marcus’s kids ever had to pee in a cup?”

“Gimme a sec,” Sable muttered on the far side of the line. “Ah-ha! Zane—the blonde one—got chlamydia six months ago.”

I grunted. “They run a tox screen too?” There was no way the St. Clair twins partied all night without ever bumping up.

I heard Sable typing for quite some time. “Positive for coke and methamphetamines!” she cackled. “But then again—at their age, who isn’t? And—why’d you ask?”

“Ehh. Sometimes the less you know, the better.” While I trusted Sable implicitly, it wasn’t fair to bring her on board for murder unless I absolutely had to.

“Are you—are you cheating on me?” she protested, in a not-so-mocking tone.

“Only with Google.”

“Oh my God, Rhaim. If you’re going to replace me—at least use fucking ChatGPT.”

And then a gold Porsche Panamera came up, and both of the men in question came stumbling out of it. They were laughing, and they walked in through the front door—and started rifling through the assorted gift-baskets like human sized racoons.

“Come on…come on,” I whispered without sound, like a man watching the bobber on his fishing line start to twitch.

Then they got to mine—and totally ignored the flowers and tossing a tin of fancy caviar aside as they dove deep, emerging with an Armand de Brignac “Ace of Spades” Gold Brut—and Sable’s altered Blood Orange Diesel vape pen, cradled in a black velvet box.

“You’re in,” I told her.

“Which one?”

“The blonde.”

“Fantastic!” she said, and I heard her clap her hands.

I turned my truck on again, while keeping the headlights off. I was done here for the night, it was time to go back to my place, jerk off to thoughts of Lia, and pass out till dawn. “You got the cameras?” I asked Sable—the neighborhood I was in was too nice not to have any, and I didn’t want to show up anywhere…yet.

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