Page 83 of Untold Restraint

“You were there the whole time?” I ask. “Sleeping?”

He shrugs. “I was tired. Someone would have woken me if I was needed.” He looks around at his team of misfit brothers. “These guys know what they’re doing.” He stretches and ruffles Loosh’s hair. “You’ll keep me safe, right, big man?”

Loosh grunts and bats him away, then kicks the hostage for no apparent reason — well, other than the guy’s being a hired murderous asshole, I guess.

I walk over and kick the hitman too. “Your poor choices affect good people,” I scold, and kick him again when he responds with a moody grunt.

Loosh looks at me, and then lifts the guy’s legs and points to his balls. I smile politely and kick him there, too. “Thank you, Lucius.”

He puts the guy’s legs back down and nods.

“We have action,” Jules calls out before patting the hitman on the shoulder. “Good work, man. You got the job,” he tells the guy who is probably going to be disposed of later, by Lucius. “You’re up, Atty. How did Jack want it done, Dusty?”

“He said,Make it clean. Leave her pretty. Do you think Dimitri here is any good at following orders?”

Jules and Dusty look the guy over and have an intriguing conversation with their eyes, before they turn to me. “We think he’s either terrible at doing what he’s told and would make a sloppy mess, or he’ll follow the instructions too literally and would pose you half-naked andpretty,” Dusty says, using air quotes for the last word. “Which is your preference?”

I shudder. “Neither sound great, buthalf-naked and prettywill be easier to clean up from, and if Jack is distracted by my tits, he may not notice any minor details we forget to add.”

“Oh, I won’t forget anything,” Atty says, pulling out his suitcase of art supplies. “I’ve been studying crime-scene photos for inspo.” He stops after one step and wipes his hand back and forth through the air, like he’s erasing his last statement. “Not in a creepy, serial-killer way. In an aesthetic, lighting, color, and form way. I’ll make it look good,” he assures me. “But again, I don’t mean creepy, overly thought-out and dramatic serial-killer good, just a believable kind ofI arranged a body into a sexual position post-mortem, to send a sarcastic message to my evil billionaire bosssort of thing that I think our lowly hitman here would be proud of.”

Atticus moves closer to the restrained killer and waves at him. “Apologies, for assuming so much about your character. Hope you’re not too offended by the Hollywood stereotypes I’m judging you by.”

The hitman stares at him, as if he’d be speechless even if he wasn’t already gagged.

Atticus turns back to me and grins. “Okay. Ready to get creative? I have all the fixings for a gunshot to the head, or we can do chest. Maybe give you a bloody-handprint bikini? You think our guy likes to Honka-Honka?”

“Head wound’s fine. Feel free to mess the car with brains, if we need to dump it anyway. And no hands touch my tits but mine, or Quin will have something to say about it, for damn sure. Where do you want me? Behind the wheel?”

25

QUIN

Oh, the mistakes we make when we’re young and stupid.

I always regretted not faking my own death, so the fact that I get a chance to fake Kira’s, to save her life, brings sweet satisfaction.

Jack will be starting to wonder where I am soon. He was rather busy and preoccupied by some very distracting paperwork when I left to get him more coffee, but it won’t keep him in his seat for much longer.

I didn’t bother to visit the espresso machine and slipped into the guest wing, instead. I check my video feed of Jack, but he hasn’t looked up from the cruel puzzle I left him, so I know he’s currently unaware of my tracker location, which he has been particularly interested in of late.

I choose the spare bedroom that’ll have the best view of the gardens, to see the helicopter do a low flyover and near-ish landing over at the neighbors, down the street. They’re on holiday, so nobody will mind a brief emergency landing and take-off.

I adjust the replica watch on my wrist and compare it to its neighbor — the originalhappy imprisonmentgift my father gave me. They’re identical, apart from one very important detail.

I text Daisy the wordGofrom my burner phone, which vibrates when her temporary number sends back athumb’s upemoji.

The nearby helicopter is on its way.

I smile at the footage of Jack, trying to figure out the mess I made by merging some financial details from two different companies. He’ll never be able to make sense of them.

The sound of a chopper approaches, and I can see it getting closer.

It’s time.

I snip the original watch’s strap with a small pair of bolt cutters, and smother my wrist under a pillow made of layers of dense acoustic foam, but no sudden high-pitched squeal splits the air.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” I mutter, as I stuff the watch inside a specially design copper-and-lead box, just in case it can somehow continue to transmit data after death, like a fucking zombie watch. I stash the box between the mattress and bed base and send a text to Daisy.

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