Then I realized the men coming in to attack didn’t get through the front. My men were on the doors, and I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to them yet as the cops were taking their sweet time asking all the questions.
On the way past a forensic person, I stole a glove, sliding it on my hand. No one bothered me. I was merely the owner walking around. I checked the door and ran my hand across the lock.
The door had been pried open, and when I glanced down, I saw the crowbar. The people who attacked my club were sloppy. Why attack and not take their weapon of choice? Rather than give it to the police, I placed the crowbar out of sight with the intention of giving it to my own personal analyst.
I had more faith in the men I paid for than the cops assigned to help me out.
The room they came into was the storage room.
I followed the path and came to another door, which was even more interesting. This one wasn’t pried open. This one appeared to have been opened with a single flick of the wrist, which I did, and stepped out.
The scent of cigarette smoke assailed my senses. I never smoked, and as I looked at the shaking woman who immediately stood, my nerves went to an all-time high.
“You shouldn’t be out here. The cops are going to want to interview you.”
“Have they talked to you?”
“No. I didn’t see anything. I was dealing with inventory, you know.”
I stepped a little closer, and this time, the woman whose name badge labeled her as Casey, tried to run. She dropped her cigarette as I wrapped my fingers around her throat and pressed her up against the wall.
“Please, don’t kill me. I don’t want to die. Please. Please.”
Her sobbing filled the air, irritating me. She wasn’t sorry for what she’d done.
“Why don’t you tell me what is going on right now?” I asked. I was calm.
“I don’t know anything. I swear, I don’t.”
I shoved her up against the wall, squeezing her throat tightly. She tried to claw at my wrists, but her nails had been so chewed down, she couldn’t even leave a scratch. It would be so easy to watch her die. I didn’t need her. She was the cause of three deaths.
But I needed information.
Releasing her neck long enough to let her breathe, I continued to stare at her as she whimpered and moaned.
“Please. Please,” she said. “I don’t want to die.”
“Then why don’t you start talking? Give me enough information, you’ll live. You don’t, well, we know what is going to happen to you.”
She whimpered. “I … they didn’t say what they were going to do. All I was supposed to do was open the door, that was all. I opened the door and I got my daughter back. I’m trying to be clean, but it was so easy.”
“What’s so easy?” I asked.
“All I have to do is fuck who they say and I get the money and the coke, and I … I did really well, I promise. I said no. I wanted my daughter back but, but, they found me, and they fed me and I remembered how good it was.” She covered her face with her hands.
This woman was an addict and someone had gotten her hooked back on the dope.
“Is it mine?” I asked.
“The kid?”
I frowned. I’d never sleep with a woman like this. So helpless, mainly useless. “No, the dope.”
“I don’t know. I just know it’s so good and after I’ve done what I’ve done, it makes everything so easy.” She smiled as if she was in some fairytale land. “My kid is better off without me. She doesn’t need me. I’m a failure. I want my own life. I never wanted to get pregnant. You can hurt me all you want, but I only have a couple of text messages that told me what to do. I didn’t break any law.” Her sobbing turned into aggression.
“Give me your cell phone,” I said.
She scrambled on her person, handing me the phone. With my hand over her mouth and nose, I didn’t hesitate or stop. I cut off her air and watched this woman slowly die, feeling nothing.
She crumpled to the ground, and I pulled out my cell phone, making a call. With the cops so close, I should have waited, but I wasn’t a patient man when it came to getting rid of a problem, and this woman was a problem.
With her cell phone in my pocket, I checked the time and saw it was now a little after midnight.
My thoughts drifted to Aurora. When I got the call to come down to Shiver, we hadn’t spoken since I told her I wouldn’t be a submissive man. There was no way I was going to trust her so easily.