I forced my voice up an octave. “You’ve reached the Chaos Crew.”
“Put me on with the man I spoke to last time,” the man on the other end demanded.
I suppressed a laugh at his stupidity. It had always been me. I could have transitioned back into the deeper, more masculine voice I’d used before, but he didn’t have control over this conversation. I did. “I’m representing the Chaos Crew today.”
“I don’t give a fuck who’s representing them. They didn’t complete their job,” he spat into the phone, and I stiffened. “Something is missing from the house that should have been there.”
“The Crew killed every person inside that house, per the manifest, and they didn’t take anything with them,” I assured him. “It was a successful job with no hiccups.”
“Did they find any hidden areas in the house that weren’t mentioned in the manifest?”
“Are you implying that the brief you provided was faulty?” I asked. “I certainly hope you didn’t put the Crew in danger by leaving out information.”
The man remained quiet for a moment, giving me the answer that I needed. There had been information he hadn’t included in the job details they’d passed on. It didn’t matter what words he spewed to deny the claim after that telling pause.
After dealing with Dess, it was almost a relief to be able to spot the lie so easily.
“I gave you all the necessary information to ensure the job was completed successfully,” he snapped. “But clearly you screwed up somewhere.”
I wished I had chosen a more intimidating persona, maybe channeling Talon. Too late now. “Are you going to tell me what exactly was missing?” I asked. My thoughts darted to all that jewelry Dess had been carrying.
But what were the chances she was a thief who’d broken into a home, found a vicious massacre there, and decided to continue with her robbery like it was nothing? And why would the client be so worked up about some pieces of jewelry anyway? It’d been expensive stuff, sure, but he’d placed more money in escrow for the job than the whole lot would have come close to being worth.
“That isn’t your business,” the client said. “What matters is that it’s gone, and you’re the only people who’ve left the house in the timeframe.”
Jackass. How did he expect us to help him if he wouldn’t even explain what the problem was?
I let my voice get clipped. “We deliver expertly orchestrated chaos. Our motto doesn’t lie. Your instructions were to kill everyone inside the place, and I guarantee that the inside of that house was a chaotic bloodbath when the crew was finished. Nobody escaped. Those were the terms, and they were met to anyone’s satisfaction. And now you’re accusing us of stealing?”
The man hesitated. “I’m not accusing your team of anything. But something was takenfrom that house, and we will be doing a close investigation to determine who was responsible. If we find that the Chaos Crew interfered in any way that was not outlined in the contract, there will be severe consequences. For the sake of your crew, I hope that you have nothing to do with this. We aren’t playing Candy Land here.”
I had a snarky remark at the tip of my tongue, but he ended the call before I had a chance to launch it.
I looked down at my phone, my forehead furrowing. We hadn’t taken anything from the mansion. Hell, we hadn’t even touched anything in the place other than our bullets and blades severing all those bodies—and me patting them down for weapons and phones after. As always, we’d followed each clause in the contract, and we’d completed the task with no hitches. Julius wouldn’t tolerate anything less.
Well, there’d been almost no hitches. What could we call Dess?