Shaking my head, I say, “You know if you don’t tell me, you’ll be there in a few minutes, right?”
He chuckles under his breath. “I’m not going to fucking tell you anything, Hunter. You call yourself The Fixer, but you couldn’t fix jack shit. It’s all your fault, you know? If you hadn’t fucked everything up, I’d still be working for you.”
His words are meant to get a rise out of me, and they’re almost working. But he’s remembering the situation wrong. I step forward and ram my fist into his throat, crushing his windpipe. He’ll still be able to talk, but he won’t be able to waste his words anymore.
“Listen, Jonathan, I’m done playing fucking games. You’re going to tell me where my money is, or you’re going to die. Which do you prefer?”
He is gasping for air as he stares up at me, his dark eyes barely slits, they’re so swollen. “You’ll never find it,” he croaks out. “Never. I’m not giving it to you, Stone. My life is over, and I accept that. I’ll save you a seat in hell.”
I stare at him, watching his head roll to the side as he continues to fight for air. I think I hear Leah say something behind me. I’m sure she wishes I hadn’t been so reckless. I’m going to have to kill him now.
But then…I was going to do that anyway.
“Fuck,” I mutter and take a few steps back, fingering the gun I have obscured in the back of my waistband.
“Jonathan, come on,” Leah says, taking a step closer. They used to be pretty close before he stabbed us all in the back. Maybe she thinks she can talk some sense into him. I know she can’t, but I’ll let her try. “There’s no reason for you to sign your death warrant. We can get you medical attention quickly enough. All your suffering can be over if you just tell Hunter what you did with the money. You know you shouldn’t have taken it, to begin with. Is that why you never spent any of it?”
“How do you know I didn’t spend all of it?” he asks, a maniacal chuckle coming out through his hoarse voice.
“It’s no use, Leah,” I tell her. “He’s ready to die.”
“Jonathan,” she implores him, bending down to get closer to his face. “Come on!”
Despite the fact that I’ve cracked his throat, he somehow manages to gather enough saliva together to spit in her face. She is shocked as a glob of bloody mucus lands on her cheek.
“You son of a bitch!” I shout, pulling her aside as Omar hands her a tissue he’s plucked from somewhere.
I deck Jonathan so hard in the same spot where I broke his cheekbone earlier that his head smacks back into the wall behind him. “You want to spit in the face of the one person who still thinks your soul deserves redemption? You fucking piece of shit.”
His eyes roll back a bit, and I think he might pass out again, but he’s still attempting to smile with his bloody, cracked lips, half of his teeth broken now.
“Fine, I’ll tell you where the money is,” he says, his head meandering worse than a drunk driver as he tries to turn to face me. “I shoved it up her fucking cunt!” Again, he manages to laugh hysterically, and I am done. I don’t even see the point in trying to get information out of the asshole anymore. He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to tell me, and I’m done playing his fucking games.
I pull my gun from my waistband and stretch my hand out, waiting for someone to oblige me. It’s Caleb who drops a silencer into my palm. I can still hear the pulse of the music turned up to disguise the sound of what I’m about to do, but I don’t want to take unnecessary chances.
It would be for the best if no one outside of the people standing in this room and the few others who are aware of what truly goes on in Club Limelight ever know what happened to Jonathan Williams.
Making sure his head is in front of a red splash on the wall for easier clean-up, I lift the gun and take aim. He has one more chance to speak up, but instead, he chooses to tell me to fuck myself.
I pull the trigger, and his head jerks back as red and gray splatter all over the wall. Jonathan jerks a bit, then he goes still, his head falling over onto his shoulder.
He’s right. I might never find the money, but at least I won’t have to wonder where he is anymore. He’ll be in a shallow grave in less than an hour.
CHAPTER4
MEGHAN
Allie’s words are not quite registering in my mind as I try to comprehend what has just happened. “That was—who?” I ask, still stunned not only by the extremely sexy man I’ve just had a spirited encounter with but more so by the fact that I think she just said that he was my boss, Hunter Stone.
“Yeah, that’s Mr. Stone, Hunter,” she says. “Boss, The Fixer, uh…the Big Guy.”
“You can keep calling him all those nicknames if you want to, but it won’t change the fact that I just spilled whiskey all over my boss!” I say, turning to face her as I run a hand through my hair. “Holy fuck!” I shout.
“Don’t worry about it,” Allie insists. “He’ll be fine in a bit. That’s just how he is. Everything about Hunter is…intense.” She makes a face like she’s either remembering something that took place in a bedroom or wishes she had such a memory. “Just let it go.”
“I have to go apologize to him!” I declare. Thoughts of what will happen if he fires me or makes it miserable for me to work here come to mind. I was just starting to like it here. I’ve even made some friends. I can’t risk losing this over my own smart-mouthed comments.
“Oh, no, honey,” she says, grabbing hold of my arm. “Not right now. He’s really busy back there, and he will not like it if you interrupt him.” The look on her face makes me think he must be doing something in the private part of the club, and putting two and two together, I wonder if she means he’s entertaining a woman—or two.