Monster (30 page)

“You see,”
he started in a tone I immediately didn't trust, “that would
normally be how we would handle this. You are an asset to have around
even if you did screw up this job. But, unfortunately, things have...
transpired since we last spoke.”

This time, I let out
the sigh. “What's transpired?”

“How about a
drink? Scotch? Whiskey? Vodka? What kind of man are you?”

The kind who didn't
take liquor from shitheads the likes of Lex. But I could sense I was
already rocking the boat and I didn't need to make matters worse.
“Whiskey is fine,” I said, generally preferring vodka.
But at the thought of that, an image of Alex drunk off her ass on it
flew into my head- giggling, saying silly shit, coming hard and
repeatedly from my mouth and cock.

Yeah. Whiskey was a
better bet.

Lex moved over to the
bar and I followed, wanting to keep an eye on him. He was a slimy
shit. I wouldn't put it past him to slip something into my drink.
But, in the end, he didn't. He just poured us each a round and we
drank.

“How about we go
see your friend?” Lex suggested, putting his glass back down on
the bar.

“My friend?”
I asked, putting my glass down as well. He had to be talking about
Shooter. But why the fuck would he want to show him to me? Unless he
was planning on making an example of him.

Fuck.

“Sure,” Lex
said, moving to that door that I knew as bad news. “Right
through here.”

Again, not having a
choice, I followed.

I got my cinderblocks.
But no bars. Because there were no windows. Just fluorescent bar
lights across the ceiling. There were men inside. Two. Limp Dick Rick
(who must have been a favorite of Lex's seeing as he was always glued
to the fucker's hip), and some guy I had never seen before- younger,
but solid, brown hair and eyes, utterly forgettable, standing beside
a door to a small room that I figured was a bathroom.

But my eyes took all
that in in about two seconds. Because on the third second, my eyes
fell on Shooter. He was sitting on a metal chair in the middle of the
room. Casually. Not cuffed or tied to it. Just sitting there,
shoulders back, legs wide, looking almost comfortable. There were
bruises on his face and I felt my blood turn to lava at the sight. Of
course it had always been a possibility. Especially because Shoot was
good at pushing at people's buttons.

Still. Seeing it? Yeah.
I wasn't fuckin' happy.

“Heya, Break,”
Shoot said, lifting his chin at me, a smirk toying at his lips. Like
we had plans to go out shoot pool, drink beer, and bang bitches
later. Instead of being outnumbered on the heavily guarded property
of a evil fuckhead who was obviously pissed at me.

“Shoot,” I
said back, just as casually, trying to keep down the surge of worry.

“You look like
shit, man,” Shoot went on, nodding his head.

Yeah. I knew I did.
“Yeah and you look like you've spent the last week at a spa,”
I said, giving him a smile. But he knew me well enough to see
underneath it. He saw the tension. The worry. He knew something was
up. I could see him take it in as he straightened slightly, his eyes
got more keen.

He was with me.

It was bad.

Shit was going to go
down.

Lex cleared his throat
as if sensing something passing between us. “We are going to
transfer Shooter here to the shed in a moment,” he started and
I felt myself stiffen.

The shed.

I didn't know he had a
shed on his property.

But sheds and Lex...
yeah those were never good things to go together.

“But first... we
have a surprise for the two of you.”

Oh fuck.

My eyes went to Shoot's
to see if he had any clue at what we were in store for, but he gave
me a head shake. Whatever it was, he was in the dark. Which only made
my stomach roll all the more.

“Chris,”
Lex said, waving at the younger guy standing by the door.

Shoot and my eyes met
and the only thought that came to me was the one person left in the
world that it was clear I was connected with.

Paine.

He was also connected
with Shoot.

A
surprise
for
the both of us.

Shoot turned in his
chair as Chris disappeared inside the room for a second, then came
back out.

And it was a surprise
alright.

The kind of surprise
that made me seriously think I was going to stroke.

They didn't have Paine.

They had Alex.

Chris was wrestling her
out of the other room (wrestling because she was fighting like a god
damn crazy woman as he did so. It got her nowhere, but I was proud of
her nonetheless).

“The fuck is
this, Lex?” I asked, forcing my voice to sound bored. I could
feel Shoot's eyes on me, shocked, but I couldn't clue him in. Shit
just got
bad
. And they were bad to begin with.

“It seemed I
ended up having to do your job for you, Breaker,” Lex said,
waving a hand toward the suddenly still Alex. Still because she heard
my name and froze, her eyes snapping to mine. The anger left them (no
small miracle since I knew how hot her anger ran) and all that was
left was surprise. And resignation.

She thought she had
saved me.

And there we both were
anyway.

“So you got your
girl. Our deal is done. We good?” I asked, trying to not see
the horror cross Alex's face.

Lex's head tilted to
the side, watching me. “This is unexpected.”

“What is
unexpected? This was what you wanted. You got your hacker. Now I get
my man. And we get the fuck out of here and stay the fuck out of each
other's business.”

“Break...”
Shoot's voice called, sounding as horrified as Alex looked. But I
didn't have any way to clue him into what was really going on.

“See. I had
figured you were in on this whole thing,” Lex went on, looking
around like he was seeing all of us for the first time.

“What whole
thing?” I asked, again, attempting bored.

“Rick,” Lex
said and Rick straightened. “Can you send our other guest in
before you take Shooter here off to the shed?”

With that, Rick was
gone.

Leaving me to feel my
shoulders get even heavier. Another guest? Knew that shit couldn't be
good.

“In on what whole
thing, Lex?” I asked again, feeling the ice slip into my words.

Lex considered me for a
moment before he went on, “Well, see. After dispatching of Mr.
Glenn Gable,” he started and I saw Alex's face sink slightly.
She wasn't wearing her mask. I didn't get a chance to stop and wonder
what that meant before Lex spoke again, “and finding that Alex
here was someone he taught who eventually outgrew his, I will admit,
sizable skills, I decided to use her for my mission. Imagine my
surprise when I learned Alex Miller was the one who had been creating
problems for me all along.”

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

I chanced a look at
Shoot who was uncharacteristically serious. His eyes sliced to mine
and I could see he knew what really went down. He was sharp like
that. He knew I knew who Alex really was. He knew how truly good and
fucked we all were.

The door opened and
Rick walked through followed by a guy around Alex's age. Good
looking. Almost obnoxiously so. Tall. Slim. In a tailored suit. Black
hair. Green eyes. He carried himself like he knew how he looked too.
Arrogant prick.

“Joshua?”
Alex's voice called, sounding a mix of shocked and appalled.

Great. Alex knew the
douche.

Shoulda known. With
Lex, there were always contingency plans upon contingency plans. Just
in case. Fuckin' A.

“Alex honey,”
he said, giving her a winning smile.

“Don't fucking
Alex honey
me you shit,” she snapped and I fought the
twitching of my lips. There was my Alex. Always a hot head. “You
work for
him
?” she growled, her words an accusation.

“I hired Joshua
here when I hired Glenn. Just to make sure Glenn was doing his job.
As it turns out, Glenn was doing a job alright. But the job he was
doing was protecting you.”

“You're good,
Alex,” Joshua said, giving her a look like he meant the
compliment, but given the circumstances, it came off condescending.
“But there's always a trail. You know that.”

He was a hacker.

He was someone she and
Glenn had both known.

Shit.

“You were safe,”
he went on, shrugging, “up until you got back from Oscar Street
and put that shit all up about Glenn. Up until that, I knew someone
was out there. But I couldn't find out where you were. Who you were.
Until that post. I knew you and Glenn used to... well... have an
arrangement,” he said in a way that suggested he knew exactly
what they had. Which only made me angrier. “But I always
figured that was all that it was. An exchange of... goods. But then
he was dead and you were blowing up the forums about it. That was
your fatal mistake, honey.”

“It's only a
mistake if you didn't know the risks, Joshua,” she spat, her
body freakishly still.

“You meant to get
caught?”

“I meant to get
the word out there that a good, kind, funny, awkward little hacker.
One of us. Someone just like
you
, Josh, before your ego ran
away with you... one of our own,
your friend,
was tortured and
killed for no good reason. That needed to get out there. People
needed to be aware. Diligent. Not get wrapped up with shitheads like
Lex. I didn't care about the risk to myself. I was doing the right
thing.” She paused, taking a breath, eyes throwing daggers at
the Joshua guy who had the good sense to look a little taken aback.
“The only one of us here who made a fatal mistake was you.”

“Alex...”
he tried to break in. But there was no stopping Alex when she got
angry. And she was pissed.

“Do you think men
like Lex are good employers? Do you have any idea how many of his own
men he's had killed? No?” she asked, looking around. “Thirty
seven as of my last count. Some of them because they were being
disloyal. Some just for the fuck of it. To exercise his power. Or
because they pissed him off. I know you Josh,” she sneered.
“He'll get sick as hell of you in a few weeks. Then know where
you'll be? In Oscar Street with your throat slit, arterial spray
covering the walls. Just. Like. Glenn. But there won't be me around
to tell everyone what a good guy you were. What a sad, gruesome,
pointless death you had. Because, frankly, you'll have fucking
deserved it
.”

Joshua paled, looking
around at his surroundings like he was seeing them for the first
time.

Alex was right. He was
as good as dead. And he just realized it himself.

I'd feel bad for the
little shit if he wasn't the reason Alex was in that room.

“Well, well,”
Lex broke in, clapping his hands together. “I guess he didn't
break you after all. Alls the better for me,” he smiled in a
evil, awful way at her that made all of the halfway decent men in the
room (meaning me, Shoot, and even the sniveling idiot Joshua)
stiffen. “Alright,” Lex said, his authoritative tone
back. “Rick, you can take Shoot with you. Call in two extra
sets of hands first. One to take Joshua here back to his room. The
other to... lend me a hand.”

I moved. Fast. So did
Shoot.

I was across the room
and tearing into Chris, the guy who was holding Alex. Her body
slammed hard into the wall then fell to the floor, but I was too busy
sinking my fists into the guy's face to check on her.

But I barely got four
good punches in before I was pulled away. I looked over to see Shoot
already restrained by Rick.

My eyes flew to Alex
who was pushing herself up.

It was worth a shot.

Shoot was thinking the
same thing, giving me a shrug before he was hauled out of the room.