Kill Game (The Devious Games Duet 1)

Since he’s been laid off this time, I’ve just taken the bus instead of fighting with him to get up. Correction, I took my car a couple times a few weeks ago when he wouldn’t get up and got screamed at for an hour on the phone while I tried to work as well as dealt with attitude for days because he’d had plans that he didn’t tell me about. Plans that, evidently, weren’t enough to get him up the three times I attempted to wake him. These days, I’ve found it easier to just take the bus.

And the kicker? He lets me. Even if he has no plans. Even if he’s just planning on going to the bar that’s within walking distance. One of the many nails in the Violet and Ray relationship coffin.

Killian’s mouth looks tight. “Hang on…is it your car? He said it was. His is in the shop?”

“Pretty sure he needs it today,” I lie, and I know it’s unconvincing because I can feel my face flaming.

He probably talked shit about my car because it wasn’t a sportscar and evidently, he thinks he has to impress Killian.

“He even have a car?” he asks.

Of course I’m not about to say that Ray’s car got repossessed a few months after I met him, despite me giving him a car payment to get caught up.

“Umm…not at the moment.”

He shakes his head. He knows Ray. He and Ray apparently grew up together, so he’s obviously not surprised.

He poses a new question. “When do you gotta leave?”

I glance at the digital clock on the stove. “In about five or ten minutes.”

He frowns. “Your hair’s wet. It’s freezin’ out there. Frost on the ground. High winds by the sounds of it.” He looks at me like I’m an errant child.

I nod. “Yeah, I shouldn’t have washed it having slept in. I was half asleep in the shower. Don’t worry about rushing. Just… twist the lock on your way out and –”

“No hairdryer?” He sips his coffee as I put the lid on mine.

“I didn’t want the noise to wake you up.” More heat creeps up my neck and across my cheeks. “I try to be a… uh… considerate hostess. Don’t worry about it.”

He looks pissed. Pissed right off.

The vibe gets my heart pumping hard.

“I’ll drive you to work,” he tells me.

“Oh, that’s okay.”

“Don’t be a fuckin’ martyr. Take five and get the wet out of your hair.”

“Um, it’s okay, I…”

“Blow-dry your hair, Violet. It’s fuckin’ cold out there.”

“Okay,” I whisper and grab my regular one from the bathroom and set it up in the kitchen.

He frowns.

He’s wondering why I’m running it in the kitchen instead of the bathroom. Slightly lower chance of not waking Ray up.

I turn my head upside down and blast it for a few minutes, then duck into the bathroom to go with a ponytail because my hair is still a little damp and because of how I dried it, it’ll be too poofy to leave it down.

“Ready?” He asks as I emerge. He’s hand-washing his coffee mug. He sets it in the dish drainer, and I watch as he moves to the front door and grabs his leather jacket from the coat tree. He shrugs it on and holds out my coat. I let him help me into it before I grab my purse and my travel mug, muttering out a meek ‘thank you’ and internally chastising myself for it.

The elevator ride down is fraught with tension – his and mine – as I try and fail in efforts to avoid looking at Killian’s flexing jaw muscles as he stares at the elevator lights with his teeth tight together. Before we get to the ground floor, his eyes find mine and the look in them makes my heart pound in double time. He looks furious and I don’t like this feeling – like something bad is about to happen.

I know I’m overreacting, being stupid because of the affect Ray has had on me, so I dig deep and try to pull up some cool.

The doors open with a ding and he waves for me to go ahead as he holds the elevator door, so it won’t close on me.

I move ahead of him and once we leave the building, having no idea where he is parked, I search the parking lot to see which car looks like it doesn’t belong.

I stumble.

So much for pulling up some cool.

“Here.” He puts his hand to the small of my back and leads me to a white sportscar.

A definite hot guy car. Ray talked about Killian a lot over the years. He told me Killian was from his old neighborhood but had moved on and taken his bookie business to the next level. And then the next level again. Ray talked about how he owned multiple off-track betting sports bars. Ray bragged that he was a millionaire by twenty-six and that he dates models. He insinuated Killian was part of the crew he grew up around and pointedly said, more than once, that “Kill Coulter fucks people up who cross him.”