Taboo: A Dark Romance Boxset (Stud Ranch 1)

“No worries,” I say, holding out a glass of whisky. “We got it all sorted out. And a trip to Thailand sounded like exactly the kind of getaway I needed to escape all that shit back there. But brother, shit, couldn’t you afford nicer digs?”

He takes the glass and laughs. “Right? I saw the place and thought the taxi-driver was shitting me. But then I thought, what the fuck, why not rough it like the locals for a night?”

Then his face goes sober. “But man, I’m sorry about that girl. I know you really liked her. It’s just hard when you’re as high profile and powerful as we are to trust people. Everybody has an angle. Everybody wants something.”

I nod and take a sip of the glass I’ve been nursing for over an hour while I waited for him to come back. “Well now I know better.”

I lift my glass. “To knowing better.”

Darren clinks his glass with mine. “To knowing better.”

We both drink. Darren downs his, laughing and making a face when the glass is empty. “Whooeee, that burns.”

I laugh. “No kidding. You want some more?” I hold up the bottle.

“Hell yes.”

I pour him another.

“Bitches aren’t fucking worth it,” I say, slurring my words. “Bros before hoes.”

Then I raise my glass again. “Bros before hoes!”

He clinks his glass again, laughing at me and shouting, “Bros before hoes!”

We both down our glasses.

“Man I’ve missed this.” He relaxes back in a plastic lounge chair beside me, the least offensive looking piece of furniture in the room. “Us just relaxing and hanging out. Now I sort of wished I hadn’t sent the girl away cause the only thing that would make this better would be her sucking our dicks right now.”

“Bros plus hoes?” I offer.

He laughs and nods.

I just shake my head though. “Women are too complicated. They’re needy and whiny.”

Darren pours himself some more whisky. “True enough.”

He holds out the bottle to me but I raise a hand to decline. “I had half the bottle before you got here. Had to relax after that long ass flight. Remind me again why we made our factory in the middle of fuck all nowhere Asia?”

“Uh, cause the labor is cheap as shit? And the tax breaks are sick.”

“And it doesn’t hurt that you get to come over here once a quarter and do whatever you want to girls in some shithole rat-infested motel and no one’s ever the wiser, huh?”

“What?” Darren looks confused, the smile dimming a notch on his face.

“Like that girl you were bringing back here.” I sit up a little straighter. “You were gonna what? Rape her and beat her within an inch of her life? Cause that’s what you get off on, right?”

Darren sits up in his chair, the smile finally dropping from his face. “What the hell are you talking about. She was a prostitute. You can’t rape a prostitute. Jesus. You of all people should know that.”

It’s a well-aimed barb but it’s not stopping me now that I’m on a role.

“Why else would you be staying in this shithole?” I gesture to the room around us, “instead of one of the nice international hotels? You want a place where no one will care about who comes and goes. And a place where no one will notice the disappearance of just another cheap whore.”

“What the fuck, Dylan?”

Darren’s whole face is red as he jumps to his feet, indignant.

“Her hair was the same color as Chloe’s. Do you find ones that look like our sister on purpose, you sick fuck?”

Darren lunges for me but he stumbles after the first step and falls to his knees. He blinks and shakes his head, looking up at me with unfocused eyes. “Wha— you do to-me?” he asks sluggishly.

“What?” I ask calmly. “I thought you liked to party. Chloe told me this is how you did it to her at the beginning so she couldn’t fight back. She was just fourteen at the time, wasn’t she?”

I calmly stand up, taking with me the little tin box that I bought before getting in the private jet. You really can find anything on the streets of San Francisco.

But before I pull the lid off the tin, I pull the gloves out of my pocket and tug them on. Then I open the tin and fill the needle with the yellow liquid in the vial.

Darren tries to get to his feet but only falls back down again. I didn’t scrimp on the dosage of GHB I put in the whisky bottle.

I kick him in the ribs and he doubles over so I kick him in the back to get him straightened back out.

Then I drop on top of him and yank his arm out, positioning the needle at the fattest vein.

He just starts laughing.

“She always was the best fuck. You’ve never known a tight cunt until you fuck our little sister. You should try it.”