Torrid (Sordid 2)

There was a sign in the front yard announcing the home was protected by a security system, only my PI said it was bullshit. The house might have been wired at one time, but the company didn’t have an account for this address on file. I put my gloved hand on the sliding door, curious. Might as well see if he’d been dumb enough to leave it unlocked, and save myself the trip to the front door and the time it’d take to pick.

The door slid open and I shook my head in disbelief.

It was noisy as hell, and I opened it just enough so I could slither through. The kitchen was dark. No dogs came rushing at me. No men waited with guns in their hands. I dragged the door closed and surveyed the room. Dirty dishes with half-eaten dinners were stacked on the counter beside empty beer bottles.

I unholstered the Glock and set off in search of David.

The depressing house wasn’t large, so it didn’t take long. He was asleep in the bedroom to the left of the kitchen, snoring away with his mouth hanging open. I stepped around the piles of clothes and carefully searched for his piece. David might not have security monitoring his home, but he’d been my uncle’s bodyguard for years. His security would be a gun or two within reach of the bed.

There was one hidden under the metal frame. I slipped it quietly out of the holster and jammed it in the back of my jeans. I didn’t find a gun under the pillow on the far side of the bed, which meant he might have the second one beneath his fat head. If he did, I’d shoot him before he could go for it.

He was in his mid-fifties, and it looked like he’d let himself go over the last twenty years. Fuck, he was a hairy bastard. Maybe after I woke him up, I’d make him put on a shirt. I didn’t like looking at the forest of curls that covered most of him.

I set the barrel of my gun an inch from his forehead. “Hey, fuckface. Wake up.”

David jerked awake. His sleepy eyes focused on the gun and immediately went alert.

“Hands where I can see them,” I said. “Right, fucking, now.”

He probably thought about going for the gun beneath the mattress, but his split-second calculation was run and he figured it wasn’t going to work out in his favor. He cautiously raised his hands.

“Sit up. Slowly,” I ordered.

His anxious eyes didn’t stray from mine. “I don’t keep money in the house. You picked a bad guy to rob, kid.”

My finger ached to pull the trigger, but the rest of me was strong. Get him downstairs first. He didn’t recognize me, and why would he? I’d been five years old the last time I’d seen him. “If I was going to rob you, why the fuck would I wake you up?”

He drew in a deep breath. Yeah, it was sinking in now.

When his eyes shifted away, I chuckled. “Thinking about going for the gun under the bed? Because, surprise. I found it.” I enjoyed the grimace that rolled through David’s expression. “On your feet. Let’s take a walk.”

He was wearing a pair of blue boxers, and thank God for that. I didn’t need to see any more of him. “Where are we going?” he asked as he came to his feet.

“Downstairs.”

His shoulders pulled back. “Why?”

“Because I love the smell of mold. Fucking move.”

I’d explored the whole place as a precaution, and had made sure the only thing that could kill me in the basement—outside of David—was the musty rot in the walls. He went down the steps at a snail’s pace, probably stalling for time, or hoping I’d slip up and get too close so he could take a gun off me.

My impulse control had improved over the last year. I understood when to be patient.

“What’s this about?” he asked when he reached the bottom of the steps. “Who do you work for?”

It was both the truth and a lie. “Goran Markovic.”

He hadn’t been afraid when he’d woken with a gun in his face, but he was scared shitless now.

“What the fuck?” His face turned an ugly shade of purple. “I did what he told me and kept my mouth shut.”

I flicked the tip of my gun toward the center of the room, then aimed it back at him. I’d prefer not to get anything on myself when I pulled the trigger.

David’s agitation ramped up. “Why’d he send you? There’s no mess to clean up here. Dimitrije died last—”

“No mess?” Anger was a thick knot in my throat, choking me. “What you did ruined people’s lives.”

He looked guilty, but visibly swallowed it back. “If I hadn’t done it, Goran would have killed me and found someone else.”