Vanquish (Deliver 2)

Monday night traffic was predictably sparse. Zachary parked beside a little bar off Sixth Street called Cyanide and went inside with a prissy little hop in his step.

Okay, maybe he'd imagined the hop, but fuck if he couldn't see how Amber let that skinny rodent put his dick in her. He pressed a fist against the burning sensation in his chest and parked in a nearby lot. When his blood pressure cooled to normal, he locked up and strolled to the bar.

The sky was dark, but the interior of Cyanide was darker. Soft electronic beats and a thin crowd set a casual ambiance. He wove around the high-tops and winked at a gaggle of college girls who openly stared at him with we're-dumb-and-in-heat googley eyes.

Van's white button-down shirt opened at the collar, and his crisp, dark jeans rode low on his hips. Not his usual attire, but he was dressed to kill.

He found his target straddling a stool at the bar and chugging a domestic beer—alone. He approached, thumped the counter, and nodded at the silver-haired bartender. “Three shots of tequila. Neat, not chilled.”

When the old geezer reached for Jose Cuervo, he growled. “No, man. I said tequila.” Fucking Americans. “If it doesn't say one-hundred percent agave, it's not tequila.” He scanned the top shelf and pointed at the bottle of Real Gusto. “That one.”

As the bartender poured the shots, Van grabbed a stool two down from Zachary without acknowledging him. A few minutes later, he splashed the first shot down his gullet, relishing the smooth, complex flavor. Then he leaned back and waited.

It didn't take five minutes before the first bitch approached Van.

“Hey, there.” She cocked a round hip against his knee. “The girls and I voted.” She flicked her claws at a table of giddy women in the corner. “You are by and far the sexiest man in three counties.” Her gaze landed on the scar on his cheek and skittered away.

When her eyes returned—they always did—he made a show of checking her out, from the fake-baked tits to the sparkled heels, and moved his leg away from her hip. “Not interested, honey.”

She huffed. “You're no fun.”

He held his mouth in a flat line of no-fun and didn't blink.

She picked at a plastic fingernail, lingering two seconds too long, and strode away.

Five women and five rejections later, the cock stuffer beside him finally spoke. “You...uh...gay or something?”

Van threw back the second shot to smother the raging words burning up his throat. Fucking twat. Yeah, he fucked men. For his one-night delights, all he required was a submissive body and a clean hole. So what? He also made dolls with the same hands he fingered assholes with. If any of that made him gay, then he'd take it up the ass all the way to hell.

No, that wasn't true. He hadn't endured it that way since he left the ghetto. Now that he was free of his mother's drug-dealing bottom-feeders, he was the one who did the fucking.

Tilting his head, he looked directly at Zachary for the first time. Those twinkling, beady blue eyes made him want to gouge them out and pop them between his curled fingers. “Just want the right girl, man.” The girl Zachary Kaufman would never fuck again.

The beady eyes blinked. “Damn, dude. All those women you turned down seemed pretty fucking right to me.”

He lifted a shoulder. “I want a gorgeous girl with spirit, know what I mean? Quick wit, blond hair, brown eyes, big tits, and lots of personality.” He rubbed a finger on the counter, delivering the spiel with a monotone, down-on-his-luck kind of vibe. “You know, someone...unusual. Special. With crazy little quirks and stuff.”

A laugh choked in Zachary's throat, and he shook his head. “Boy, do I have a special girl with quirks.”

Bastard didn't have shit. He covered his scowl with the third shot, slammed it down, and tempered his tone. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. She's got my damned head reeling nonstop. It's messed up, but I keep going back for more.”

Motherfuck, he didn't want to hear this, but he needed to know the depth of Zachary's attachment. Killing him would be gratifying. And messy. But that wasn't his style. Manipulating him was the smart play.

Van bounced his eyebrows, and his insides twisted with nausea. “She hot?”

A smile took hold of Zachary's face, toothy and weasel-like. “Tits out to here.” He cupped the air in front of him as if juggling watermelons like a goddamned retard. “Pretty face. Tight little pussy.”

Van's vision clouded in red, the blood in his veins boiling to burst. Zachary was a dead man. He slapped a hand on the counter. “Another shot, and hurry the fuck up, old man.”

The tool on the stool must have mistaken his rage for excitement. He let out an ear-splitting cackle. “Thing is, dude, she's got serious issues. Talk about quirks. I don't think she leaves the house much. She won't let me fuck her with the lights on. Been doing her for six months. Always at her place. I still haven't seen her naked.”

Six months and the ass didn't know she was agoraphobic. The shot slid in front of Van, and he tossed it back, swallowing down images of Zachary doing her. His stomach hardened, and his breaths pushed out so fast and coarse. No way would he be able to speak without roaring.

Goddammit, he could handle this conversation. This was his fucking forte. Control and coercion without physical force. Hell, he'd spent weeks drinking with the drug-dealing slime who'd lived with Kate, the last girl he'd taken for Mr. E. Her brothers might've protected her virginity, but their drunken, wagging tongues had lost her in the end. He liked to think he'd saved that girl, seeing how he'd freed her from her brothers' crack-house and Liv had freed her from Mr. E's trafficking.

Zachary nursed his beer, all quiet and thoughtful, as he pushed his hair away from his puckered eyebrows. When he opened his mouth, he seemed to be talking to himself. “I have to go to her house at a set time on the same days. Thirty seconds early or late, and she freaks the fuck out.” He swiped at his hair. “But there I am, syncing my clocks to hers and showing up right on time.”

This wasn't like the other captures. Amber wasn't going to a slave buyer. She was...unique and fascinatingly crazy. And she was his. Hell, he'd take her even if the sole purpose was to make sure she wasn't Zachary's—which it wasn't. But the moron didn't deserve her. Of course, neither did he.

He set the empty shot glass down and plucked a toothpick from a container on the bar. He'd only killed two people in his life. Shooting the wife of Liv's rapist had just been a means to torture the monster before killing him, too.

Zachary wasn't a rapist. He was just a ball-less queef in the fucking way.

He shifted to face

the queef. “She the only pussy you're banging?

“Yeah, why?”

He thrust his chin at a flock of ladies who had just walked in. “Want to stick your dick in a real woman? With the lights on?”

Zachary's dark eyebrows rose beneath the falling strands of his hair. “Seriously?”

What a cunt. “Follow my lead.” He pivoted on the stool toward the women and let his thighs fall subtly apart, knowing the stretch in his jeans cupped his junk just right. He leaned his elbows on the bar top behind him and gnawed on the toothpick.

Four pairs of eyes looked his way. He blanked his expression in a portrait of indifference, his eyes roaming the group as a whole with little commitment.

Like a pack of hungry Chihuahuas, they scampered as one in his direction. A stagger of Hi's came next, followed by flushed cheeks, cleared throats, and smoldering stares.

Time to put them out of their misery. “I'm gay.”

A chorus of whiny Oooooh's blubbered out.

He chuckled. “I know the feeling. This guy here” —he squeezed Zachary's neck, probably with more force than was necessary— “turned me down. I saw his cock in the men's room. Un-fucking-real, ladies. Have fun with it.” He dropped a wad of cash on the counter, patted Zachary on the back, and gamboled to the door.

He moved the Mustang a few parking spots down from Zachary's truck and set up his camera. Forty-five minutes later, the two-timing prick strolled out of the bar with one of the girls under his arm and his tongue down her throat. Took the fucker long enough to snag a girl.

Camera raised, Van clicked away from his shadowed position in the Mustang. Zachary pressed her against the passenger door of the truck, one hand fumbling for his keys, the other shoved up her skirt.