Perfect Monster (The Oligarchs)

The guy deserved it. Been a hard few weeks.

But that Roger spook in there, I couldn’t believe a word he said. Maybe the gas thing was true, but the rest of it was garbage, absolute trash spewing from his lips.

He wanted to goad me into making a move on Darren, and it almost worked.

But Oligarchs didn’t attack each other like that and he should’ve known it. Any Oligarch that made a direct move against another would end up killed by all the others. It was an unspoken rule they all followed, and the one rule I knew I could never, ever break.

Killing Roger was no big deal. Darren would never admit Roger was his guy—that would be like admitting he made the first move. Roger was fair game. But anything more direct, anything without good cover, that couldn’t happen.

We fucked with each other in the shadows. It was a cold war we fought, pitting proxies against each other.

But nothing direct. That was the rule.

Trying to get us to go for Darren was like trying to make us commit suicide.

The fucker was playing a game.

Problem was, why?

What did Darren want from all this?

Except for what they always wanted: more power.

Rocco emerged from the closet a moment later with Roger in tow. He nodded at me and I nodded back.

Dead man walking. Poor bastard. Wasn’t good enough.

I turned away and began to plan, worry tangling up my guts.

27

Cassie

Blood ran off his hands in pink streams. He stood in the shower, letting the water blast off his skin. I lingered in his bathroom, touching the spots on his shirt.

“You can’t wash this out,” I said, holding up the stained jacket. “There’s too much of it.”

“Burn the damn thing. I don’t care.”

“Easy for you to say. There are starving people in Africa that would gladly, uh, wear this suit, I guess.”

“Then send it to Africa.” But he smiled.

“What happened out there?”

He ran his fingers through his wet hair. I tried not to look at his muscular body, at his long, thick cock and the way the water dripped off him in sensual rivulets, but it was very, very hard.

Difficult, I mean.

“I started a war.” He spoke like it was no big deal, like he was ordering pizza on a Tuesday night. “A lot of people are going to die.” He turned off the shower.

I handed him a towel. “Isn’t that bad?”

“These aren’t nice people.”

“Still, killing’s not good.”

“It’s relative.” He mussed up his hair then wrapped it around his waist. “Manzi’s dead.”

I went very still.

I could taste the musky air that night. The bay teemed with life and rotting plants. The boards under my feet creaked with my weight. The salty, icy wind blew through my stiff hair.

And Dia’s skull shattered beneath the bullet.

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure. Pulled the trigger myself.” He reached up and brushed his thumb across my lower lip. “You liked her, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know her at all, but she had this confidence.”

“I met Dia twice. You’re right, she was confident, probably too confident for the sort of men she kept around.”

“What’s that mean?”

He walked past me into his room and got dressed. I wished he wouldn’t, but leaned against the bathroom door and watched.

“Mafioso aren’t known for their liberal ideas about gender equality. Dia fucked around too much and got killed for it. She thought her good looks and charm and her daddy’s stature in the Ramos Cartel would keep her alive, and she was wrong. Confidence is good, but overconfidence can get you killed.”

“So you’re suggesting she deserved it then? She asked for it?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. I’m saying you can learn from Dia’s mistake.”

“Why? Do you plan on killing me if I speak up too much?”

He sighed and wiped a hand down his face. “I’m trying to teach you something here. If you’re going to be in a room with a certain kind of person, be aware of what they expect from you. Play into those expectations and don’t do anything dangerous. Then, if you want to, you can use their own blindness against them. Play the game and play it better. Dia was too confident to bother with any of that, and she ended up dead.”

He pulled on a pair of loose cotton trousers and a tight V-neck shirt that showed off his muscular chest. His hair was still damp and messy and his skin glistened in the light.

“Why do I need to know any of this?” I asked softly, my heart in my throat, beating away so fast I thought I might choke. “We’re not really married. You’re not trying to turn me into a mob wife.”

He tilted his head. “What if I am?”

“We didn’t discuss that.”

“Maybe I want to keep you now.”

I clenched my jaw. “You told me you wanted to get close to Oisin. You said you needed me for that. I promised I’d play along, but we never said it would last forever. Only until Oisin was dead.”