Kill Game (The Devious Games Duet 1)

***

I get to my desk and my curls are only partially frozen as I remove my hat. I’m early so I head into the bathroom and use the hand dryer on my hair.

4

Killian

I’ve been in a shitty mood all day long. I can’t seem to fuckin’ shake it.

That girl.

Can’t get her out of my head.

The contrast between her three years ago and now? Still beautiful. Fuck - gorgeous. But wilted on the inside. No light in her eyes. Sadness I can fucking taste. Like another woman I knew who was beat into submission by life, yeah, but mostly by the men she’d keep offering her heart to.

And the way Violet took my business card like it was a lifeline and then fought to catch it when the wind tried to take it? Fuck me.

I can’t work it out. The only thing that makes sense about why she’s still there is she’s afraid of that stupid ass-wipe loser fuck.

Yeah, my opinion of Iadanza has always been low, but now?

Raymond is a big guy, my height, and he was in decent shape back in the day. Seeing him last night, he’s lost muscle tone and gained probably fifteen or twenty pounds of fluff, but still… he is a fuck of a lot bigger and stronger than she is. She’s probably five foot two or three, and curvy, but still tiny - the kind of tiny that evidently brings out protective instincts in me. And I’d seen him get mean with her in a controlled way more than once. I suspected by how she interacted with him that it wasn’t so controlled when there were no eyes around. Also figured if I didn’t react the way I did, it would’ve been worse. Her body language, the way she cowered, how she physically shrank from his touch when he showed attention… it said a lot.

But from what I gather, she works, and he doesn’t. He moved into her apartment with her way back, so unless they’ve moved since then it has to be her name on the lease. She has a car and a job. The furnishings are far from new and judging by the style, likely all hers. Her place, her car, her paycheck, and her stuff. Yet, he’s still there.

And puttin’ on a show for me after the TV and lights got shut off; I really fucking wanted to go in there and haul the bastard off her. The thin walls: I knew he was fucking her. I also guessed by how long it lasted that it was all about him. Not a surprise. Selfish prick.

Ugliness about him washes through me with recollections about some of the shitty things I’ve seen the guy do.

Back when we were no more than twelve or thirteen, I saw him take Halloween candy from a little kid my brother’s age and that was not the first time I tried to teach him a lesson. He was the kind of guy that’d find a wallet and keep it instead of trying to find out who owned it. In fact, when we were thirteen or fourteen, a girl who liked me said he bragged to her about mugging a grouchy old lady in our neighborhood the day she got her social security check cashed. Me and my buddy Dario were at the mall when this rumor started circulating, so we hunted him down and took turns taking the boots to him.

Fucker swore up and down he didn’t do it, but he had a new gold chain around his neck and a fat stack of bills in his pocket, the denominations no paper route would pay, and dirt-poor parents who barely had two dimes to rub together.

Iadanza kept out of my way for the next few years, but then he discovered gambling and I was taking bets, and didn’t discriminate on who was gonna make me money. And he did make me money – plenty of it for that time in my life - until he was late paying me, which at that point I would only allow to happen once. This was not long after I moved onto the food chain with Dario’s father’s company, a connected and dangerous organization backing me with cashflow and collections muscle if I needed it.

Raymond ended a winning streak with a big loss that he tried to dodge me on. I gave him one chance for old time’s sake, telling him he’d get his kneecaps shattered if he didn’t pay me within a week. Six days later, he handed the cash he cobbled together to Tino, a guy Mr. Ferrano let me use for collections. I directed Tino to warn with a 24-hour deadline before he’d deliver a beating. Ray called me and apologized, telling me he couldn’t believe I’d sent Tino Rossi his way with all our history.