He faces his guards and jerks his head towards the estate’s doors. “Take them inside. And if they don’t comply, beat them into obedience.” He bends so that he’s eyelevel to me, then smiles when I lift my chin and raise a brow at him. “I’ve got to go pay a visit to my friendly neighborhood killer,” he says to me. “But when I’m back,sweetpea, Iwillmake you pay for what you’ve taken from me.” He straightens and walks by me, leaving me utterly disarrayed.
65.
There’s a low hum of engines, followed by stones crunching under tires, which indicates that there are cars in the driveway. I step away from my workstation and look outside, only to curse under my breath when 3 black Nissan Maximas come to a stop in front ofFinesse.
What the fuck is Chase doing here?
“Ledge?” Jayce says, closing the hood of the Porsche he’s fixing.
“I see it.”
Alex and Varsha walk over to me, and when I glance at my crew, they seem just as confused by Chase’s presence here as I do.
“Stay alert,” I tell them, then nod at Jayce. The two of us step outside, just as Chase gets out of one of the cars and greets us both with a clinical smile.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?” I say, squinting a little against the glaring sun.
Jayce is standing to my left, and I can practically feel how agitated he is right now. All I can do is keep a straight face and get whatever this is, over with.
“I’ve got a job for you,” Chase tells us, then stops a short distance from us. “Someone I need you to kill.”
“We never discuss work at my garage,” I state, then give him a quick once over. “What’s changed?” I glance at the guards flanking him. A dozen, perhaps, maybe more. That’s an absurd number, even more so than the ones he has in his estate’s office, where we usually discuss the kill and its price.
“This is a special case – one that required an unfamiliar meeting spot.” He gestures at one of his guards, who pulls a brown envelope from his jacket before handing it to him. Chase in turn offers it to me – his expression perfectly neutral. It’s hard to study him like this, because the fucker knows how to reign himself in when he wants to.
I take the envelope from him. My grease-stained fingers imprint themselves onto the paper, but that’s the least of my worries. Because when I pull out the photo that’s inside the envelope, my entire body paralyzes in place, and my mouth dries up.
It’s because the photo I’m holding in my hand right now, is Cignette’s. It’s not a recent one for sure, but still, it’s her. And I’m about to lose my shit because I don’t know what the fuck Chase is playing at. He either knows about what really happened with Miranda, or he actually wants Cignette out of his way, for she poses a direct threat to the position and wealth he holds. Either way, the truth will come out, and if not, I’ll have to find her and get her the hell away from this asshole.
I loosen my body a little and get ahold of myself before I can accidentally give myself away. Beside me, Jayce tries to do the same.
I look at Chase, then put a fake grin on my face while I wave the photo sideways. “This one’ll cost ya big,” I say to him, completely indifferent and casual, when in reality, all I wanna do is cut his throat open.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Twice as much as the others, I take it.”
I wink at him. “Higher still.”
He laughs, then shakes his head. “You’re a way better actor than she is,” he says, then smirks in a way that’s both smooth yet unsettling. “I’m surprised you even lasted this long, given your…affection towards my bitch of a niece.”
Literal red flashes before my eyes. I’ve reduced the space between him and I in all but a heartbeat, and the guards barely have time to draw their weapons by the time I’ve fisted Chase’s collar and pulled him to me. He’s slightly shorter than me, so he has to look up at me while I sneer down at him.
“Call her that again, and I’ll fuckingendyou,” I warn him. “Where is she?”
I was right; he knows about what happened with Miranda. How? I don’t exactly know.
He raises a hand towards the guards, asking them to stand down. “Come with me and find out for yourself,” he tells me.
I scoff. “I’m not in the mood to play your mind games, Chase. Tell me where my Cignette is, or I’ll gut you from the leg up.”
He chuckles. “Oh, trust me, I’m not playing any fucking games with you.” He grabs the fist I have on his collar, and pulls it off himself. “If you and your crew don’t come with me, then you’ll get a nice little video on your phone in the next few minutes where my guards are taking their turn fuckingyourCignette while she screams for them to stop. Isn’t that what almost happened with her all those days ago, which eventually led you to kill my sister?”
My eyes burn as I glare at him, and when he grins at me, I grit my teeth and punch him in the jaw, making him stumble backwards.
“You motherfucker!” I move forward, but a couple of his guards hold me back.
“Take your fucking hands off him,” Jayce says, then shoves them away from me. He gives me a look full of warning, then turns and hollers Alex and Varsha’s names.
“We’ll come with you,” he says to Chase. “But only if you give us your word that Cignette is okay.”
