He kissed the back of my hand and stared out the windshield, perfectly content. I loved that he took my words at face value and I didn’t have to waste a lot of time and energy convincing him I was telling the truth anymore. Somehow I’d earned his trust.
It was a pain in the ass to circle back, and in the end, we found a spot for the truck in a parking lot outside of a closed pet store and returned on foot. By the time we arrived at Smoke and Sizzle the lights were off in the front of the restaurant. We snuck around the side, and the car was still parked next to a green dumpster almost overflowing with trash bags, but no other vehicles were around. Ari yanked on the side door and it opened, and my heart raced as I went inside after him.
“Cameras,” I said, glancing at the corner of the building where I noticed a little red light. “Probably CCTV. I’ll have to check the office.”
He hummed, but he was already hunting, and I began to sweat. Sometimes I just wasn’t certain I would be able to keep my pretty little killer out of trouble, and a fucked-up part of me almost hungered for a day when I might have to live on my wits on the road, with him by my side and in my arms at night.
It would be a wild time right up until the bitter end, and Ari wouldn’t go out quietly. But that was a fantasy. I wanted to live a long, safe life with him, and so I had to be smart now.
We went through an employee area with lockers and came out into a dish room. Tyler was at the sink, head bowed over his work while scrubbing one-handed. My mouth went dry as Ari ignored him, and Tyler never looked up. The hum of the industrial dishwasher kept our footsteps silent as I hustled after Ari, already shaking my head.
“No, we should wait until everyone else is gone.”
He glanced at me, eyes pleading.
“If your friend sees us, we have to kill him, too.”
He seemed to measure my words. “Okay, I’ll be careful.”
He walked around the kitchen, past the oil vats for all the fried food that got served with the barbecue, and he flicked on the little red buttons along the front. I didn’t think they’d been turned off very long ago. My stomach jolted. What was he planning? We walked the entire kitchen, and I was leaning around a door to peer into the dark customer area when I saw Ari dart right through a doorway near the end of a short hallway.
I hustled closer and arrived in time to see Ari choking out the tall, skinny asshole with an arm around his neck. The guy hit the floor with an unsatisfyingthudand kicked over a box of paper towels. The stock room was small, and napkins had scattered everywhere, so maybe the man had fought and tried to get away from Ari.
“Is he alive?” Curiosity ate at me as I stepped closer.
Ari nodded and stretched his fingers toward the ceiling, working out the kinks in his back. “For the moment. Master, can you go see if the fryer oil is boiling?” He glanced up at me with a maniacal grin I adored.
A gasp from the doorway had us both snapping that direction. Tyler still cradled his injured arm against his chest—no one had even bothered to wrap it for him, and a large swath of bubbled skin looked terrible. I couldn’t help but notice his scarred mouth twitched, as if it was trapped between trying to frown and smile. He glanced from the man on the floor to me, then Ari. My protective instincts had me rushing forward, and I grabbed the kid by the throat, but Ari snagged my shirt and tugged, and I let Tyler go before I did any damage. He dropped to his knees on the floor, maybe from shock.
“No, he won’t tell. You won’t tell, will you, Tyler?” Ari’s tone was cold, and Tyler stared up at him. My first impulse was to kill him right here.
“No,” he whispered, then cleared his throat. “No. Whatever you’re planning to do to James, he deserves. Can I have whatever cash is in his wallet first, though? He never paid me.”
“If you take the money, you’re as culpable as we are.” I glared at him.
Tyler shrugged.
Ari bent and retrieved the man’s wallet, dug out a few bills, and then passed them to Tyler. I’d never seen Ari be generous with a stranger, so he must at least like this man a little.
Tyler smiled and tucked the money in his pocket. “What will you do with him?”
“It’s best if you don’t know,” I said.
He nodded.
“Do you have any idea where someone can watch the camera feed in the restaurant?” Ari asked.
“Office.” Tyler showed me the way, then left.
I hustled inside. There wasn’t much, simply a desk and a chair, and I didn’t spot any old-school security, only a Mac laptop. I sighed. Maybe we shouldn’t kill him? If I couldn’t guarantee our faces hadn’t been seen, then we needed to pull the plug, but I decided to try with the computer for Ari’s sake. I rubbed a hand over my face and opened the laptop.
“Fucking computers.” I snorted when I realized it was a fingerprint recognition for the password and took the laptop into the kitchen where Ari had dragged the body. He spat at the fryer, then grinned when the oil popped.
“Master? What are you doing?” He tilted his head and watched me with interest as a few longer strands of his hair fell down in front of his left eye. I reached out and swiped the hair back, enjoying the tickle on my fingers.
“Security footage,” I said.
Ari helped me press the restaurant owner’s fingertip to the screen. Once I had the laptop unlocked, I didn’t need the body anymore, or soon-to-be body, and I was able to get into the necessary files easily. He didn’t have anything professional set up, just a single day’s worth of recordings stored directly on the laptop, so I whistled as I deleted everything and made sure it wasn’t also saving to the cloud, but as far as I could tell, all the camera footage was going right onto the laptop.
