Okay, enough dilly-dallying.On the kitchen counter is—bingo!The Bobbi’s Sweet Things bag. I open it and find the motherlode—all four croissants. Guess Noah is saving them for breakfast. Or maybe he doesn’t intend to eat them and just took the bag to piss me off.
Nothing would surprise me. But I sincerely hope he’s planning on having them later.
I lay out my supplies on the counter. A tub of buttercream I made a couple of days ago. A piping bag. A small bread knife. And a whisk.
Perfect.
Jesus, what if you get caught? What if he calls 911?
He could, but I’m past caring. If he can break into my house, I can break into his. Besides, this house is basically soundproof. You can’t hear anything from the kitchen or living room in the bedrooms upstairs. My heart pounds with an illicit thrill. I’m not turning back now.
I make decent-sized incisions into the croissants, then pull out a bowl from Noah’s pantry and whip the buttercream and hairball together until they’re well-mixed. Señor Mittens has short, white fur, and it’s not so easy to tell that there’s anything in the buttercream. I shove my gooey vengeance into the piping bag, then squeeze the glop into the incisions.
Then I put a thin, decorative plastic sheet over the cream so it doesn’t make a mess and put the croissants back in the bag. Noah will never suspect, unless he checked them out earlier. But he probably didn’t look that closely in the bakery. And even if he does notice, he’ll probably assume I did this before leaving work. After all, who hates buttercream?
I quietly wash the mixing bowl, dry it and put it away. Then I deposit all my supplies back into my bag, making sure not to leave anything behind. Being a bodyguard isn’t the same as being a cat burglar, but there is some overlap in the skill set. It helps to notice things that are out of place.
I look around.Perfect.My only regret is that I’m not technical enough to install a camera to film him biting into my newly reborn Frankencroissants.
Ah well. Can’t have everything. But that doesn’t mean my revenge won’t be sweet. I flip the bird in the general direction of Noah’s bedroom and sneak out, re-arming the alarm.
Once I get back home, I sleep like a baby. And dream of hairballs and a particularly annoying but hot as hell wildlife photographer.
Chapter Nine
Noah
My scope finds four targets in green camouflage, laughing around a campfire on the African savannah. Probably reminiscing and joking about all the innocents they’ve killed.
It’s been almost a year, but we found those responsible for Swain and his fiancée’s deaths. And Mom sent me to mete out justice because she knows I’ll make it good.
Most importantly, I won’t miss.
They erupt in laughter again. One of them gets up and mimes holding something in front of his crotch while he thrusts.
Rape is all fun and games to you, isn’t it?
The image of Swain’s fiancée’s body flashes in my head as I exhale and pull the trigger, blowing the asshole’s pelvis into a bloody mist. The next bullets hit two of his companions; their skulls explode like watermelons dropped from a skyscraper. The fourth one rolls away, pulling out his gun, and starts shooting wildly.
Bang, bang, bang!
The sound stops abruptly as the lead slums into his head. The reports of the shots fade off, and the savannah is quiet again.
The first one I shot is writhing on the ground, leaving blood everywhere. Could leave him to die like that. Shitty way to go, but then what they did to Swain and his girl was worse.
But then the paranoid voice in my head—the one that makes me so good at my job—warns that he might get lucky and survive.
Which wouldn’t do.
I get up and walk into their camp, unholstering my Sig Sauer P365, and stand over the man. He looks up at me and tries to say something as I put a round into him. Red blooms over his heart; he twitches a couple of times, then stops moving.
I tilt my neck left and right. The tension in my shoulders refuses to ease. So what if the couple got justice? They’re still dead. If vengeance could bring them back, I might’ve gone to Bobbi’s bakery opening. But the finality of death is absolute.
It’s best that I stay away from Bobbi. No matter how much I love her, we simply can’t be together.Can’t let her become a target for animals like this,I think, looking dispassionately at the bodies strewn on the ground. The hyenas will probably devour them before sunrise. A fitting ending.
I go back to my hide site and pack up my beautiful cheetahs—the moniker I gave my guns. Fast, precise and deadly, they’re very similar to the gorgeous cats I love so much. My Jeep bounces over the uneven ground until I reach a small landing strip. It’s just long enough to accommodate a prop plane, and sure enough, one is idling there, waiting.
A darkly tanned pilot squints at me. “Finally. You good?” he says, then spits in the dirt.
