He sighed as the relief was almost instantaneous. Thank God for cocaine; otherwise, losing a finger would’ve fucked him all to hell.
“You’ll live. Quit your whining.”
Whining?Hewas whining?
Dante sniffed again, glaring at his partner. “I think I’ve earned the right.”
After all, they had agreed on the plan to go to JJ’s, knock her out with a dose of something that would keep her out for a while, then spill blood everywhere. The objective was to make her think Dante had been kidnapped and injured, so that way when the ransom demand came in, his father would be more likely to believe it.
Butnowherein any of the scenarios they’d come up with had it said anything about lobbing off his damn finger.
“Who’re you texting?” Dante asked, watching Marcus as he paced the room, phone in hand.
“My girl,” he said simply, leering as his thumbs tapped the screen.
“You meanmygirl,” Dante countered.
After all, Dante had been talking to Kat first.Hewas the one who’d answered her from his online dating profile. He was still unclear how Marcus started chatting her up, but he found he didn’t really care anymore. The woman wasn’t all that interesting, anyway.
“What does she want?” he heard himself ask although he honestly didn’t care.
Marcus’s eyes were shining. He was definitely high. “She said she wanted to be in on the plan, so I was telling her how it went.”
Dante’s entire body went cold. “What? You asked a complete stranger to be part of this?”
Was the guy a total fucking moron?
“She’s not a stranger, and yes. She was excited. Even asked me to do something for her. Her contribution, she said.”
This man really was insane, and now Dante was neck deep in a scheme he wasn’t sure would play out. What was to stop this Kat chick from turning them in? Maybe she was a cop and this was a setup. Son of a bitch.
Closing his eyes, he thought back to last night, let it play out in his head as he’d done repeatedly since they’d left JJ’s. Everything had gone perfectly up to the point Marcus showed up. Dante had called, lured her back to her house, and she’d come without question. Of course, he had to give his acting skills some credit. He was rather believable when he wanted to be.
“What took you so fuckin’ long?” Marcus demanded when Dante opened JJ’s front door, his voice a harsh whisper. “Where’s she at?”
“In the kitchen. Be quiet.” Dante’s gaze darted behind him to ensure she hadn’t returned to the living room.
“What’s she doing?”
“Making coffee.”
“Good.” Marcus’s eyes glittered, a hint of insanity brightening them.
“You get the drug?”
Marcus held up a hypodermic needle, flipped it between two fingers, then stepped into the house. He strolled right by, leaving Dante to close the front door, doing his best to not make a sound. He turned and watched the small, wiry man in the cheap, dirty clothes move across the room with purpose.
This was the part they were improvising on. Considering they hadn’t been certain JJ would even let him in her front door, they had agreed they would let things play out.
On his way, Marcus grabbed something off one of JJ’s decorative shelves.
Dante frowned, his brain making a dire effort to figure out what Marcus was planning to—
He’d made it two steps when Marcus disappeared into the kitchen. Another when the first thud sounded. The second thud was louder, the equivalent of a body hitting the floor.
Oh, God. What the hell had he done?
Racing into the kitchen, Dante saw Marcus leaning over—
