“Finish sorting quickly, then get your tired ass a cart and deliver the mail.”
He marched away and she sighed.She didn’t like going floor to floor with the cumbersome mail cart.It felt more like a punishment because the assistants banded together and mocked her.When she had first started with the LC Group, she’d been hired as an errand girl, fetching whatever was needed.One day, upper management had placed a large coffee order and nerves had gotten the best of her.She’d made it all the way into the conference room, where the CEO was conducting a meeting, before she tripped.Lattes and cappuccinos had gone everywhere, drenching her and some of the managers from head to toe.It had been a huge mess and she’d almost been fired.Instead, she’d been demoted to a mail clerk and discovered that suited her better.
However, the consequences didn’t stop there.She was now considered a big joke in the company, and led by Ranelle, the click chicks loved to watch her squirm.It was their favorite pastime.
With a sigh of trepidation, she continued sorting.Mail distribution was in an hour.
****
Hades used his brassknuckles as he punched some lame-ass goon who had dared to sell drugs inhiscity.Inferior drugs to boot.The whole fucking distribution lay entirely in an abandoned warehouse on the gritty outskirts of North Hollywood, and the motherfucker now zip-tied to a chair had given a blatant middle finger to Hades’s empire.
“Please stop!”the pathetic excuse for a man pleaded.“I didn’t know!I’m just a runner.”
“This city belongs tome, and you dare peddle your junk heroin in my territory?”
“It was Voclain.I swear.”
Hades walked to a small table that had been set up and picked up pruning shears.Glancing at Acheron, he nodded toward the unfortunate man, who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.His lieutenant immediately flattened his hand on the arm of the chair that he sat in.Hades liked this part.Hitting was fun, but he got real pleasure from seeing someone bleed.
“W-what are you going to do with that?”the man cried.He tried closing his hand, but Acheron prevented that.“Wait!Wait!”
“Are you right or left-handed?”Hades asked, then immediately shrugged.“Doesn’t matter.”
He placed the shears at the first knuckle of the pinky finger, right at the joint, and snipped.The man screamed out.The high-pitched squeal reverberated through the slaughter warehouse, his preferred location because it was a good way to cover blood.
Hades went to the next finger, and by now the man was a snot-nose blubbering cretin.One more clip and the top of that finger was gone.The screams were music to his ears.When he placed the shears at the next finger, the man soiled his pants and passed out.Acheron threw a bucket of cow piss on him to wake his sorry ass.
“N-no more, please, I beg you.”
“Sorry, no can do.See, you work for Voclain and my partnership is with Lemaire.”
Another fingertip gone.
“Plus, the fact you were selling onmystreets.Are you seeing the pattern?”
The index finger was next.
“But you’re lucky.I’m leaving you with stub fingers so you can still wipe the shit from your ass.”
Gone was the thumb.
“And now I’m done with you.”Hades turned to Acheron.“Keep him alive and send him to Chevalier as a present.”
“Yes, Boss.”
He left the slaughterhouse and took off the protective jumpsuit he worse.Blood was too hard to get out of fabric and his suits cost thousands of dollars.A large metal barrel near the door had a small fire going, and he dumped the jumpsuit in it, watching it burn before heading out to his car.One of his men held open his door and he slid in.
“Do we have an update on the parking garage?”he asked.
“Yes, sir,” one of his men reported.
He handed over a tablet and Hades watched.The killer wore a bulky jacket with a hood.There was no way to see his face.
“All cameras like this one?”
“Unfortunately, yes.We can’t see the man’s face at all.”
“Make sure security is extra vigilant,” he grunted, pissed off.
