eyebrows arched.
“Now what do we have here?” I flicked open the brown, leatherbound journal which had Kaiser’s name scrawled in the front of it, finding page after page of locations crossed out and hand drawn maps from places around Sunset Cove with huge Xs through them.
“What are you looking for, eh Kaiser?” I elbowed him, tapping the shotgun against his temple as I waved one of the pages in front of his face. “Start talking.”
He huffed out a breath and I saw a demon in him then, not a scared little boy who was close to pissing his panties. Whatever it was he was hiding, he did not want me to know about it.
“Tick-tock,” I encouraged, swinging my gun onto his wife instead. “Or we’ll all find out if Jasmine’s face makes a nice wall hanging.”
She shrieked, ducking behind the desk as if that would save her from my wrath.
Kaiser kept his lips sealed and my eyebrows kept climbing. Very interesting.
“What’s he looking for, Jasmine?” I stepped around the desk to point the gun at her and she trembled as Mia screamed, begging me not to shoot.
“Please!’ Mia cried.
It was like a little preview of what she’d sound like when she was begging for me to fuck her raw. I winked at her as her mother shook her head several times.
“I don’t know, I swear I don’t know. I’ve never seen that journal before.”
I chuckled, looking to Kaiser again. “You’re a bad man, ain’t ya Kaiser? Guy after my own heart. But why oh why would you hide this journal from your one and only?”
Kaiser’s eyes darted from me to Jasmine and back again like they were playing a game of pinball. “I’ll talk to you alone. You and me, Shawn. Man to man.”
“You won’t talk in front of your own wife? The woman you vowed to love and to hold and all that bullshit?” I tutted and he gave me a pleading look.
“Alright, alright, me and you,” I agreed but then he lunged at me, making a grab for the journal and I fired my gun. The blast went off with a boom that made my whole body tingle and Jasmine’s head was splattered across the room as Mia’s screams tangled with the air. Pure music that was.
“You bastard!” Kaiser roared, lurching toward me in a clear attack but I just turned the gun on him and he backed right up to the wall as Mia’s wild screams turned to sobs.
Goddammit, now he’d gone and made it harder for his stepdaughter to obsess over me. Not impossible, but definitely more of a challenge.
“Yeah, I’m a bastard, old boy,” I agreed. “My daddy never made an honest woman outa my momma, but it never did me any harm. Now shut your stepdaughter up or she’s gonna eat the next round.”
“Mi-Mi,” Kaiser sobbed. “Stop, honey, you need to stop.”
Mia managed to stifle the noise coming outa her pie hole and I could think a little clearer again at last. I wound my finger through the air as I gave Kaiser a hard look.
“I’m gettin’ bored, so tell me about the meaning of that journal or we’re gonna have a lot more mess for your boys to clean up in here. Speaking of which…” I heard the shouts going up in the house and the boots coming this way in response to the gunshot.
“I’ll be needing you to tell your men to hold fire.” I directed Kaiser to the door and he stumbled that way, calling out to them as he made it there.
I stole a moment to kick the safe door wider and found myself a bunch of cash from his latest poker night. I gathered up as much as I could in my arms then an animal attacked me from behind. It was a feral girl with sharp teeth that dug into my shoulder. Mia punched me right in the wound in my side and I bellowed in pain as she tore at my flesh. I twisted around and hit her hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs, making her crumple to the floor in a heap.
I drew in a breath through my teeth as I clutched my side and growled through the pain.
“Jesus Christ, are all the women in this town raised by wolves?” I released a heady laugh as I scooped up the cash once more then followed Kaiser to the door where he was telling his men to back down. I pressed the shotgun to