the side of his head as I kept my other arm locked around the money and smiled at the men there.
“Hey boys, this house is under new management. How much has Kaiser here been paying ya?”
One of the bolder ones stepped forward with a frown. “He’s meant to pay us every Friday, but he owes us two weeks.”
“I told you I just needed a little longer,” Kaiser said in a panic.
I shook my head. “Oh dear, Kaiser. You’ve been holding out on your boys, sitting on all this cash while the wind whistles through their pockets. And if there’s one thing I learned a long time ago, it’s that if you’re buying loyalty, you’d better be a generous boss who pays on time, and gives nice, juicy Christmas bonuses or you might just find yourself with a knife in your back while you’re sleeping.”
I tossed the cash at his men’s feet, doing a sweeping count of all eight of them. “You can call that an advance on your pay or a ticket to fuck off outa here and never come back. You’re either a Dead Dog or you’re dead to me, so what do ya say?”
They glanced between one another and just like babies bribed with candy, they all swooped down to grab the cash.
“Wait, please,” Kaiser gasped as I barked a laugh.
“Okay boys, fuck off.” I jerked my gun and they headed away, all loyalty to Kaiser gone just like that. I felt Kaiser trembling and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “What are you looking for? Last chance to tell me, old boy.” I pressed the journal to his chest and his hand slithered over it. “Then we can go looking for it together. You and me. I like ya, Kaiser. You and me could be real good friends, what do ya say?”
“You killed my wife,” he choked out, though I didn’t see any tears.
“I know, I know,” I said, patting his back. “But listen, I’ve done you a favour, see? Cut you off from the old ball and chain. Now you’re free to get a new wife, a younger one with perkier tits, or one of those twenty-year-olds you like so much. We could be kings in this house, parties every night, snorting cocaine off the asses of premium hookers who’ll let you fuck ‘em any way you like. That’s what you really want, ain’t it?”
He looked to me with a hopeful expression, showing just what a dirtbag he was as he saw a glimmer of a new, free life in my eyes where he could really be a king.
He swallowed hard then drew me out into the hall away from the sobbing Mia and licked the sweat gathering on his lips.
“There’s a lost family fortune,” he said in a rush of words, his eyes darting all about the place.
“What kinda fortune?” I asked, leaning in closer as he piqued my curiosity.
“Diamonds,” he hissed, his eyes sparkling as if those diamonds lived right inside his eyes.
“Keep talkin’,” I urged, my heart rate picking up a little, because fuck me, I liked the sound of this.
“Five of them, worth millions each,” he said, his hungry eyes widening.
“You don’t say…” A smile pulled at my lips. “But you don’t know where they are?”
He shook his head. “All I know is they’re hidden somewhere in Sunset Cove. This journal documents the places I’ve searched. I hunted hard back in my youth, but Luther Harlequin kicked me outa town after I, well…” He cleared his throat.
“You what?”
“I asked for his help to kill a bunch of men I owed money to,” he said tightly, as sweaty as an old lettuce leaf.
“You were in debt? Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
He shrugged. “Anyway, I couldn’t pay him either, could I? And he was gonna kill me real good so I told him about my diamonds. Said he could have them if he let me go, but I just needed some time to find them. He agreed, and I planned on skipping town as soon as I dug them up, but I couldn’t fucking find them. So Luther ran me outa town.”
“So how comes you’re back then?” I frowned curiously, slotting all this information away for later.
“I won a bit of money in a poker game and I offered it to Luther if he let me move back here to keep looking for them. I said I wanted to be home to look after my old aunt.”
“Who you keep in your basement?”