Oscar may worry she’d snitch. She didn’t trust him, and he didn’t trust her.
She nodded. “I suppose I have to be.”
“It’s for the best,” he said.
Then he reached into the inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket and pulled out a long, sharp knife.
He held it out to her.
“This is yours,” he said.
She took the knife in her hands and immediately felt a rush of power go through her, as if all the blood that Oscar had spilled with it was giving her the desire to kill, stoking her adrenaline.
“What is this for?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.
“I am going to bring him up here to see you, and you are going to kill him. Slowly. With just that knife.”
She gulped. “And you?”
He reached down and patted his leg. “I have my gun. Just in case.” He straightened up. “What were you planning on killing him with?”
“Poison,” she said.
He laughed, just as she knew he would. “Poison? My god. How impersonal can you get? No, no, if you must take a man’s life, make sure he knows it. Make sure he knows you did it, make sure you can look him in the eye and watch him die. It’s a beautiful thing to see that flame snuffed out, especially in the eyes of someone who deserved it.”
She shook her head. “I’m not like you.”
“You are and you will be. Starting tonight. Your final lesson has begun.”
5
The Wolf closed the door to the library and hurried down the stairs to the main floor, his feet soundless, his movements light. Despite being such a tall, muscular man, he had the uncanny ability to slip past people unnoticed. It’s one of the reasons why he was so good at what he did, no one ever saw him coming.
Ginger didn’t. That’s why she was in that library, waiting for him to bring her Alfred, a knife at her side.
Oscar knew that he was taking a huge risk by involving her. That not only his reputation but his life was at stake if things went wrong. He liked to work alone, and in the past when he was with Ginger at her grandmother’s behest, she was only watching and learning.
Tonight, she would have to rise to the occasion and show him what she was really capable of, even though he already knew. It was more about showing herself what she could do.
With any luck, she’d realize how similar they were.
And then what? The question floated through his mind as he strode across the ballroom between all the dancers, their movements now sloppy with drugs and alcohol. Then what? You go your separate ways and that’s it?
Oscar didn’t see it going any other way, and he couldn’t hide the sting of disappointment in his chest.
He managed to locate Alfred who was in the back yard, sitting in a white Adirondack chair beneath fairy lights, talking to a heavy-set drunk man. His guards were flanked to the sides in the background.
“James,” Alfred said to Oscar, using the name of the security head. “Where have you been?”
Oscar felt all eyes on him. He knew that if at any moment they asked him to remove his mask, he’d be found out. He knew they were all packing heat, that it would take a lot of luck and more than a few smooth moves to get out of the mess. The man that Alfred was talking to was no slouch either, who probably had his own security watching him from a far. He was just as bad as Alfred one, rumored to be the one supplying Mr. Carino with underage girls.
Oscar smiled devilishly under his mask, knowing that Alfred deserved to die because of that alone, and hoped he could convince Ginger to make it an even more torturous process.
Oscar leaned in and whispered in Alfred’s ear. “The lady in red, she’s waiting for you in the house.”
“Oh,” Alfred said carefully. Then he gave Oscar a wolfish smile of his own. “I see.”
Alfred got up and excused himself from the present company.
Then he motioned for one of the other guards to follow them back into the house.
Oscar was hoping that he alone would be enough to escort Alfred, but even so, he expected this. Just someone else to get rid of.
The Wolf led them into the mansion, down the halls past the orgies in progress, one which Alfred insisted on watching for a few minutes. Then they continued up the stairs to the third floor.