“Good.” Vas winks. “I wouldn’t want to have to say it louder for your old-ass ears.”
Giggling, I shake my head in amusement and stride up to the office door.
“You know the drill,” Vas reminds me. “Stay in the center of us and?—”
“Don’t take any unnecessary risk or try to be a hero,” I drawl.
“Exactly.”
“Fun ruiner,” I mutter behind his back as the men surround me. Jesus, it’s like being the president of the United States, but worse. I can defend myself. Not many presidents can say that. The current one would probably have a heart attack if he had to.
Quietly, on soft footsteps, we make our way through the darkened building toward the good doctor’s office. Papers shuffle around, the sound echoing into the hallway. He curses, a hard heavy object falling to the floor with a distinct thud.
“Where is it?” the man mutters to himself in a panic.
“Looking for something, Doctor?” The two men in front of me part to let me through. I stride into the man’s rather posh office, head tilted up as I study the man who falsified my mother’s death report and who knows how many others.
“You…” he trails off, the blood draining from his face as he stares at me, eyes wide.
The corner of my mouth tilts dangerously. “Cat got your tongue?” I sneer. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“How can…your…”
“Dead?” I raise an eyebrow, eyes flashing darkly at the word. He thinks I am my mother. The ghost of his past coming back to haunt him. That is something I can work with. “Funny thing about death. Never really sticks when you want it to. Does it?”
“What do you want?”
I let out a harsh puff of air tinged with a dark chuckle. “I want my life back, Doctor,” I tell him. “The one you stole from me. Tell me, how much was your soul worth? A couple of million?”
“I—it wasn’t?—”
“Personal?” I sneer. “Sure as hell felt like it. But don’t worry.” I bite my bottom lip, eyeing him like a lion does his prey. “When I kill you, it’ll be very personal to me.”
“You don’t have to kill me,” he pleads, dropping the file in his hand onto the desk. “I’ll give you whatever you want. I promise. Name it.”
“Who gave you the hush money?”
The man visibly swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing dramatically as fear swells in his eyes. His chest heaves. Once. Twice. I can see the war going on in his mind through the minute facial tics he can’t hide.
“I can’t?—”
“Wrong answer.” The doctor screams, his left leg collapsing beneath him as my bullet tears through his patella. The silencer keeps the gases that propel the bullet through the chamber quiet, muffling the sound of the bang making it sound more like broomstick snapping than a gunshot.
Vas grimaces. “What is it with you and kneecaps?” I shrug. It’s just an easy target to hit that I know won’t cause him to bleed out or pass out.
“Let’s try that again, Abram.” I crouch down in front of him, gun dangling loosely between my legs. “Who gave you the hush money?”
“They’ll kill me,” he sobs. “Please.”
“You’re going to die either way,” I tell him. “How painful your death will be is up to you.”
“Please…” His cries and pleas for mercy fall on deaf ears.
Just like my mother’s.
“How about this.” I lift the barrel of my gun, pointing it at his stomach. “I can shoot you in just the right spot—you know, the sweet spot. The one that’ll have you laying here on the floor for hours in agony before your body finally shuts down. You’ll be begging me to kill you, but I won’t. I’ll sit here and listen to your pitiful cries, and then I’ll go find that sweet little family of yours and do the exact same thing.”
I won’t go after them, but he doesn’t need to know that.