Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Men without souls.
“Perverts.” I gestured to Chase Stone and his incestuous entourage. Corporate coke heads that took from the poor to make them rich. They were everything people who weren’t in the know hoped didn’t really exist.
Monsters don’t just wear gold chains and listen to rap music. There’re monsters in designer suits stomping and clawing all over the world.
I closed the book, kept it in my hand, and glanced over at the guards. “Make sure you grab all of these on this shelf.”
“Should I read these, too?” one asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “I’ll read these. Just don’t forget them.”
“What are you going to read?” Sophia appeared in the doorway, dragging the huge garbage bag.
“Nothing.”
“His journals?” She eyed the shelf. “There’s nothing in there.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re taking his money. I can grab his life.”
“He always thought he would write a book about his life. Thought somebody would want to print that one day.” She snapped her fingers at one of my men. “Take this down to the car, please.”
The poor guy turned to me. I nodded.
“Did you find the names?” she asked.
“No.”
“Men have to be the most simple-minded animals in the world.” She stomped over to the desk, bent over, pulled out the last drawer, and picked up a huge binder. “There we go. All of his aliases. There should actually be some passports, social security, and credit cards in there.”
She flipped it open and displayed the front to me. Sure enough, tons of plastic pockets held everything she’d listed. Ten folded pages were in the front, all with names.
“Good find.” I signaled for the other guard to grab the binder. “Get anything else. Let’s get out of here in ten minutes.”
“Let’s make it five,” she suggested. “And don’t forget this bag, sweetie.”
Sophia left.
I turned back to Benny’s novel. The fact that he’d mentioned my father had me intrigued. I read more of Benny’s notebook, hoping that it would get me closer to finding Jasmine.
“Perverts.” I signaled for the waitress to get me another scotch.
Scar grunted and leaned in his chair. The big man took up the whole side of the table. He was built with muscle, my height, but wider in the arms and chest. I often wondered if it was me and him going at it, who would win. Many guys I guessed on with ease. Most didn’t have my finesse when it came to death. It was an art, just like food, music, and writing. When one took on things, there needed to be a certain passion in the task.
My art was death, and I wielded my knife like Da Vinci danced around the canvas with his brush.
“Perverts.” I burped. “Probably shouldn’t have drank this much. What else do I have to do?”
Scar’s words were one a dark lord would have in a cartoon—scary and thick. “See your wife.”
“Don’t even mention her. I don’t have many things that I feel guilty about, but marrying her was one of them.”
“It made the bosses happy.”
“It sure did.” I grabbed a new scotch as the waitress placed it on my table. “Now they have their goon in a suit and walking through their corporations like a good old American man—security director, husband of a good woman, and squeaky clean record. Get married they said. It will soften you up. If you’re less scary, there’s millions of dollars you could make.”
“Whose idea?” Again, those two words sliced through the air with a hardness that made even me shiver. This was why Scar hadn’t been picked for the job. Stone Industries was up and coming, but they’d gotten their success through handshakes with terrorists and drug cartels. The bad guys wanted in on some of these legal investments. It served Stone and his buddies to keep me around. I had several men around the world who would follow me through hell and back, guys that served in the military with me and learned how to kill from the best killing machine of the decade—the American government. The perverts needed me on their team, making sure that the bad guys didn’t get them, meeting with these evil monsters when they were too scared, and also cleaning up the dirty things that they did within the walls of their homes.
I kept my mouth closed the whole time I did it, too. In the muck of their world, loyalty was more priceless than money.
“It was Stone’s idea of course. Mr. Chase fucking Stone. We should probably call him Senior now. I met his little son last month. Stone married a real crazy. She had her son doing some sick shit. Had that boy in a dress with ruffles. I walked up on it one day. Boy looked so embarrassed. Told me that it was a special secret. Showed me his room.” I stopped and finished the glass. “You know Stone’s place in Italy?”