“There’s no gang,” Niall said. “There’s just me, my apprentice and a couple of prisoners I’ll take pleasure in carving up once I get bored of torturing ‘em.”
“And what about Brutus?” I huffed, pointing to the dog who was chewing on a cushion, ripping the stuffing right out the middle of it. It was a beautiful murder, chaotic, savage, perfect.
“What about him? He’s always been here. I ain’t gonna do no harm to my own dog,” Niall said, waving a hand at me.
“You’re getting off topic,” Mateo stepped in and Niall’s head whipped towards him.
“You ain’t a part of this discussion so whatever topic we’re on is the right topic,” he bit at him then shoved to his feet. “Let’s look at the info I’ve had gathered on this fella’s house and see what we’re dealin’ with security wise.” He headed off to fetch his laptop and Mateo immediately grabbed my stool, dragging me to his side so our legs pressed together. My breaths came quicker like a little windmill was whirring in my lungs.
His large fingers curled around my bare thigh and I bit my lip as he leaned down, so close there was only him, a demon summoned to me from the dark.
“Did he touch you last night?” he asked, unblinking and I swear I could feel the rage in him winding all around me as it hunted for an outlet.
I thought back on my night with Niall, a rush tumbling through my skin at the way our legs had brushed, our arms, fingers finding each other’s one too many times. But nothing more. Sleep accidents, that was all it was. I’d barely caught three winks because of the electrical current that zapped between us every time he touched me. It was like he’d left my shock collar on and he was the source of its power now.
“Not on purpose,” I said and he frowned at that answer.
“Did you want him to?” he asked dangerously and my little heart grew stubby wings and tried to take off in my chest, but it couldn’t get its feet off the ground.
“He’s engaged,” I blurted. “He’s going to marry a busty bitch who probably has two large mice employed full time to sit under her perfect tits and prop them up. I bet they’re not even paid well. Poor little tit mice, forced to work for that heartless, big breasted bi-”
“Brooklyn,” Mateo growled, my name rumbling through his chest and capturing all of my attention. “Who gives a fuck what Niall is going to do? You are the only thing that matters to me.”
I slowly ran my tongue over my lower lip, tingles starting up in my clit and a few danced around my butt too. “Me?”
He nodded, his eyes hooding as he leaned in almost close enough to bite my nose off. “Every time I’ve licked your fingers this morning, I’ve been tasting you, mi sol. You’re sweeter than any syrup. Your skin is a drug to me. And I want more of it.”
“I wasn’t just your BJ buddy?” I breathed.
“No, mi sol. You are everything to me.”
Shivers tracked along my flesh as he hovered on the line of kissing me and not kissing me. I could taste him in the air, sense him in my bones. Mateo was a lightning strike and I was the tree he had been drawn to, so much power and energy pouring from him that it made my blood spark like fireworks.
“I’m sorry I left you behind,” I whispered, reaching up to carve my fingers over the stubble on his jaw. I’d always known he had a nice face, but now his beard was sheared away, I could see just how beautiful he really was. If I’d been more skilled with a blade, I’d have been tempted to cut his face off and see how perfect his bones were beneath it. But I didn’t want to hurt my Dead Man. He was perfect just as he was with his face perched right there on his skull.
“You won’t fuckin’ believe this, Spider.” Niall strode back into the room then a growl sounded from him half a second before he yanked me away from Mateo by my hair. “Watch yerself, lad.” He swung a finger in Mateo’s face then scooted my stool away from him, the feet squealing as they scraped over the kitchen tiles. Then he grabbed his own stool and planted it between Mateo and I, dropping onto it and placing a laptop down, showing me the satellite photo on the screen of someone’s house.
“There’ll be too much security on a fancy pants house like that,” Niall said thoughtfully then tapped onto another tab, opening a file headed with the judge’s name Cedric Rawlings.
A stream of information came up and the top hit was a news report stating that the judge had been involved in a scandal after his wife had walked in on him mid-orgy with four men in the Terrance Hill Hotel. From the photos that accompanied it, he was clearly a party animal and the article stated he was there every other weekend partying. There were other stories about him having been caught with women too so all in all it seemed like he was of the wandering cock variety.
“Seems like he’s into young men, expensive wine and being an insufferable cunt,” Niall deduced and I nodded at that assessment.
“I could dress up as a teenage boy who’s a wine salesman and go knock on his door?” I suggested.
“That’s not a half bad idea,” Niall said.
“It’s a ridiculous idea,” Mateo muttered.
“Oh, like you have a better one?” Niall scoffed, rounding on him.
“I do actually,” Mateo said lightly and I bounced in my seat.
“What is it, Dead Man?” I asked.
“Yeah, come on, Dead Man,” Niall mocked. “Let’s hear your clever clogs idea then, shall we?”
“We sneak into his house in the dead of night,” Mateo announced.
“I see a lotta security on his house, Mr Genius.” Niall arched a brow. “How do you suggest we get in? Not every arsehole is stupid enough to leave their windows open all night for psychopaths to hop in through.”
Mateo muttered a few curses at him and seized the laptop, panning through photos of the house interior which seemed to have been gathered from various social media accounts to piece the place together and I looked over his shoulder as I drank it all in, admitting that I was impressed by how much information Niall had gathered for this. I knew he enjoyed the freedom of a wild kill but when he put the effort into planning one out, he really made my jaw hit my knees.
It was a massive modern structure, all white and blocky with glass balconies everywhere and a huge L-shaped swimming pool that hugged the edge of it. Mateo leaned forward and tapped one of the photos, showing how the pool connected to a big indoor conservatory.
“That’s a shitty design there,” Mateo said and I frowned as I leaned forward to see the picture better. “The indoor pool is connected to the outdoor pool. There’s a sliding door here that can open.”
Mateo tapped back onto a photo of the pool. The long conservatory met with a metal door that was shut in this picture, but as Mateo scrolled onto another one, it showed it wide open. “That’s gotta be an inch of metal at best. We get through that, we’re into the house. We’ll bypass the security he’s got in place surrounding his doors and can get in and out here without anyone ever knowing we were there.”
“There’s no we,” Niall hissed.
“There is too,” I insisted. “Mateo is coming or I’m not going.”