Page 152 of Himbo Hitman
He can do this.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
PERRY
I’m startingto suspect there’s a very high probability that I cannot do this.
The fake handcuffs I’m wearing fakely feel a hell of a lot like real ones. I know they’re not. I’ve practiced with them, but after the Tommy betrayal, I’m not sure I trust Arlie’s word anymore. It’s lucky I met St. Clare because there’s no way I could marry her under these circumstances.
“You good?” Arlie asks, hauling me out of Tommy’s car.
It’s not like I can answer her around my gag, so I make a noise that hopefully translates as “yeah, great, just hoping you don’t double-cross me, but so long as you don’t, I’m fine.” Whatever she gets from the sounds that I’m making must satisfy her because she takes hold of my upper arm and marches us into Lethal Poison.
I flinch instinctively the second we hear those tiny bells announcing us, expecting any one of the people here to shoot me in the head. It doesn’t happen, which feels like a win, but I’m tense the whole time we cross the bar area until we reach the hallway to Luther’s office.
Then I’m even tenser.
Lethal Poison smells like it always smells, looks like it always looks, sounds, and feels like the warmth I always expect it to. Bad things don’t happen to the sound of “Miles on It,” even though Iabsolutely know that bad things start their happening here every day.
Arlie gives my arm another firm squeeze, and I’m torn between whether it’s supposed to be supportive or a warning. Either way, I’m both supported and warned as we head up the hall and reach Luther’s office. The heavy door is closed, and if he meant to intimidate me more, he’s succeeded.
Arlie casts a quick glance over me before she knocks.
I know how this is going to go down; we’ve been over it a million times in the last twenty-four hours, and everything up until my actual part in it is planned perfectly. It’s what they do. There’s nothing for me to worry about unless Luther suddenly decides that I’ll look better dead, which I wouldn’t completely put past him. I just have to hope that he’s still as fond of me as he’s always been.
“Come in!”
Suddenly not feeling the fondness. My gut clenches as Arlie inches open the door and pulls me through after her.
Luther is the only one here, gun on his desk, relaxed back in his chair as he watches us enter and take the seats across from him. There’s something curious in his stare as his eyes roam from Arlie to me and back again.
We wait him out. Arlie, because she has the patience of a saint, and me, because she had the good sense to gag me and make sure I can’t give anything away.
“Where’s Colin?” he finally asks after the silence has gone stale between us.
“Contained.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna need more proof than that.”
Like it’s some huge imposition and not at all planned, Arlie logs into the security footage they set up and turns it so Luther can see. Even without a view of the screen, I know what it shows. Colin, bound and gagged like me, sitting in a chair in the middle of the warehouse we just left, with Ever standing over him, gun in his hand.
Arlie manages a smirk, which isn’t something she does lightly. “Ever isn’t happy that he doesn’t get to play with him.”
Luther goes on studying the screen. “After all the headaches this man has caused me, I want him dead already. No more fucking around.”
“Cool. Give me the address, and I’ll make the call.”
Luther freezes for a second before leaning back in his chair. “The deal was that you’d exchange them both.”
“Yeah, but I’m smarter than that. I brought this one”—she nods my way—“in good faith. Once I have the address, you can either choose for Everett to bring the job here or get rid of him immediately.”
Luther looks me over. ‘‘You’re okay with turning your friend over like this?”
Arlie shrugs, and if I doubted she was the right person for the job before, I don’t now. She’s perfected the complete level of disconnect needed to sell her answer. “Perry’s not my friend. He’s a mildly annoying cling-on that refuses to leave us alone at our table no matter how many times I ask him to.”
Luther huffs a laugh, and I remind myself that we planned for her to say that, and it’s not at all true. “He’s not that bad,” Luther defends, and I can’t stop myself making anank oothrough the material stuffed in my mouth.
Arlie throws me a shut-the-fuck-up look, and I don’t know if it’s real or if she’s still in character. “He botched a relatively simple job. He’s exactly that bad.”
