Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Maybe he shouldn’t put this on Ezra’s conscience, but he was here and deserved a say.
Frank kicked Paul’s legs, making him sink to his knees, and tightened his stomach muscles, to protect himself from the elbow flying back at him, but Paul must have understood how dire things were, because he grabbed Frank’s forearm and tried pulling on it.
“Please—”
Ezra nodded, holding Frank’s gaze, and that was that.
Frank twisted Paul’s head and dropped him to the floor.
He took a deep breath as his mind emptied. He didn’t feel sorry for Paul, but maybe it had happened too fast and hadn’t hit him yet. Paul would have never stopped imposing on Frank, and Ezra would have always been his go-to target to threaten Frank into compliance.
Frank took note of Ezra’s trembling lips. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, lifting the dead body as its head lolled from his to side. “I need to deal with them first. They seem trigger-happy,” he said and headed for the door as if this were a bad dream.
“Oh—okay,” Ezra muttered as Frank gravitated to the exit, barely feeling any of the tension and fatigue that normally followed a difficult fight. He announced that he was coming out and hoped the bastards waiting outside would keep their offer of sparing everyone if he gave them Paul. Whether he was to be dead or alive hadn’t been specified.
Their headlights shone straight at the house, and Frank lowered his eyes, squinting as he stepped outside, dropping the limp form to the porch. But since it was Paul, and that fucker could never make things easier on people, his carcass rolled all the way down the steps and into the mud.
He could see a gun lowering at the periphery of his vision, then one of the men stepped forward, into the light.
“Is he… dead?”
Frank took a deep breath. “Things got out of hand, but you got what you wanted so take him and get the fuck off my property.”
Now that his eyes were starting to adjust to the bright lights pointed straight at him, he saw the men looking at each other. Clearly, they hadn’t heard about Wreck & Repair’s other services.
A man in formal clothes stepped forward, placing his gun in a holster under his suit jacket. “Why? You’re the one who murdered him.”
“And you wanted him dead, so take the damn corpse.” Frank couldn’t believe he had to argue about this. As if this evening hadn’t been enough of a shitshow.
“He’s on your land.”
“You cornered him here,” Frank said, taking a deep breath.
The stranger took a moment to think, and then struck gold. “You want money, don’t you?”
Frank took a deep breath that got stuck somewhere in his throat. “Yes, I want fucking money if I’m to dispose of him for you,” he said through gritted teeth.
The leader sighed and exchanged a few words with one of his companions, who walked over to the trunk of their vehicle and opened it. “Fine. I suppose I owe you for disturbing your peace tonight. No reason to burn bridges,” he said as his man approached Frank.
Dressed in a gray T-shirt under a short jacket, he seemed deceptively normal, but the way his gaze wandered over Frank, looking for weak points and weapons, suggested he was no ordinary goon. He stepped over Paul’s body and reached Frank, then offered his hand like a polite gentleman should before offering him a wad of cash. There was a hundred dollar bill at the top, and based on this Frank estimated his payment was a couple thousand. This one time, he didn’t care about the exact sum. He just wanted them gone, so he could tend to Ezra.
“KP, give him my card,” the leader stated as the foot soldier was about to leave.
Frank stopped himself from rolling his eyes, because this wasn’t a time to make enemies. So he kept his face neutral as the man passed him a card.
“You’ll find my contact info on the fence. On your way out.”
KP backed off, but the leader snorted, entering his car. “Pleasure doing business with you!”
“Likewise,” Frank lied and watched the intruders retreat the same way they came, in a neat cavalcade. Only when the back lights of the last one disappeared from his sight did he take a deep breath of gasoline-scented air and returned inside.
Ezra was shaking when he met Frank’s gaze, and while Frank’s body erupted with rage at the sight of blood around his mouth, he soon realized it had to be Paul’s.
“Is it safe?” Ezra whispered, as if he were afraid someone might overhear him.
“Yes,” Frank said on autopilot, unable to shake the tension out of his body. But he didn’t wait and unlocked the damn cuffs from the hook in the ceiling.
He enfolded Ezra’s trembling body in his arms with a deep sigh. He was safe. And Paul would never get to him again.