Series: The Circle of Monsters Series by Sam Crescent
Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 210(@200wpm)___ 168(@250wpm)___ 140(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 210(@200wpm)___ 168(@250wpm)___ 140(@300wpm)
“You’re a loose end for Petrov now. You’ve seen things you shouldn’t have. That kind of shit can’t be brushed under the rug.”
Her eyes welled up with unshed tears, two turbulent blue oceans. Other people’s emotions never fazed him. Some called him a sociopath. Galen just didn’t give a fuck. He’d pulled the trigger when people were begging and crying, and it never bothered him before.
“So, what can I do to fix this? Should I go to the cops? There must be something.”
He scoffed, holding back full-on laughter. “Bad idea. The officials Viko doesn’t control, his enemies do.” Galen scrubbed a hand over his face. “What did you see exactly?”
“At my boss’s house?”
He nodded.
“I saw him kill a man in cold blood.” She took a breath. “A woman, too. I can still see it in slow motion when I close my eyes.”
“How’d he see you?”
“I screamed. Then I ran,” she said. “He would have caught me, but I hid for hours in a garage storage cabinet before finally running back to the city.”
“Back?”
“He lives in the suburbs. It took me hours of walking, running, and hiding from cars before I got home. I wasn’t there long before I realized he knew where I lived.”
Everything was starting to make sense. This girl really was innocent. But why should he care? She wasn’t his responsibility or his problem. He remembered where he was and calmed a degree. Viko would handle this clusterfuck now.
A few minutes later, he could hear footsteps coming down the winding grated metal staircase. The place was a modern marvel created from converted shipping containers.
“There you are, Galen. I was starting to wonder if you’d follow orders.” Viko moved slowly, deliberately, an unpredictable predator.
“Have I ever let you down?” Galen held out his arms, then walked toward the wall of glass facing the ocean.
“This has become … complicated.”
“Yeah, you told me about the fake cash.” Galen was getting bored with this contract already. Viko probably wanted him to return the favor and wipe Petrov off the face of the earth.
“It’s more than that. The man he killed, the one your target saw murdered, was one of ours.”
Galen immediately turned around. “Come again?”
“I thought this was all about snuffing out a witness. I mean, that asshole can kill whoever the fuck he wants. That’s not my issue. But when I found out it was Seth Dante, things stopped adding up.”
“What was he doing there? You sent him?”
Viko shook his head.
“He hired the Circle of Monsters to clean up the mess after he killed one of us? Does he have a death wish?”
Galen had only met Seth a few times in passing. None of them held hands, but they had to coordinate and work together on occasion. Petrov wasn’t supposed to be direct competition as he wasn’t into contract killing, so why make an enemy out of Viko? He wasn’t exactly known for his charming disposition.
“Why Seth?” Viko asked. “Why go the extra step to hire us rather than hiding the murder? He has his own cleaning crew. It would have been easy.”
“Who was the woman?” Galen asked.
“What woman?”
They both looked toward Skye. She gasped, her lips parting.
He walked back toward her. “You said you saw your boss kill a man and a woman, right?” Galen asked.
Skye nodded but said nothing.
Viko took a few brisk steps, getting into her personal space. Skye immediately darted closer to him, wrapping both her arms around one of his, like a child seeking a security blanket. He didn’t push her away.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.” Viko crossed his arms over his chest. “This is very important, so think clearly.”
“It was dark. There was a man dressed in black. They were arguing or something. Mr. Petrov shot him in the back of the head when he turned around. He dropped to the ground. Then he focused on the woman—”
“Who was she?”
Skye shrugged. “I’ve seen her a few times. I assumed she was one of his mistresses. He has quite a few.”
“Okay, what happened next?”
“He grabbed her by the hair, dragging her closer to the dead body. He was shouting something, but I couldn’t focus. There was so much blood.” She took a deep breath. “I was hoping that was the end of it. But then he shot her too.”
She buried her face in his shirt, not wanting to look at Viko for another second. Why was she seeking him for comfort? He’d been the one ready to pull the trigger. But here he was, practically with a hard-on because this chick sought him for protection.
“He kills one of our own, then hires us to kill the witness that could expose him,” Viko said.
“Then pays you with fake cash and sends men to kill me? None of this shit makes any sense.”
“Unless he didn’t know Seth was one of ours until after he hired us. Then he decided to cut his losses, keep his cash, and wipe us out before we could act.”