Page 5 of Fool Me Twice

But he still placed the cigarette in his mouth and pulled out the lighter he’d stolen from Ash years ago, lighting the end and taking a deep drag.

He closed his eyes as the smoke entered his lungs, feeling his shoulders relax and his hands settle. He rested his head back against the side of the house as he blew out the stream of smoke, letting his eyes flutter open to watch it curl up into the gray sky.

Bliss.

That was what this felt like.

The burning warmth sliding down his throat, the ache as it filled his chest, and then the sweet release.

It tasted like memories. A caress in the dark. Smoky fingers pinning him down and holding him captive. The taste lingering on his tongue and making him shiver.

He savored every puff until the butt was so close it threatened to burn his fingertips. Only then did he reluctantly stub it out in the dirt. He’d quit now this one was done.

He would.

He ignored his already shaking hands as he checked that the coast was clear, hiding the butt back in his case to dispose of the evidence later. He hurried to his car, pulling his hand sanitizer, deodorant, and aftershave out of the glove box to mask the smell. He crunched on a few mints as he pulled out onto the road, not looking at himself in the mirror. He knew who he was, the mirror wouldn’t tell him anything new.

Chapter 2

Cane

“Bossman doesn’t like people trying to fuck him over.”

Cane watched one of his trusted men loom over a terrified-looking Jones, who had been bound to a chair in the center of the room.

The room they were in was nothing more than a glorified broom closet, all concrete walls and damp floors. A single light bulb swinging from the ceiling cast a murky yellow light, and a solitary chair was barely staying together under the weight of the man in it.

Cane might have gone a bit overboard with the action movie-inspired, bad guy-owned interrogation room, but he did love a classic. And it got the message across, the message being: this sad excuse of a space might be the last fucking thing you’ll see if you don’t tell me what I want to know.

He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and slinging one ankle across the other. The picture of casual serenity. He was boiling on the inside though. Months of tracking down vague clues as to where his money was disappearing had made him very grumpy.

His business was hemorrhaging. Slowly. Little by little. So little he hadn’t even noticed it at first, the run of ‘bad luck.’ It wasn’t uncommon in this field for things to not go smoothly, but Cane had started to notice a pattern lately that disturbed him.

A drip leaking from a full bucket would eventually empty it.

Cane wasn’t about to let that happen.

“Tell Cane he can go fuck himself.” Jones spat, blood splattering all over the run-down concrete floor.

“I can hear you just fine,” Cane said, uncrossing his legs and taking a stalking step toward his underling.

He looked worse for wear even by Cane’s fucked-up standards. There was blood gushing out of an open wound on his left cheek, and Cane was pretty sure he’d just stepped on one of his teeth. There went his ambition to have a necklace made out of the teeth of his enemies. He’d never get it done if he kept destroying the parts for it.

“Then let me go!” Jones screeched, voice cracking and eyelids barely open as he looked up into Cane’s eyes. “I already told you everything I know.”

Cane tilted his head, stepping closer and looming over the man. “So you say,” he said. “But see…I’m having a hard time believing that.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Jones said, bound hands starting to shake now that Cane was actually there. It always went like that. They all acted tough as shit when they thought he wasn’t around.

The moment he appeared, all bets were off. There was whimpering, blubbering, peeing of pants and throwing up of lunches.

He would have been flattered if it weren’t getting so fucking old.

“L-look, I don’t know what happened, okay?” Jones rushed to say, tripping over his words. “You have to believe me. Please!”

“There’s no use in pleading,” Cane said. “The only way you’re walking out of this room is if you tell me who you work for.”

“I work for you!” Jones said.