Page 9 of Fool Me Twice
Ash dropped the annoying act immediately. “Cursed how? What’s happening?”
“A whole lot of bullshit that’s not supposed to be happening,” Cane said through clenched teeth, looking through the window at the chaos unfolding.
“Yeah, man, you’re giving me nothing,” Ash said. “I’m gonna need a bit more detail than that.”
“I walked out of a…conversation tonight to find one of my bartenders handing out top shelf liquor as freebies.”
“You think you’re cursed because you have a shit bartender?”
“Two of my fighters are fucking dry humping in the middle of the ring as we speak,” he growled, watching the new kid attacking the other fighter with hickeys instead of the right hooks he was known for.
“Is it hot?” Cane heard an unfamiliar voice ask.
“Not now, pipsqueak,” Ash whispered before returning to the call. “Okay, so freebies and two dudes going at it. Not really curse material, I don’t think.”
“There’s a pimp running game like he’s moved in and telling me to take my stroke game up with my mother. My security just walked off the job to fuck knows where, and a hooker is attacking Ares with a stiletto. As we speak I’m watching Moore buy Sebastian Aster a drink.”
“Moore got Aster a drink?” Ash asked.
The two crime bosses had a notorious feud that went back generations. Everyone knew about it, because they didn’t shut up about it. Family this. Family that. But apparently they were breaking bread right now without an issue, laughing and clinking glasses.
“Yup.”
“Wait…” Ash said. “A pimp asked you if you were an early shot?”
“Yes!” Cane grated out, just about ready to find the cursebreaker and delete him.
“Yeah, no, you’re absolutely cursed,” Ash said.
“Fuck you,” Cane said. “When can you be here?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you!” Cane snapped, ignoring the twist in his stomach before he said the next words. “Are there any other cursebreakers I have the displeasure of knowing?”
“No, and even if you did I’d be your favorite,” Ash said. “But this isn’t my domain, man.”
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Cane asked. “You’re a cursebreaker. I’m cursed. Break it.”
“I’m a bonding curse expert,” Ash said, and fuck Cane’s life, he’d never thought to ask what Ash actually did. “As far as you’ve described, nobody there sounds like they’re bonded to anything.”
Cane watched people coming and going freely. Didn’t seem like they were bonded, but what the fuck did he know?
“Then what the hell does it sound like?”
“Hmm. Let me think. So it’s not me, there are no animals involved, so Wren’s not it. I doubt it’s object related since there are so many varied cases, so Midas is out too. That leaves Black, Fix, and Hart. Anyone dead?”
“If orders were followed, yes,” he threw out just because.
“I meant anyone who’s not meant to be,” Ash said.
“No, not yet. They seem to be having a jolly good time.”
Ash laughed. “Where the hell did you learn that from? You sound like my brother.”
Cane gritted his teeth. “Can we focus?”
“Right, so no guts spilled, no eyeballs rolling around, no maggots crawling from skulls, that kinda thing?” Ash double-checked.