Pretty Deadly

Prologue

Spade

Drip. Drip. Drip.

A small dose of scopolamine slipped through the plastic IV tubing and into the man’s median cubital vein. I had Madden Kyng’s general anchored to my examination table. His arms stretched out horizontally from his supine body. Wide straps at his forehead, shoulders, hips, and feet kept him immobile.

“I’m going to need some information,” I said, picking up a syringe.

“I don’t know shit,” he mumbled. The scopolamine had him in a twilight sleep. Drool trickled from his mouth, and blood stained his swollen lips.

The guy had to be close to two hundred and fifty pounds of mean-as-fuck muscle. Too bad he held his junk with two hands when he took a leak. He hadn’t had time to grab his gun before I’d given him a shot of benzodiazepines into the axillary vein of his shoulder. By the time he’d zipped up, he’d forgotten his fucking name.

Like the spider tattoo covering his neck, he was deadly with his poison. They called him Laf, short for lethal as fuck. Not today.

He had left the bar easy enough with a promise of sweet teenage pussy tied up in my van. When I hit him with the second shot, he realized he was the one about to be fucked. He turned like a muscled mutant ready to smash. He threw me against the side of the van and pinned me by my neck. The second shot worked, but I had to haul his ass into the van.

I rolled my shoulder. It still fucking hurt.

Laf twitched on the table, continuing to grumble about my death.

“Focus. I haven’t asked you a question yet.” I brought another serum to the catheter port. “I want to know more about Madden Kyng.”

As the toxin slipped through his veins, every muscle in his body seized. Tendons in his neck stretched and strained as he clenched down hard on his jaw.

“Hurts, doesn’t it? That’s just a taste.” A full dose would have him biting off his tongue.

As the flare of pain eased, he breathed out a ragged exhale. I sat on the chair at my desk. “If you don’t want another dose, answer my questions. I want to know the one thing Kyng can’t live without.”