The Games We Play

49. Forty-Eight - X

Forty-Eight - X

Tess looks like the epitome of breathtaking as she sits beside me in the velvet chair. Her eyes are bright as ever, and a smile curves her perfectly red lips. I reach over and take her hand in mine, bringing it to my lips and kissing the tips of each of her fingers.

Her gaze lands on me, and the slightest hint of pink heats her cheeks.

I lower her hand back to the chair and she resumes her task at hand.

“So, you see, Mr. Johnson. How we met was somewhat unconventional, but we’ve overcome so much, way more than I think a normal couple would ever endure, so I’m not sure we really need counseling. What do you think?”

She slides to the edge of her seat as she eagerly awaits the counselor’s response after telling him every detail of how we met, starting from the night I chased her.

“I believe he’s preoccupied, dear. He’s missing a tongue after all,” I say, and her excited expression falters .

“Well, he could at least try. It’s not that hard. I didn’t cut out his vocal cords.”

I laugh as I push to my feet and face Puppet’s masterpiece in front of us.

Lincoln Johnson sits in his office chair, his legs tied to the base and arms tied to the armrest. When I proposed to Puppet, and we got married, we had a difficult time deciding what to do for our honeymoon.

Any couple could stay on a hot beach and drink all day. Snorkeling didn’t exactly fulfill either of our fantasies, and a resort just felt like a waste. Neither of us wanted a relaxing getaway. We wanted something much more exciting.

When Puppet asked for a list of people who were at the auction that she danced with, I was more than happy to oblige. We sat for hours, planning, tracking, and coming up with our honeymoon tour. We booked our hotels, under aliases, of course, and made it an around-the-world-in-however-long-it-takes-to-find-retribution type of trip.

And what better way to start out with the first man to put his hands on my wife? The man who thought he could buy her at the disgusting auction. The monster who preys on unsuspecting women who willingly come to his office looking for ways to save their marriage.

“Mr. Johnson, I believe my wife isn’t satisfied with your performance. We have some serious problems that we need to work out,” I say.

“We do?” she looks at me, confused.

“Oh yes. For example, we can’t decide what color curtains should be in the living room or what direction the toilet paper should go. Oh!” I snap my fingers and point at Puppet. “I leave the toilet seat up, and she hates it. Then there is the age gap thing, I mean,” I shrug, and Puppet swats at me. “How do we fix these things? We desperately need your help.”

His attempts to speak come out gargled and Puppet nearly bounces on her toes in delight. “Yes! Exactly. When it comes to the toilet, paper beards always trump mullets! I’ve been trying to tell him this!” She thumps a hand to her forehead, and I laugh.

Every day I wait for her love to consume me, and I’d simply kill over from the amount of light she fills me with. I never thought I had room to love or be loved. I was so fucking wrong. I just hadn’t found her yet.

“Can we do the thing?” She drops her chin and bats her lashes at me like I had any hope of refusing. I dig in my bag that I brought, lift two matching masks, and hand her one.

She squeals, her engagement and wedding band reflecting the light in the room.

Once she has it on, she clicks the switch, and pink neon Xs light up with a pink-stitched smile. I place the one I bought the moment she became my fixation, casting a blue light across the room.

“I’ll be watching you, Puppet,” I say with my fake accent, and her mask locks on me. I imagine her heated gaze behind those pink lines and all the ways she’ll use me later.

“Always,” she purrs and turns back to Lincoln, slicing off his ear and tossing it to the floor.

He screams for help or tries to. There is so much blood it’s impossible to tell.

These kills are for Puppet. I simply assist with anything she needs—tools, restraining the occasional stronger man. I’m watching her take back parts of herself, one piece of scum at a time. My phone rings, and I check it as Puppet slides her knife across Lincoln’s bare chest. Unlike her father’s tainted one, I had one specifically made to fit her hand.

“Hey, Doc,” I say and step to the back of the room.

“How’s the honeymoon going so far?”

Puppet straddles the naked piece of shit as she gouges out of his eyes, and my chest bursts with the need to take her ass right here.

“It’s good,” I say, adjusting myself. “We’re in San Francisco and have a flight to Paris tomorrow, where we’ll travel across Europe.”

“I’m happy for you two lovebirds. Listen, Christian is here, and we just got hired for a target in Chicago. He wants to know what you want to do with it.” Christian is Doc’s grandson, who saved my life when I thought for sure Darius had me. Doc told me later that he was his best-kept secret, caught up in Darius’ organization and his secret weapon when the time came. Turns out the old man had been looking out for me all along. Guess it doesn’t always hurt to let people care about you.

I wet my lips as Puppet stands and moves behind Lincoln to watch me as she slides her knife across his throat and blood sprays across his desk and belongings.

“Let me ask the boss,” I say and drop the phone to my side.

“Sweetie, how would you feel about a detour before visiting Paris? Like Chicago?”

She angles her head to the side. “Is he on the list?”

“No. It’s for a client.”

Slamming her hand down hard, she embeds her knife through Lincoln’s chest cavity and removes her mask.

Her eyes are bright as she stares at me from across the room. “Let’s go hunting.” She plucks her knife and wipes it clean on Lincoln’s discarded clothes .

I raise the phone and tell Doc we’re in. Then, I change our flight plans to go to Chicago and, from there, to Paris. I schedule a cleanup crew to come to our location and gather our tools and anything we might leave behind.

With a click of the door closing behind us, we exit the empty building a little after three a.m.

Puppet takes my hand once we’re in the car, and she settles back into the passenger seat.

“You ready?” I ask.

She smiles over at me. “With you? Always.”