“I can taste that,” I purred back. I’d love to taste something else, too.

A heavy sigh escaped her perfectly red lips. “I was supposed to have fun tonight, but it seems everywhere I turn...”

Shushing her and playing with a strand of her hair, I placed a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t worry about it. You focus on having fun. I’ll deal with everything else. Sloane. The rats. All of it.”

Kelly approached with an incredulous look on her face. “Are you two done sucking face? There’s a costume competition and I’m going to enter Fallon.”

I released her from my grip, ushering her to Kelly. “Be my guest. I have business to attend to,” I said, turning around and covering my face back up before stalking out of the room.

Time to go to work.

Making record time, I needed to work quickly before I tried to approach my grandfather. He was particular in his dealings with me; if I didn’t come back with a job well done, I may as well not come back. So, it was the night I took care of our problems before announcing another.

A much larger problem.

I found it odd that he didn’t know about snakes in the grass, unless he was playing his old tricks again. Nevertheless, odd.

The envelope contained two profiles. Mario and Nicholas.

Mario had worked for my grandfather for about ten years and had gotten complacent. He let things slip to the point that he was ignoring theft, amongst other things. Growing soft after ten years was what my grandfather loathed about him. He had two choices: fix himself quickly or let me fix him permanently.

Nicholas, on the other hand, was due to die tonight. He was one that Mario had ‘forgotten’ to report for theft. He stole drugs from a drop off location and sold it on the streets to fill his own pocket. Too bad our hearty paychecks weren’t enough for him.

I called up a few available men to group up with for the long night ahead.

Dave, Jon, and Reaper. Some of the best cleaners we’d probably ever had. Reaper was a bit of an oddball, demanding to be called death's name. Thank God he didn’t ask to be called Lucifer. That would have been awkward.

Heading out with Lucifer tonight, hehe.

The Dictator asked Mario and Nicholas to be near for some sort of meeting; I just hoped they weren’t runners.

It made things messy.

“Hiya, boss.” Reaper saluted me with his typical greeting, wearing his favorite black riding gloves, as always.

“Reaper,” I nodded.

Dave and Jon eyed him standing there. For such brutal men, they were awkward.

I tossed the profiles down on the table beside me. “Here are the two men. Nicholas isn’t to leave alive. Mario is either or. You boys take your pick or flip a coin—I don't care.”