King of Depravity: Chapter 12

I’ve always known that killing Preston would be easy. But as I lounge in the desk chair of his hotel room, waiting for him to come back, I shoot Gris a text from my burner.

Making it happen tonight. Sorry I took so long.

The three dots appear, but I turn the sound off the phone, dropping it in my pocket as I hear the key rattle in the lock.

Preston enters his room, stumbling his way straight to the bathroom.

That’s when I hear him start to vomit.

Christ, it doesn’t get any easier than this.

Part of me would like to make him really suffer. Tell him that he’s being offed for Chloe and for Arabella. But explanations are for movies.

So instead, I move to the bathroom door.

He’s just lifting his head, his eyes glazed and unfocused when he catches sight of me.

“What the hell?”

Grabbing the back of his neck, I smash his head as hard as I can into the porcelain of the toilet.

He slumps to the ground.

It’s the oddest sensation. Usually, when I kill, I feel an initial sensation of satisfaction, followed by a deep loathing.

Tonight, I feel neither. Resignation beats in my chest along with my heart. I wait until I’m certain he stops breathing and then I carefully wipe the chair I sat in, the doorknob, and the back of Preston’s neck before I go.

Everyone will assume that Preston fell and hit his head while drunk. They won’t look much further, but I’m still thorough.

Slipping out of the room, I pull a hat over my head in case of cameras and cover my tattoos. I make my way down to the end of the stairwell, all the way to the basement level.

I’m near the pool and I can smell the chlorine as I head out the back entrance. The Kincaids own this hotel. Preston should have had the fortitude to at least stay in a hotel not run by his ex’s family.

He’s a prick, though, and the Kincaids own the best of everything. Probably thought he deserved a hotel this nice.

I don’t drive often…but the car I keep is a black Honda Pilot. It’s not what anyone would think a guy like me would drive, but that’s the entire point. It blends.

Hitting a few buttons on my Apple Car Play, I’m calling Triston. He answers, clearly half asleep as he slurs, “Hello?”

“I need a meeting.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Call Mason and then call me back.”

“Fine,” he answers and then hangs up. I get it. It’s three in the morning.

I pull a burner from my glove box, which rings almost immediately, but it isn’t Triston, it’s Gris.

“Hey.”

“How messy?” he asks, without even a hello.

“Pretty clean, but I’m working on all the details now. Waiting on Triston to call me back.”

“Patch me in, and Killian…” Gris pauses for a second. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” I answer roughly into the phone. “I should have done it sooner. I didn’t get what it meant to have another man…” I clear my throat.

That’s when I get the beep that Triston is calling me back. Merging the calls, I say to Triston. “Gris is here too.”

“So is Mason.”

Mason chimes in. “Do I need security on this call?”

“Yes.”

Thirty seconds later, Jake Kincaid picks up. “It’s three in the morning,” he rumbles into the line.

“We’re all aware of the time,” Gris is going to take points on managing grumpy men, apparently, which is good because the Kincaids are his in-laws. And he’s better at it than me anyway.

“What’s happened?” Jake asks.

It’s Mason who speaks, “We need a cleanup before the morning workers clock in at Chateau Blanc.”

“I could have used some notice,” Jake replies. “Was this a planned thing?”

I grip the steering wheel tight as I arrive at my place, pulling my car into my garage. “He punched my girl in the face tonight,” I spit into the phone. “It was payback.”

Silence meets my words. Is it the vitriol in my voice, or the fact that I have a woman I call my girl?

“Chloe?” Triston asks.

“We can get into the details later if you prefer,” I answer.

“It’s all right, Kill, tell everyone now.”

“She works at the piano bar the Russians frequent. Alexander Ivanov has developed an interest in her and when you interrupted him last night as he was trying to pursue her…”

Triston snarls into the phone. “He was sending a message to me.”

“Chloe’s face looks like ground meat,” I’m not trying to make him feel worse. Just explain. “I could not allow him to hurt another one of our women.”

Jake coughs. “I’ll get it taken care of, don’t worry. I’ll have the body removed⁠—”

“He was drunk and his head hit the toilet. It’s such an unfortunate accident.” My voice takes on the necessary note of sympathy. I know no one is recording this call on burner phones, and that Jake has taken all the necessary precautions in terms of security, but like I said, I’m thorough.

“And if anything should come back my way,” I blow out a breath through my nose. “I know what my job is. My one request is that Chloe is cared for. She’s interviewing at Temptation tomorrow afternoon. She’s an artist and an art history major and she struggles to make ends meet.”

“Understood,” both Triston and Mason say at the same time. I smile. I’d be fine in prison as long as I knew Chloe was cared for.

I briefly wonder when that happened.

When did I go from I want to make her dirty, to I care about her feelings, to I’m concerned about her future.

But it doesn’t matter tonight.

Stepping out of the Pilot, I hit the button for the elevator. I wish I could go to Chloe’s, but instead, I strip my clothes off and toss them directly into the washing machine.

Then, I’m in the shower.

When I finally climb into bed, the sun is just lighting the Las Vegas skyline. I set my alarm for four hours from now and close my eyes.

When I wake up, I will start putting Chloe’s life on the path she deserves. It will not be worse because I entered it, I’m determined to make her world better.

I really am turning into my brother Gris. But instead of being annoyed, I smile. Maybe after the job interview, she’ll let me fuck her.

It’s worth a try.

I might care about her future, but I still want to cover her in my cum.