If the devil were a woman, she’d wear a fur coat and red lipstick. But who am I kidding? Angie would eat that demon for breakfast and then floss her teeth with its bones.

“Fuck is right! What the hell are you doing here?” Angie barks across the room and proceeds to pace while trying to light a cigarette. Her fingers are trembling, and she can’t get it to spark.

“I should ask you the same thing.”

“All I know is that asshole forced me here at gunpoint!” A flame finally blooms, and she lights her cancer stick with a long drag. The amber end glows, followed by her blowing the smoke toward Kay. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking about you, fucker.” 

“You have a big mouth.” Kay shuts the door behind him and swallows the chipped floor with vast strides.

Maybe he’ll put a hole in her skull, ending this nightmare? 

But nope. 

Instead, he plucks the cigarette from her mouth, drops it on the floor, and stubs it out with his expensive boot. 

“No smoking in here.”

“Fuck you. I do what I want!” Angie barks at him, followed by a very oh-so-lady-like glop of spit she launches at his feet. However, it’s a bad move because Kay snatches her by the jaw and looks her dead in the eyes.

My mother would be impressed with his tactics.

“If you think your tantrum proves something, you’re clearly not ready.”

He releases her, and Angie shrinks back like a puppy. Is that all it takes to shut her up? A little dominance? I’ve been going about this all wrong. 

“All that useless muscle…” she directs towards me under her breath—eyes coated in a glossy rage. Her lipstick is now smeared on her chin from Kay’s fingers, and I almost feel sorry for her, but she’s behaving like too much of a C U Next Tuesday at this moment.

“You’re confusing me for someone who cares,” I utter back. 

If the Goliath had done that to Mindy, I would have thrown my hands at him in a heartbeat. Then again, Mindy wouldn’t be in this situation. Only a psycho killer like Angie Mendoza winds up in this asbestos-filled warehouse on the edge of town. She is the definition of trouble, and wherever she goes, chaos detonates like a nuclear bomb—poisoning everyone in her path.

Unfortunately for me, I was at the epicenter of her explosion, and I’m soaking in her radioactive mayhem.

“Today, you’re going to prove yourselves,” Kay says as he finishes sliding fresh bullets into his revolver and slaps it shut with his palm. 

Off to the side, another door opens, and four men enter, except two have cloth bags over their heads with hands tied behind their backs. My gaze flicks from them to Kay and then to Angie because what in the actual fuckery is going on?

“You’re going to kill them,” Kay says as if he’s reading my thoughts.

“What now?” 

“Pick your weapon.” He motions to the cluttered desk, which one of his minions has cleared off with a sweep of his hand. 

The piles of folders slap the ground as they land with papers scattering, and Kay's minion proceeds to casually set up a sharp knife, some wire, and a gun.

I scoff. “This is how we prove ourselves?”

“Pick your weapon,” Kay says.

“Who the hell are these guys?” I pivot towards the two men with cloth sacks over their heads.

“They’re nobodies. Don’t worry about it. Now pick your weapon,” Kay orders with his revolver in my face. 

If this were a cartoon, I’d have steam flowing out of my nose. I’m getting really tired of looking down at Kay’s barrel, and I’m tempted to grab the Glock on the desk and blast him in the head. Except, he’s a damn ninja and would probably kill me first.

“I’ll go, you little pussy.” Angie gives me a once over with a snarl of disgust while strutting up to the desk.

And like Goldilocks, she touches each item, her eyes scanning over them and measuring which one is best. It’s the first time I notice her hot pink sports bra, tiny spandex shorts, running shoes, and the fanny pack strapped around her waist. Did Kay scoop her off the street? I didn’t take her for a jogger, so that’s a new observation. Unless this was a fashion choice considering she's wearing her statement fur coat. Angie lifts the knife into view, allowing the blade to glint under the blinking fluorescent lights in the stuffy office. It doesn’t satisfy her, so she grabs the wire and tugs it with both hands as if testing its strength. 

The action flashes me back to the night at Baretta and Chloe stating she’d kill her ex with piano wire. Perhaps Angie remembers it too. She does a quick shake of her head as she sets the wire down and picks up the Glock instead. 

“Know how to use it?” Kay asks.

“Point and shoot, right?” Angie replies, but Kay laughs, and I swear the tension between them is starting to feel like foreplay.

“You wreak of amateur. You should know your weapons as if they’re extensions of your fingers.”

“Fine. This will do.” Angie sets the gun down and picks up the knife. Then, with all the bravado in the world, she struts up to one of the men and presses the blade to his throat.

“Remove the bag,” Kay orders.

“What?” she glances over her shoulder.

“If you don’t have the balls to look your victims in the eyes, then we’re wasting time.” 

“I have bigger balls than him,” she directs towards me and yanks off the cloth bag. “All that useless muscle…”

As soon as target number one is revealed, breath escapes my lungs in a low gasp. Tears stream down the man’s bloody, bruised face, and his wide eyes are frantically searching the room before landing on Angie. She’s acting tough, but I see the sway in her knees as she presses the blade to his throat again. Killing someone isn’t so easy when you have to look them in the eyes.

Kay knows this.

I know this too.

“Are you doing this or what? I have other shit to do.” Kay folds his arms with a bored sigh.

“I’m doing it!” Angie barks and the man begins pleading with her through the gag wedged in his mouth. 

The words are garbled, but when someone is begging for their life, it’s undeniable. Angie's hand trembles as she adjusts the knife, and her throat bobs with a hard swallow. 

“If you’re not up to the task, just say so,” Kay says with another sigh.

“I am up to the task! You’re not letting me concentrate.”

“Concentrate?” he smirks as he approaches her and bends at the waist so his gigantic self can hiss into her ear. “When your little plan goes down, do you think you’ll have time to concentrate? Nope. You have to be on autopilot. It has to be instinct.”

“Fuck off.” Angie jerks her head away and adjusts the knife. 

This time a thin line of blood appears on the blade, but her hand is still trembling, and the pallor on her cheekbones suggests she’s either going to puke or faint. The man is still pleading with her as snot bubbles gather in his nose at the same tempo as his panicked breaths. If Angie doesn’t take him out, he’ll definitely keel over from a heart attack because this guy is losing his shit. 

It also doesn’t help that the other man we're supposed to kill is losing his mind, too, with muffled screams from underneath the cloth bag. Kay’s assistant drops the dude to his knees with a smack to the back of the head and holds him down, but he starts bucking like a bronco wrestling out of a lasso.

"Keep him under control," Kay barks out.

"I'm trying," his assistant says, but his grip appears to be slipping from the man's sweaty arms. "This fat fuck is slimy."

"Make your move, Angie," Kay says. "We don't have all day. I want to see his blood on the floor in five, four, three..."

As Kay begins counting down, both men start thrashing so wildly that my gut says this won't end well. The one in front of Angie manages to spit the gag out and releases a shrill so loud I feel it in my lungs like glass. Angie backs away with eyes wide, and I bet she realizes she's not ready to kill someone. The distance prompts her victim to rush forward and bulldoze her to the ground as he heads for the door screaming.

"Stop him!" Kay orders.

I don’t know what possesses me. Maybe it’s just instinct, but that’s when I grab the Glock from the table, pull back on the slide, point, and shoot the guy between the shoulder blades. He collapses hard onto his knees, jiggling the fat on his back before falling flat onto his face, but then he rolls over. Now that a bullet is lodged in his spine, his screams blare like a tornado siren during a storm.

“Finish him,” Kay says. 

With a trigger press, a bullet pierces the guy’s forehead, closing the curtains on his life forever. Autopilot drags my feet over to the other man, and I yank the cloth bag off. Instead of seeing the tears soaking his puffy, blotchy face covered in acne scars, I see my ticket out of this mess and press the barrel under his chin.

Bang.

Just one shot, and he collapses sideways with twitching limbs. He reminds me of my step-father—laying there as blood pools around his cranium. But I feel nothing — Absolutely nothing as the quiver in his fingers subsides. I suppose I have Gwen to thank for my calm composure. 

Maybe she’s a good therapist after all? 

“Congratulations.” Kay claps slowly. “You just rid San Francisco of two pedophiles. May they rest in hell.”

“Good. Now can we get the fuck out of here?” Angie barks, a tremble to her voice as she wipes blood splatters from her face. 

“He can. But you didn’t prove yourself today. The Sisters will be disappointed.”

“So, can I go?” I ask.

“Yep.” Kay nods, his gaze focused on Angie. “But you stay put.” 

“Peace out.” I hold up my fingers and step around the bodies as Kay order’s Angie to clean up the mess.

Despite killing two people, I’m walking on sunshine because Angie is full of shit and out of her league regarding being sassy with Kay. He gives even less of a fuck than me.

I hope he shoots her in the fucking head and puts us all out of our misery.

Actually, I don’t. Because the image of her standing alone on the sidewalk outside the club, wiping tears from her eyes, still does something to me. I have yet to process why I care at all. Nonetheless, I do. 

It would be so much easier to loathe her. Instead, I want to continue peeling back her layers—expose what has turned her into the scared, heartbroken woman who needs a protector, especially after what I witnessed upstairs. She does not have what it takes to stomach what we plan to do. Hopefully, I'll know all that I need to know once Franky delivers the information I paid for.

But that’s a worry for another day because I still have a party to get to and a Goddess to flirt with.

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Thanks for reading! See you on Sunday with another update ❤️