Wife's Bitter Revenge Against Neglectful CEO Husband-Chapter 98: Edy and Paz

The Dante house was a white breadbox in a row of breadboxes. The only redeeming factor was a porch that ran the length of the house.

Once upon a time, the porch was probably a great place to hang out with friends and family on a warm summer night. Now, it was a dumping ground for kids’ bikes and toys. To the opposite end of the storage area, it looked like someone had dumped a grill on the porch, and a hole had burned through the timber. The grill filled the hole in the porch with the charcoal still sitting in it at an angle.

Min and Jake refused to let me take the lead, but when the sister, Edy was her name, refused to let them in, Stiff and Sampson walked me to the door. Roscoe headed around back in case Paz tried to run.

I forced myself to smile. "Hi, I’m Tee. I called earlier about Paz. A little birdie told me Paz is here. I really would like to see him."

"I told you and your thugs here that I haven’t seen Paz in weeks."

I stepped into her personal space even as Stiff grabbed at my arm to pull me back. "First, it was a year ago and then a week ago, and now it’s back up to weeks. In the meantime, my men saw him here two hours ago, so I must insist."

I’m not sure what the woman saw in my eyes, but when I took another step forward, she stepped back.

"You’ve got no right to come into my house. You’re not cops."

I couldn’t argue with that last statement. She was so foolish.

"You are absolutely right. We aren’t police. But if you and your brother don’t cooperate, you will wish we were the cops."

I pointed to Jake and Sampson. "These two are ex-special forces guns for hire. And this handsome man." I pointed at Min. "Well, he grew up in the underground fight scene. There is absolutely nothing they don’t know about pain."

My smile grew. "Me and the skinny guy, well, in many ways, we are scarier than the other three combined." I pointed one finger. "I can do life-altering damage with this one finger."

I took another step forward. By now, I was inside her house. It smelled of liver, onions, stale beer, and cigarettes.

"Imagine what I can do with all ten fingers."

"Paz! Get your ass out here. I didn’t sign up for this shit."

Edy backed into the arm of a stained green recliner and toppled over the arm to land butt-first into the chair with a cry of surprise. She struggled to get up as a guy in a plaid shirt rushed out from the back of the house to help her.

"Edy, are you okay?"

"What did you get me involved in, Paz? You said you needed to disappear. You didn’t say anything about killers coming after you."

"Nothing, Edy, I swear."

"Nothing!" I said. "You almost killed my best friend and two children. Then you ran from the scene of the accident. I call that a lot."

"You can’t prove any of that."

Some people were clueless.

"Why? Because you left no fingerprints? Have you thought about how I found you? And if I can find you, so can the cops."

Paz looked smug. "I’m not worried about the cops."

"Why is that?"

"I got friends, good friends, who can do things."

Paz settled Edy in a sitting position in the chair. He knelt beside her, holding her hand.

"You should tell us about your friends."

Paz shook his head emphatically. "I talk to you, and I’m a dead man."

"Read the room, Paz. If you don’t talk to us, you could be a dead man."

"I’m not talking."

"Oh, really. Then I think it’s time you met Sampson here," Jake said. Sampson, did you bring your tool kit?"

"The full kit? No. But I never leave home without my pocket kit." Sampson pulled out a wide leather pouch that was velcroed around his waist under his shirt.

It was no wonder that he looked so bulky carrying that thing around all the time. I vaguely wondered if it chafed.

Sampson asked, "Do you want me to work right here? It will get messy. Or maybe the kitchen? Is there a basement? The basement is ideal. It provides the most soundproofing and cleanup ease. My work tends to be messy."

If my smile was scary, Sampson’s was downright demonic. I shiver went down my spine, and I wasn’t even his target.

Jake said, "Stiff, take Teela to the van. We’ll be out in a few."

"How long?" Stiff asked.

Jake took Paz’s measure and grunted. "Sampson is a master at information distraction, and this guy is already on the verge of pissing himself. I’d say a half hour or less."

"Stiff said, "Make it last a half hour. I’ll take Teela to pick up dinner to eat during the trip back to the city."

"I don’t want to go," I said. "He hurt people I love. I want to see him hurt."

Jake said, "Teela, this isn’t me being a chauvinist here. Sampson’s work is something you can’t unsee for the rest of your life. You don’t need those kinds of nightmares. Hell, if I knew then what I know now, I’d never have witnessed his first extraction.

"I’m begging you, please, don’t make me complicit in staining your psyche like that. Let Sampson do his thing. I promise. Bea and the boys will get the justice they deserve, and this little worm will tell us everything."

I looked from Jake to Sampson, who was spreading his tools across a table. I saw a scalpel, pliers, and what looked like some sort of malformed hole punch. Several other metal items looked equally as dastardly and unholy, but I couldn’t even attempt to identify them or what they were used for.

If this was his pocket kit, I didn’t want to think about what his full kit included. Maybe a chainsaw or tools for electricity play. Yeah, that was enough. Jake was right. I didn’t need to see what happened next. As limited as my imagination was, I’d already freaked myself out. I gave Paz and Edy credit for not begging for their lives already.

This wasn’t my scene. I’d done my part. I’d found the driver. I’d gotten us in the house. Now it was Sampson’s turn. I turned and walked out.

By the time we returned, Jake and Min were standing in the shadows of the dilapidated porch. It looked like Sampson was using a watering hose at the side of the house to wash up. Good. I didn’t want to think of what might be on his tools while coming home with us. It was too long of a trip to obsess about it the whole time.

The guys loaded up. Jake called for an emergency crew to take care of Paz and Edy while we drove away.

"So, they’re still alive?" Stiff asked.

"Yes," Min said.

"They wish they weren’t, though," Sampson said. "I made sure they paid, Teela."

Violence wasn’t my thing. I had to compartmentalize this whole experience. If I blocked it off, I could later delete it before it did any permanent damage to me.

"What did you learn?" I asked.

"Paz and Edy like to gamble. Paz owes some bad people some big bucks. Paz was given the opportunity to work off his debt by causing the accident," Jake said.

"Who hired him?"

"Some guy named Ash who hangs out at The Well Water."

"Then Ben may know him. If he doesn’t, someone on his staff would."

"My thoughts exactly."

"Hey, where’s the food? I’m starved," Sampson said.

Stiff handed him a bag of burgers and fries. He tried to pass out the rest of the food, but other than Roscoe, who’d been outside the house the entire time, no one was up to eating. In fact, tough guy Min looked a little green at the thought of eating greasy burgers.

If someone like Min lost his appetite because of Sampson’s handiwork, I was sure I’d made the right decision to leave the messy work to the experts.

Unfortunately, when I dozed off, the rats in my dreams weren’t as kind. They used the smell of hamburgers and fries as an excuse to attack me through the dark recesses of my memories and combined with a healthy dose of nightmare, and in my nightmare, the rats were supersized with jagged teeth and red eyes. The teeth resembled Sampson’s tools.

I struggled to pull myself out of the bad place, aware it wasn’t real but stuck in the dark fantasy anyway. I tried to call out for help, but words weren’t a thing where I was. It didn’t stop me from trying as fear threatened to suffocate me.

This wasn’t cool—so not cool—but I fought it. I fought the rats, I fought the smell that was setting the scene, and at some point, I fought against the flesh that my clawed fingers came in contact with.

Someone cursed, and cold water shocked me out of the dream and back into the reality of the van’s darkened interior.