Played: Manhattan Ruthless - 3

Chapter

Two

S crewing my eyes closed, I hope that when I open them again I will have imagined what I just saw. That it won’t be her name flashing on the screen of my cell phone. It’s so unlike her to call me, even when I go no contact for months at a time. I open one eye and peer at the vibrating phone. Unfortunately for me, it was no mirage.

I blow out a deep breath and answer the call. “Hello, Mother.”

“Oh, so you are alive after all, Kyngston. I can’t remember the last time we had a phone call. A visit?” Disdain drips from her tone.

I roll my neck, my eyes trained on the man across the street. Indigo Bernard—“Indy” to his friends. “That ungrateful little cunt” to his father. He leans against the red brick wall of the disused library building, his hands shoved in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt and a cap pulled low over his face, like that will stop him from being recognized. Stupid kid.

“You missed your father’s award ceremony,” she says.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I lie with ease. Watching a man I despise receive an award for his contribution to society is low on my list of ways I’d like to spend my time—only just above driving a nail through my own skull. “I’ve been busy with work.” I give her my well-rehearsed excuse for my abysmal lack of contact.

Maybe one day I’ll tell her the real reason I hate coming home. Her screams of horror and disgust would likely shatter glass all the way here in Chicago. A smile tugs at my lips at the thought. Shame I’m far too much of a fucking coward to actually do it.

Absentmindedly, I run the pad of my thumb over the scar on my pointer finger, tracing the rough edges. The words come back to me, like the chorus of a song you can’t forget. It’s only a scratch. Stop crying. You’re such a weak little child.

“Oh, yes. Your work.” She sniffs like the word is an insult. And to her, I suppose my line of work is. Yet another way I’ve let her and the entire Worthington family down. Not going into the family business was another slap to her surgically enhanced face. The fact that she believes my father’s legacy of screwing over the less fortunate to be above what I do speaks volumes. Honestly, the woman has the self-awareness of an amoeba.

Indigo glances up and down the street, impatiently tapping his foot against the sidewalk as he waits for his drop.

I grit my teeth. If I don’t get over there soon, he’ll think I’m not coming. Skittish little fuck has been a nightmare to track down, and I don’t have the time or energy to go through this whole charade again. “I have to go. I’ll call you⁠—”

“Your grandfather is sick.” Her words cut me off at the knees.

He’s always sick, but she’s never called me about it before. “How sick?” I ask, my heart in my throat.

“It’s terminal,” she says. Cold. Unfeeling. “He has a month or two at most.”

I can’t do this with her right now. I focus on Indigo. The slump in his shoulders. Brown curls spilling out from under his cap. The rip in the left knee of his jeans, which are far too big and hang loose on his hips. How he picks at his fingernails, a habit I’ve observed in him before, noting how he favors the index finger of his left hand.

“He’d like you to come home, Kyngston.”

I bristle. I hate that goddamn name, and she knows it.

Indigo pulls his cap lower and pushes himself off the wall. He’s twitchy. Ready to run. Shit, I have to move. I end the call and shove the phone into my jacket pocket, ignoring the vibrations against my chest when it rings again. Ignoring everything except my target.

He glances up and sees me. I raise my hand in a brief wave, letting him know it’s me he’s waiting for. He’s suspicious though, rightly so. He glances up and down the street again.

“You got my money?” I ask, still a few steps away from him.

His beady eyes narrow like he’s sizing me up, wondering if he can outrun me. He can’t. “You’re not my usual guy.”

I shake my head. “Tony had some shit to take care of.”

“What shit?”

“None of your fucking business, shit for brains. You want this or not?”

I step close enough that I see him trembling, but I would expect no less. I’ve got at least a foot on him, and I’d guess he weighs a hundred-twenty pounds dripping wet. His survival instinct is probably screaming at him to run, but the rest of him, well, that’s jonesing for his next hit. “Y-yeah, I want it.”

I wink at him. “Good boy.”

His eyes blow wide when I pull the syringe from my pocket. “W-what the fuck, man?”

I grab him by the scruff of his neck. “This is what you wanted, right? Oblivion?”

He struggles and opens his mouth to scream, not that anyone will pay him any mind around here, but I shove a rag between his teeth anyway. Holding my finger to my lips, I tell him to shush.

His eyes are wide with fear now, and he’s shaking like a leaf caught in a storm. “Relax, Indy. This is going to feel real nice, I promise.”

I stick the tip of the needle into his arm. “This is some grade A pharmaceutical morphine. Not like that usual shit you inject into your veins.” I inject him with it, and his horrified expression is quickly replaced by a look of pure contentment as he slumps into my arms.

I scoop him up and carry him to my car. “Time to get you back to your daddy, kid.”