Page 104 of Relentless
“You remember that if you ever decide to mess with me.”
He held his hands up. “That will never happen.”
Cassidy kissed his cheek before pushing the door further open and stepping into the apartment.
“What’s that?” Aida asked.
“I have some presents for Kyle,” she replied sweetly.
Aida and Julian exchanged a look before Julian started to chuckle.
“What’s going on?” Aida asked.
Cassidy didn’t answer as she strolled down the hallway to her old room. Chairs scraped against the floor as Julian and Aida rose, and Dante followed her down the hall. She knew from years of living with him that Kyle always slept in shorts andneverbrought a girl home with him, so she felt it was safe to open the door.
She poked her head inside and smiled when she spotted Kyle lying on his stomach with his face turned toward the wall. Cassidy set the container on the floor and turned it on its side to release the two dozen rats she bought from the pet store.
“Run free, my little friends,” she whispered as she shooed them out of the container.
“Are thoserats?” Aida asked in disbelief.
“They are,” Cassidy confirmed. “Don’t worry, I know how many there are, and I already have homes for them.”
“He’s going to kill them.”
“No, he won’t,” Julian and Cassidy said at the same time.
For one thing, he was too afraid of them to get close enough to kill them. For another, he wasn’t cruel to other living things, and this wasn’t her first time torturing him with rats.
She went easier on him this time. Last time, she caught them all and dumped them on him while he was sleeping. They’d been sixteen at the time, and it was the last time she did anything major to him. It was beyond time he had another prank pulled on him, but she couldn’t be as mean as the last time. She blamed Dante for her newfound softness.
She would have loved to superglue his ass to the sofa and his hands to his game controller, but she couldn’t figure out a way to pull it off. Plus, Aida would probably kill her if she ruined their somewhat new couch. She’d figure it out one day, but until then, rats were the perfect revenge.
“Run free, and when you’re done running free, I have lots and lots of treats for you,” Cassidy said as she scooped a cute little black rat from the container and set it down.
The rats waddled around the room, sniffing the air and enjoying their newfound freedom. Cassidy closed the box and set it in the hall. She removed a large, fake rat from inside her pocket. Its bristly hair poked her palms as she kissed the tip of its very realistic nose.
“What are you doing?” Aida asked.
“A rat bomb,” she said.
“What?Why?”
Cassidy smiled at her sister-in-law. “This will teach him to hang out the window and make kissy faces at me.”
Cassidy lobbed the rat toward Kyle’s bed at the same she shouted, “Kyle!”
Kyle jumped, and then the rat landed on the side of his face. “What the…?”
He smacked the rat away, and a second passed before he realized what it was. When he did, a strangled cry escaped him, and he bolted upright in bed.
“Holy shit!” he shouted as he leapt up to stand on the bed.
His hair stood on end, and his shorts hung low on his waist as he gazed in slack-jawed horror at the room. When his wild eyes landed on her, Cassidy blew him a kiss and closed the door.
“Cassidy!” Kyle yelled. “Cassidy, get back in here and get these things!”
She laughed as she held the doorknob and planted her foot against the wall to help keep it closed. A few seconds passed before Kyle crashed into the door and started jerking at the knob. His palm slammed against the door.
