Page 86 of How to Kill Your Rival

Eliza crouches down in front of him and smiles softly. ‘Eddie is exactly where he belongs. Rotting in pig shit.’

Declan gives a maniacal laugh. ‘You’re fucked, bitch.’

Eliza reaches into the milk on the floor and lifts up one of Eddie’s fingers. Standing, she forces it into his mouth before covering both his lips and nose, cutting off his air until he swallows.

‘Time for your last meal, you incompetent fuck,’ she whispers. Declan is wrenching and writhing, but Eliza holds on until he swallows the digit. ‘That’s for calling me a bitch.’

She picks up a shard of broken bowl next and repeats the process. ‘And this is for colluding with those arseholes.’

Eddie is choking and gasping around her hands, and when he swallows, blood bubbles up through Eliza’s fingers.

Another piece goes in, Declan’s lips bleeding as she makes him take it. ‘And this is for Fraser.’

Eddie’s eyes are streaming, running through the blood on his face. The glass has cut everything on the way into his stomach. Eliza removes her hand and watches Eddie coughing up blood.

‘I really, really want to leave you to drown in your own blood. It’s the best you deserve. But I can’t risk you getting help and surviving. It truly pains me to do this.’ Eliza thrusts her knife into the side of Declan’s throat. His eyes widen in pain, or fear, or surprise. I’m not sure. She rips the knife out, and in a waterfall of red, Declan is no more.

Eliza stands there for a moment, panting. When she turns to me, she’s trembling. My heart aches for her. I’ve never seen her look so truly wrought before.

‘Come here,’ I tell her, wrapping her in my arms, tucking her head beneath my chin. ‘We’ll get him back.’

‘We need to go now. Start going through the list.’

‘A few hours’ sleep first. We’ll get a hotel at services, clean up, and just get a few hours.’

‘There’s no time.’ Eliza pulls back and glares at me.

‘Darling, we’re no good to him if we aren’t sharp. You know as well as I do what happens. Your mother. My father. Both lost to mistakes or hesitations.’ I push a piece of hair from her face and brush my lips over her forehead. ‘He needs us to be ready. To have a plan.’

‘What if those four hours cost me my brother?’ she asks.

‘They won’t. Either he’s dead already, or they’ll give us the seven days.’

‘Six days,’ she says as the clock ticks on.

‘Plenty of time.’

I hope to God that I’m right.

27

ELIZA

The receptionist looks as tired as I feel, her hair escaping its ponytail and curling around her face, mascara rubbed beneath her eyes like an overworked raccoon. I tuck my hands into the sleeves of James’ hoodie, glad it swamps me as it detracts from the bloody mess I’m in. Not much I can do about the smell of smoke clinging to me. After dousing Declan’s house in anything flammable we could find, we burned it down. Any delays in evidence are always handy. I considered cutting him free from the chair and staging it so he looked like he burned to death in his bed, but the four removed fingers, one currently residing in his stomach with a broken cereal bowl, wouldn’t exactly be explainable by fire.

The reception hall is empty. Above the door hangs an exit sign, its light flickering ominously. It’s a budget hotel. The kind of place where so many nondescript people come and go that no one ever stops to actually look at you.

The perfect kind of place for two bloodied contract killers.

And for the first time after a kill, I feel hollow. Like someone’s just scooped my insides out and left my heart rattling around in there on its own.

‘Two rooms or one?’ the woman asks, looking utterly disinterested.

Not so long ago, I’d have answered two without hesitation. But not today. Not after everything. James looks at me.

‘One,’ I say.

She taps her keyboard. The surprised look on James’ face means nothing to her. We’re just a couple. Another set of strangers. She doesn’t know that we’re two contract killers looking to wash blood down the drains.