𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

6|| Eye To Eye

Dante / January 16
•••

A few silent seconds pass, Lester's eyes remaining steadily on mine as I look back with an unimpressed look. If this was one of his tests then-

"He wanted a drink."

My muscles freeze when a familiar voice sounds from the shadows in the edges of the room.

"So I gave him a drink."

I have to force myself to stay in my seat and not to storm into the shadows to drag the bitch into the light. But I don't have to, because a little flame appears into the darkness and the waitress's face comes into view as she lights a cigarette.

Lester's whole attention is set on her as she walks from behind the bar towards us and the way he looks at her is so intense that I wish for nothing but a strong glass of whiskey, preferably without poison.

"Where the fuck have you been?"

She shrugs, blowing out some smoke.

The picture doesn't make sense. She doesn't make sense.

Celeste Costelle is a skilled killer. A psychopath who gets off on making her victim's deaths painful and slow before she claims their dead bodies with her mark. She murdered some of the best and worst people on the planet, stole money from rich men she'd marry before slaughter and was feared by entire cities.

This is just a girl.

She's in her early twenties, looking like one of those college students who'd pass out after two shots of tequila.

"This is Celeste Costelle?" I don't even try to hide my skepticism.

"Yes," Lester speaks before pulling her onto his lap. He takes the cigarette from between her lips and takes a drag, the gesture seeming way to intimate for just normal colleagues. "Doesn't that make you wonder who you've got locked up in your basement?"

"None of that matters," she says before her grey eyes moved to mine.

And it was only then that it all clicked.

The sweet innocent look on her face was gone. She wasn't cluelessly blinking up at me like a lost bunny or staring at me with those fuck-me-eyes. No, she is looking me straight in the eye - something not many dared to do - but not like she's seeing a person.

She is looking at me like she's staring at a dead man.

"You took my kill," she starts. "You took my money." Her voice builds up into something lethal. "And you took. My. Ring."

This is the woman who has killed some of my best people in the most disrespectful ways and at the most disrespectful times. It takes everything inside of me not to get up and strangle the little devil right here and now.

All the while Lester is still smoking her cigarette, his hand grabbing her waist as I send her one of my most patronizing smirks.

The last thing I need is for her to start thinking she's someone important in my books.

"I took the ring and money to cover Charles' debt to me," I say. "But don't worry sweetheart, his ashes you can have back."

She didn't like that at all and the fact that her face is so easy to read almost makes me laugh.

"You better get the ring back to me," she says before her eyes trail to the dead plant beside me.

I frown, entirely unimpressed that this little brat has the audacity to threaten me. Not only to my face. Not only in Lester's company. But in a place of immunity above all.