~~Young~~

Chapter One

   “Watch it sweetheart,” Gage drawled when the thug slid his hands up his inner thigh, “any closer and I’ll have to insist you buy me dinner.”

   When the man was convinced Gage was weapon free he stepped back, pulling a cell phone out of his pocket.

   Ah, now there was a weapon of great power.

   “And what do you think you’re doing?” Gage asked as he turned around.

   “Calling Vaughn,” the thug answered without looking at him, “let him know what’s up.”

   That was most definitely not part of the plan and Gage kicked himself for not thinking Rodney would take such an action.

   “He won’t believe you,” Gage spoke quickly, easily hearing the rings on the other end of the phone line, knowing he had only moments before-

   “Vaughn,” a terse voice picked up.

   Fucking complications.

   He had no choice at that point. He ripped the phone from the thug’s hand and smashed it under his boot as he grabbed Rodney by the throat, cutting off both sound and air.

   Now Vaughn knew something was up, knew someone was coming for him.

   In that one moment this useless fucking mortal just took the job from a quick easy kill to a complicated mess. And Gage hated messes, he was a very neat…man…of sorts.

   Gage peeled his hand off the I-beam and ran his eyes over the trembling man behind him as he came back from his thoughts. At least so far tonight the only mess had been in Rodney’s shorts.

   But that would change shortly.

   He walked casually back over to the beam he had dropped the man on, grabbing him by the back of the neck and squeezing hard, “I said point him out, with your finger,” Gage growled in the man’s ear, “I want to know exactly who Vaughn is.”

   “Bu-but if I let go,” the man’s petrified eyes shot to the floor a good thirty feet below them, “I might fall…and die.”

   “But if you don’t let go and point to Vaughn I will snap your neck here and now and just take them all out.”

   It’d be quicker, but that was the reason why his boss had sent Gage and not another. He was discrete. He wasn’t like the other killers kept at the ready; he wouldn’t plow them all down leaving someone else to sort souls. He did his research, found the source of the problem and took them and them alone down. Unless of course someone was stupid enough to get in his way, then that was another matter all together.

   The thug gripped the beam and nodded shortly, slowly brining one of his hands out in front of him as he checked his balance, “him, in the black suit,” he pointed, “with the two chicks in the booth.”

   Gage’s eyes followed the path Rodney’s extended finger offered him, sized the target up, and turned back to his internee, “You’re not lying to me now are you?”

   The man shook his head in a quick jerky movement, “n-n-no, that’s him, that’s Vaughn.”

   Gage released the man with a shove, watching as he frantically scrambled for his balance again before he turned his back- both literally and figuratively- on Rodney, “good.”

   “Wait!” the man shouted after Gage as he began moving swiftly across the support beams  hung from the nightclub’s ceiling, “aren’t you going to help me down?”