Corrupt Love

by Cee Perkins

  I leaned back in my chair and looked at the email from the IRS. “Get me your last report,” I told him, still scanning the email. I looked up when I didn’t hear the telltale shuffle of feet retreating. He was regarding me carefully. “What?”

  “I’m not sure I like this new you that you have goin’ on,” he said, gesturing toward me.

  “I’m not that different,” I said.

  Mack tilted his head to the side. “Yeah...you really are. You used to be...docile, almost. It’s like, you came back from that trip and you got this promotion and you’re kind of rude. Like, two months ago, you wouldn’t have yelled at me through the door, you wouldn’t have picked at me, and you would have said ‘please’. If you even would have approached me at all, that is.”

  I thought about it for a minute. And he was kind of right. I had been docile, unwilling to make waves. I would have gone to him instead of barking at him to come to me. Huh. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Things change. Stuff happens. Please go get the last report you have for the Jameson account.” emphasizing the, please.

  Later that night, I mulled over what Mack said. I knew I was different than I was a month ago, two months ago. The catalyst for that change? Corra. Dang it, why is she at the center of everything? The worst part about it is that I don’t even have her. And yet, I’m still missing her.

  At this point, I’d been without her longer than I’d been with her. I thought it was only supposed to take half the time you were in the relationship to get over it? Well, that’s obviously wrong. Despite my best efforts, she was still on my mind.

  A knock on my door startled me for more than one reason. First, I wasn’t fully present, and second, I wasn’t expecting anyone. No one just dropped by my house. I peeked out the window and saw Ryan’s truck at my curb, and I opened the door. He was standing there, the look on his face a combination of sheepish and irritation.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to text, call, send a damn carrier pigeon, but it’s been a month and I haven’t heard from you. What gives?” he asked.

  I opened the door wider and stepped back, allowing him to come in. “I’ve just been busy. Got a promotion at work, so I’ve been settling in there.”

  “Cut the shit, Dan, I know you better than that. And it’s insulting for you to think otherwise. Now the truth. I deserve that much, at least.”

  Huffing a laugh, I said, “Do you now? Ok, well, the truth, Ryan, is that it kind of threw me for a loop when I realized that even though it is literally your job to arrest criminals, Corra and Cay are both still walking around the city. There were ‘circumstances’ to be considered, in your opinion, when reporting a crime. So excuse me for thinking I don’t really know you as much as I should know my best friend of twenty years.” I turned and stalked to the living room, sitting down on the couch. I knew he’d follow. Even if I didn’t know some things about Ryan, I did know his need to get the last word in.

  “You know what, fuck you for that. You don’t know everything, Dan, so get the fuck off that moral high horse and walk around with the normal goddamn people. Yes, Corra and Cay are walking free, and yes, there are circumstances to consider. Circumstances like the man Corra killed that night had spent the night before his death raping a twenty-two-year-old woman before selling her to the highest fucking bidder. Circumstances like Corra paid off your mother’s gambling debt so that Cay didn’t have to beat her ass. And circumstances that meant Cay would have had to do it if she wanted to be able to keep tabs on the people who are forcing illegal activity. Get your head out of your ass, Dan. Some evils are necessary for the greater good. The system doesn’t always serve justice like it should. If that man had ever gotten caught, any number of technicalities stood between him and prison. She did perform a service that I can’t. You wanna know how I let them go free? Because I fucking know that I’m safer with them out there than not.” And with that, Ryan stormed out of my house, slamming the door and rattling the pictures on my wall.

  And didn’t he just give me stuff to think about? He was right, I’d never considered that Corra and Cay were helping the masses. And what did he mean, Cay would have had to beat up my mother? And Corra paid off my mother’s debt? Was that why Mom was cleaning up? Did Corra threaten her? Is she still threatening her? Abruptly, I stood, making my way into the kitchen where my phone was resting on the bar where I always put it when I get home.

  Dan: Did you threaten my mom?

  I stared hard at the phone, expecting it to give me an answer that wasn’t coming fast enough. I wasn’t sure which answer I expected. If she did, did that make her the villain I’d assigned her to be? If she didn’t, does that mean she was trying to look out for me?

  Apparently, Corra was sticking close to her phone these days, because I didn’t even wait five minutes for an answer.

  Corra: No

  Dan: But you did pay off her debt.

  After seven minutes, it became clear that she wasn’t going to answer that.

  Dan: Just tell me one thing.

  Corra: What’s that?

  Dan: Why?

  I watched the little dots dance.

  Corra: Why what?

  That was a good question. What did I want to know? Why did she choose to kill people? Why did she help my mom? Why did she pursue me?

  Dan: Why can’t I forget you?

  Well. Not exactly what I was going for, but there it is. That’s what I really wanted to know the most.

  Chapter 26

  Corra

  My eyes filled with tears. I stared forever at that text. Those five words were giving me stupid, blind hope. Did he know what they’d done to me? I didn’t even know how to respond to him. What could I say that could possibly fix what I’d so spectacularly broken? How could I let him know that I’d upend my entire life if I thought it would bring him back to me?

  Corra: I don’t know, but I’m selfishly glad you can’t. Because I can’t forget you either.

  He was quiet for a long few minutes, then he answered.

  Dan: Thank you.

  Corra: For what?

  Dan: Helping my mom. And, apparently, saving the world.

  I chuckled through my tears. I mustered up some of the Corra confidence.

  Corra: No big. All in a day’s work.

  Dan: Ha. Good night, Corra.

  Corra: Goodnight, Dan.

  Goodnight, love of my life.

  *****

  The woman Salty accused of beating the Prez’s daughter up was a real piece of work. She ran drugs, guns, and it looked like prostitutes. What woman could really do that to another? She’s the lowest form of human. Shit, she’s even five steps below me.

  She was also going to be my seventy-fifth kill. And knowing that she was such human scum was making it all the sweeter. I wished I could savor her death.

  What? I still wasn’t all that great at humaning.

  Alas, the nature of my game was distance. Although...my seventy-third kill was close enough to beg me. Maybe I could isolate her and look her in the eye, watch the fear grow before the light dimmed. This bitch was so cocky she didn’t even have bodyguards.

  I watched the target for a couple of days. I followed her, broke into her house to look around, and even struck up a conversation in the checkout line of the Safeway where she did her grocery shopping.

  It’s weird, no one ever thought about criminals doing things like grocery shopping and washing dishes. But who else was going to do it? It’s not like we could hire a maid service. The first time a bitch opened my office door, she’d have a damn heart attack.

  Anyway, I had a blast getting her schedule down.

  I’m not normally a torture-and-kill kind of well, killer, but I have a special reserve for people like her. In the week I’d been following her, I watched as she laced the Ice she was selling with some kind of powdered antifreeze, ordered a gang rape on one of her working girls, laughed at an overdose, and put a purple skirt with a hunter-green blouse. Fuck this bitch.
r />   And finally, the day before I’d told Salty to expect his proof, I pounced.

  I walked up behind her as she was unlocking her front door, sandwiching her body between mine and the door. I put a blade to her side, just enough so she could feel the point through her ugly-ass cashmere. “Open the goddamn door. And if you scream, I’ll slit your throat so deep it’ll be considered decapitation,” I growled into her ear.

  She laughed quietly under her breath and did as I told her. When we were inside, I flicked the switch to her floor lamp, the one I had dimmed earlier in the day. She turned on me, fist raised in the air like she was going to punch me.

  Bitch, please.

  I let her think she was going to get me, then ducked at the last minute, meaning her hand met the wood of her front door with a painful-sounding crunch. She opened her mouth to scream before I clamped down over it and said, “Ah-ah. No screaming.” The arrogance I’d seen as she whirled on me was gone, replaced with anxiety. I leaned in close to her, so close my breath blew the hair off her face.

  “You’ve been a very, very naughty girl,” I whispered, “and it’s time for you to go into time-out.” I gripped her by the neck and jerked her away from the door, throwing her into the living room. I knew she thought she’d be able to get away, but I’d watched her for a week. I knew all her panic buttons and exit strategies.

  As she crawled toward her coffee table, I walked over and kicked the table away, then flipped it up so she could see where her gun used to be. She looked up at me from her place on the floor and said, “What do you want?”

  “Oh, I already got what I want. I’m delivering what Prez wants.”

  Her eyes widened, then she schooled her expression. “Who?”

  I backhanded her. “Don’t fucking act like you don’t know who he is. And, to answer your question, he wants you dead. So here I am.”

  Her lip split from my blow, but she smiled with bloody teeth anyway. “It’s funny that you think you’ll be able to kill me,” she said, panting.

  “We’ll see how funny it is in about twenty minutes,” I said, then kicked her in the ribs. “C’mon bitch. Get off the floor. If you think you’re going to get out of this without getting off the floor, you’re a moron.”

  She coughed, turning on her side away from me. She wobbled her way up, her hand clutching her side gingerly. “Better. Let’s have a seat in the kitchen, shall we?” I reached for her hair, intending to grab a handful and shove her into the kitchen.

  Suddenly, she swung on me, and the raw sting of a long blade sliced through my shirt, up my abdomen. I jumped back with a gasp. “Oh, you little bitch. You snuck one in on me. Cute.” I reached for the blade I could now see in the hand she’d had clutched to her side, and she swung again.

  I kicked out at her ankles, and she tripped. Her hands flew out to break her fall, but she didn’t let go of the knife, and she stabbed herself in the shoulder. She screamed in pain as I stood over her and kicked the blade away. Shit, I was bleeding too much. There would be evidence. I hissed through the pain in my stomach and reached down to grab her hair, slamming her forehead into the hardwoods.

  She groaned in pain and the fight started to leave her. She wouldn’t be fun for much longer.

  That’s ok. I’d wanted to drag it out a little more, but that slice burned like a bitch and I needed to keep a cap on the blood evidence. “I was going to tie you to a chair and take your teeth out like you did to your girl the other day, but your little stunt put a damper on my fun. Lucky for you, though.”

  I pulled my Glock from the holster and placed it under her chin. “I’ll just have to make sure your blood mixes in with the blood I lost,” I said in her face.

  I didn’t get to torture her like she’d done to so many others, but I did get to see that arrogance turn to fear, just before I pulled the trigger.

  I dropped the body to the floor and pressed my gloved hand over the worst of my wound. I snapped proof for Salty and eased out the back door into the dark.

  Seventy-five kills and only one injury. Fuck yeah.

  Dan

  “Sheriff Frazier,” Ryan answered.

  “I think I owe you a drink. And probably an apology,” I said in lieu of a greeting.

  Ryan was silent for a beat, then. “Probably.”

  “Do you have time opening up for a horse’s ass?”

  He snorted. “The view from back there isn’t as nice as on the horse’s back.”

  “Well, no, but I was recently informed that I spend too much time on my high horse.”

  “Good advice for you.”

  He wasn’t giving me anything to go on. Was he still too angry? “Ryan...you were right. I didn’t think about anyone else’s perspective and certainly didn’t take into account the things you must see on a daily basis. I’m sorry I made assumptions.”

  “Well...I wouldn’t say a daily basis but, yeah the shit I’ve seen has had an effect on my idea of justice and morality.”

  “I’m coming to understand that good and bad are not black versus white. It’s all gray area.”

  “Astute.”

  I ran my hand through my hair and blew out a breath. “Look, I’m not going to judge you—”

  He snorted.

  “—anymore. And I retract all judgment made as a result of this...circumstance.”

  Suddenly, our conversation was interrupted by one of Ryan’s deputies. Over the line, I could hear someone say, “Boss, got a scene at a house on Johnson. One fatality.”

  Ryan told the deputy he’d be right there, then to me said, “I gotta go see the gritty side of humanity. I could probably use a beer tonight when I get done, though.”

  “I’ll hold our table down. Seven?”

  “See you then,” he said, then clicked off.

  Now, if only I could repair my relationship with Corra that easily. I’d been going back and forth between missing her, wanting her, and being afraid of losing myself completely by throwing out my core beliefs. How could I be with someone when I knew she was a killer?

  But with that thought, another arose, the same as the last million times since Ryan brought it up. What if Corra is only taking out the worst of humanity? Is it ok to be evil to a lesser degree? If I look at it like Ryan put it, Corra is protecting our hometown, just the same as Ryan. And if I can overlook Ryan’s selective justice, why can’t I overlook Corra’s?

  I spent the rest of my lunch hour poking through my salad and lost in my head. My head was so full of the things I’ve experienced over the last couple of months, the changes I’d gone through, and the things that were thrust upon me unwanted. How do normal people deal with this crushing amount of...just shit running through their heads?

  I knew that change was inevitable, mandatory even. But almost everything in my life had changed. The only thing that I can safely say that was the same as it was three months ago was my house. And even that had seen the effects of my adjustments. I couldn’t even go to Dr. Amato with this stuff. I had to work this out on my own. Flugmuffins.

  A tentative knock on my door brought me out of my ruminations, and after tossing the salad in the trash, I got up to unlock my office door. Alaina stood on the other side, nervously chewing her lip. “Hi, Alaina. What can I do for you?”

  “Hi, Dan. I was, um, wondering if youdliketogotodinnerwithmetonight?”

  Farfanoodle. Didn’t see that coming.

  I tried to give her a letting-you-down-gently smile. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’m seeing someone.” Even though I hadn’t actually seen her in a while, I still considered myself off the market. Unfortunately for my brain, my heart belonged to Corra for the foreseeable future.

  Alaina’s face fell, and she blushed furiously. “Oh...ok then. Sorry, I bothered you,” she said to the floor.

  “It’s no bother, Alaina. I am flattered, thank you.” Jeez, this was painful.

  Still, with her eyes on the floor, she nodded and turned back down the hallway.

  If I still can’t go
on a date without considering myself Corra’s, I was in serious trouble. Or, I could get my head out of my rear end and try to talk to her. Maybe...maybe if she’s trying to work for the greater good, I might be able to live with that. And I wanted her so much.

  Decision made, I finally felt focused enough to gather the documents for the Jameson account. I felt...at peace with my choice. Now just to talk to the other person in this equation.

  Chapter 27

  Corra

  The cut was deeper than I realized. Maybe the adrenaline had been keeping me going or something, but that shit hurt once I woke up the next morning. I’d cleaned it and covered it, but it was still slowly seeping onto the gauze this morning. I was debating on going to the doctor for stitches when Cay knocked on my door.

  “Just a sec!” I called, making my way gingerly to the door. When I finally got there and unlocked it, she burst through like she was on the run. Which, for Cay, was entirely possible.

  “What took you so long?” she asked as she made her way to the kitchen.

  “Why didn’t you use your key?” I asked back.

  She shrugged her shoulders and headed for the coffee pot. “Didn’t want to walk into anything.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “When have you ever been bothered seeing sex?”

  She finally turned to me. “It’s not you having sex I didn’t want to walk in on. You know I don’t mind seeing your sexy ass getting railed,” she said with a sly smirk.

  I shook my head and chuckled. “Slut.”

  “Hey, no shaming. You should be proud that you’re still hot even when parts of you are jiggling. That’s like porn-star level achievement.”

  I laughed for real that time, then flinched, holding my side.

  “What happened?”

  “Got too close to a job. Bitch sliced me,” I said, ambling to a barstool.

  “You don’t usually get close enough for them to fight back. Fuck, you don’t usually get close enough for them to know you even exist.”

  Exhaling back into the chair, I said, “This one needed a little torture before she went to hell.”