Chapter 4

“Are you telling me he had the flu?”

“Actually, no.”

“Well, that would have been stupid, especially considering the WBIS offers free shots.”

“Charles has a phobia about needles.” Max recalled how he’d had to fellate Charles before he could inject a local anesthetic in order to remove Charles’s little finger. Charles had insisted he was willing to take his chances with the two men who were Richard’s enforcers. Max wouldn’t agree to it. He’d known how truly cruel those men could be. “At any rate, he was under Dr. Paget’s care, since she was the one who’d stitched up his wound last spring.”

“In that case, he should have seen her.” Smitty scowled. “What did he want with you?”

“What he usually wants—to know when I’m going to…dump you, is how he phrases it—and go back to him.”

“And you said…?”