by AJ Wyatt
Four Bloody Kisses
AJ Wyatt
Published by Beach Books LLC
Copyright © 2021 by AJ Wyatt
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by the incredible folks at Miblart.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Also by AJ Wyatt
1
One of these men killed my father.
“You’ve got this,” I reminded myself as the elevator doors opened.
“You’re saying thoughts out loud again,” Trib’s voice whispered in my earpiece.
Julianne Tribulet, who can't stand to be called anything but Trib, was my handler at the CIA. Former military intelligence, hacker and my best friend. She's brilliant and incredible. Unfortunately, she's also currently leaning over her keyboard in a dark room, with a can of Vicious Death Energy Drink in her hand, waiting for me to give her some actionable data.
“People talk to themselves,” I told her. “It’s not that weird.”
I stepped off the elevator and took a moment to look at myself in the offices' reflective glass. Osborne Energy's architects must not have heard the famous saying about glass houses because they used a shit ton of glass building this monstrosity. A gleaming monument to one of the wealthiest companies in the world.
And at the top of it all were two of my suspects.
My reflection looked impressive. I mean, these legs? This dress? These heels? I was killing it. Through my reflection, I saw the building across the street had balconies, even up this high. A great spot to set up with a high-powered rifle if you were into that sort of thing.
And I am.
If Talon Osborne is the man who killed my father, that's probably how I'll end him. The plate glass they use on buildings this tall is practically bulletproof. You could park a car on that stuff. So I’d use uranium rounds, full metal jacket. Just like Kyiv, back when I was killing people for the CIA.
“You’re late,” a woman said, clearing her throat loudly.
“I’m worth waiting for.”
“Excuse me?”
She was almost as tall as I was, about ten years older, though she didn't quite look it. I could see the traces of the work she’d had done and the botox. Her hair wasn't colored, though. All-natural blond. Below the neck? Not so much.
"You must be Blair," I said, offering a hand. "We spoke on the phone? I'm starting an IT internship today. I'm Rayne, from Faulkner College?"
She looked down at her clipboard. “Yes, Rayne Taylor?”
I nodded. I could tell she wanted to say something else about me being late. She had real let me speak to your manager energy. But after glaring a moment, she let it go.
"Follow me," she said. "Faulkner College must be fascinating. It's an all-girl's school, isn't that right?"
“Yeah, I think so…”
In my earpiece, Trib lost her mind. "Yes! The answer is yes.”
"I mean, yes, it is. I'm sorry, I'm so nervous. And you're a Vice President with the company? You must be very talented. I mean, we're practically the same age."
Blair didn’t smile.
I got the sense smiling wasn’t her thing. Probably caused too many wrinkles. But her mouth did twitch with a hint of satisfaction.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m a just a little older than I look. I’ve actually been with the company for nearly ten years. My husband… well, it’s not important. Here you are. This is the server room where you’ll be working. Michael here is our server guy, and he knows it all. He'll tell you more about your responsibilities."
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” she said, after looking me up and down. “The executive offices are down that hall. You won’t need to be interacting with them. The executives are off-limits, I hope that’s understood.”
“Of course.”
The server rooms were on a different AC system because the air coming out was cold like a meat locker. Michael, my new boss for the moment, appeared to be in his early fifties, stocky and balding and smiling quite friendly from behind his glasses.
"Nice to, uh, meet you, Rayne. Is it pronounced like rain or more like rainy? Or like Renee?"
“Like rain.”
His eyes got stuck momentarily on my nipples, which had hardened almost painfully in the chill.
“Hey Michael, how about you give me the tour?”
“What? Oh, yeah. Totally.”
He showed me around, telling me about the state of the art cooling system that my nipples had already detected and the processing capabilities of the blade servers they’d just installed. While he did, I quietly palmed and inserted half a dozen flash drives into the servers. Trib gave me a mind-numbing class on where the drives needed to go. She was almost as dull as Michael, but a lot easier to sneak around. Because, unlike Trib, Michael's eyes were glued to me most of the time.
I shouldn't have worn such a tight dress, I know. But it would be mission-critical later. At least that's what I told myself.
"So Michael, I know I just got here, but I think I need a bathroom break. I had some bad burritos if you know what I mean."
"Oh gosh! I sure do. I mean… yeah, that happens. Um, just down the hall on the left. You can't miss them."
“And if I wanted to catch a glimpse of Mr. Osborne?”
“Mr. Os— oh, you mean Talon," Michael's voice changed in a way that told me all I needed to know about his opinion of the founder's son. It wasn’t good. "I don't know… Blair said—"
“Just a glimpse, Michael. A girl can dream, right?”
"Oh — yeah, I guess. I mean everybody needs dreams. Yeah, it's past the bathrooms and you'll need to make a left and it's down a long hall, and then — oh, there's a receptionist so maybe you shouldn't bother. I mean, she doesn't let anyone through without an appointment. They're real serious about that kind of thing."
“Michael, you’re wonderful. Thank you.”
He smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, yeah, of course. Anytime."
I walked down the hall, past the bathrooms. I kept an eye out for Blair. Luckily, I didn't see her anywhere. The receptionist in the executive wing looked severe, around sixty, hair in a tight bun. The walls suddenly turned into mahogany in the executive branches, polished and still smelling of cigars from twenty years ago when you could smoke in there.
On the wall was a painting of old Mr. Osborne, the recently deceased founder who passed at the ripe old age of 89. In the painting, he was seated, and behind him, with her hand draped over his shoulder showing off a large diamond, was none other than Blair herself. She looked younger in the painting, but I couldn't tell if that was because it was done years before or if she gave the painter a warning about depicting her age accurately.
“You have got to be shitting me,” I said. “They were engaged?”
“Married,” the receptionist corrected me. “Harold Osborne liked them young.” She gave a grim chuckle.
“Creepy.”
The receptionist’s brows fu
rrowed at my response, but I didn’t care.
This close, I could see the stains on the receptionist’s teeth and the yellowing of her fingernails on her right hand. And the smell. She was a heavy smoker. Probably cursed the day it became illegal indoors. There was an outline on the wood of her desk where the ashtray used to sit.
“I was looking for the bathrooms,” I said.
“They’re back that way,” she replied, eyeing me suspiciously.
But she was on a timer, and I knew it. So I waited in the alcove by the bathrooms playing games on my cell phone. Ten minutes later, she moseyed by on her way to a cigarette break. There was no one watching her desk when I got there, and the phone lines were all blinking like she put them on hold.
Good. I didn’t want calls for Talon while I was setting my hooks.
I walked down the executive hall, grateful for the narcissistic urge those people had to have their names engraved on plaques for their doors. I knew whose office was whose. I stopped and peeked in the windows Blair’s office, which was thankfully empty, then slipped in.
The listening devices in my purse were wireless and battery-powered. The voice-activated throwaway type that last maybe a week before they die from dead batteries. They required a server to send the voice recordings back to Trib. Thankfully, after planting those flash drives, Trib would have plenty of server power right down the hall to use.
I stopped in a few more offices along the way to plant more bugs and then found the big boy's offices.
The old man's office was shuttered and locked. I could have picked it, but why bother? Nobody would be talking in there any time soon. His funeral was later that week.
The nearest two offices belonged to Talon Osborne and his twin brother Vincent Osborne. Someone had defaced the plaque on Vincent's door, scratching out the letters of his name so that what remained read: VICE. It was his tabloid nickname and one that he had taken as his own.
Since the plaque hadn’t been repaired, I assumed the man himself had done the vandalizing. I bet Blair loved that. I could just picture her passive-aggressively replacing the plaque once a month, only to have Vice scratch his preferred name back into it.
Vice wasn't there, of course. If the tabloids were to be believed, he rarely came to the office, preferring to spend his immense wealth lavishly traveling the globe and dating supermodels. Talon, on the other hand, was Mr. Responsible. Or at least, that's what my research told me.
I gave Talon’s door a polite knock.
“Come in.” His voice was deep and gravelly. It sent a little shiver up my spine.
“This is it.”
“You’re saying it out loud again,” Trib told me.
“Shut. Up.”
I went in.
“Oh, Mr. Osborne. My name’s Rayne, and I’m interning in the IT department. Michael said you were having some computer trouble.”
Talon Osborne was gorgeous. Of course, I knew that. I have google, after all. But he was so much more stunning in person than I was ready for. I found myself fidgeting under his steady gaze, and during the long silence that followed, a heat trailed up my spine as he devoured me with his eyes.
What the hell? The guy was a suspect in my father’s murder. I definitely shouldn’t have been getting excited, but I was.
"I don't believe you," he said, at last. And he let it hang there.
The way his tailored suit fit his athletic frame, I mean… my god. And his eyes were a deep green offset by his messy black hair. He stood with powerful grace. He must have been six foot two, square-jawed, with very kissable looking lips.
Why am I looking at his lips?
He was looking at mine, so it only seemed fair. He came to me and got way too close. I could feel his breath on my cheek, warm and minty, like he'd just brushed. His teeth were immaculate.
“Michael runs a blade server room, you see. Enterprise servers. For international business. My computer is serviced by desktop technicians on the 1st floor, so if I did have problems, they'd have sent someone up from there.
“You deserve this,” Trib whispered. “You always just make up covers for yourself on the fly.”
Because they usually work. I was itching to say it, but I couldn’t. I know Trib was smiling smugly about it while she cracked another can of Vicious Death Energy.
“So who are you, and what is it that you really want?”
Come on, Rayne. Mission-critical.
I walked around him, over to his desk, and I knew in this dress there was no way he wasn’t looking at my ass. I crouched down and slid under the desk until he couldn't see me at all. Titillating? Maybe. Did he imagine what I might do to him — or for him — if he sat back down with me under there? Let’s hope so.
What it really was, was an excellent opportunity for me to plant two bugs. An extra behind his desk drawer just in case someone found the first one.
“So technician’s from 1st floor usually service you?” I asked from under the desk.
“Excuse me?” He said.
“Sorry,” I said, crawling back out, “Just checking to make sure everything was plugged in. Looks like the problem is BCK.”
He didn’t care that I was crawling on the floor like Catwoman looking for a bowl of milk. He didn’t care about my dress, or those heels or anything else. The guy was a square with four sharp corners.
“What,” he growled, “the hell is BCK?”
“Between the chair and the keyboard,” I said. It was one of Trib’s favorite sayings. Like the problem is between the chair and the keyboard…right where the user is sitting.
“Get up.”
"Yes, sir." I got to my feet. I tore a sheet of paper from the pad on his desk and wrote my number on it, then reached over and slipped it in his pants pocket. He had something thick in there. I didn't fish around to find out for sure, but I wanted to.
He smiled.
At least this one smiles.
“Any other orders you’d like me to follow, sir?”
He stiffened. Bodily, I mean. The other part I couldn't see. Yet. His jaw clenched, and his gaze flowed over me again. I could feel the heat coming from him and wondered if he would kiss me or touch me and what I'd do if he did. How far was I willing to take this charade?
“Get out,” he said.
“So soon?”
“Now.”
I left, but not alone. He took me by the arm and led me down the hall. The door to the office across from his opened, and a man who was identical but somehow even more gorgeous than Talon stepped out.
Vincent “Vice” Osborne might have had Talon’s handsome face and full lips, but his languid green eyes roved over my body without even trying to hide the hunger behind them. His raven hair hung to his shoulders, and he had a scar that cleft his eyebrow and trailed jaggedly up to his hairline over his left eye. His expression, once he was done taking me in, was one of casual amusement.
“Did we catch a mouse, dear brother?” He drawled.
“Guess I picked the wrong office,” I said.
“You certainly did, little mouse.”
“I don’t have time for either of you,” Talon growled. “Blair!”
And low and behold, who was coming our way? Blair. The shock registered on every part of her face that wasn't disabled by botox.
“Is this garbage something you brought in, Blair?"
Garbage? Maybe what this guy needed was a kick in the throat. I could do it, even in heels.
“I— I told you—“ she stammered.
“I’m fired, aren’t I?”
“You...yes, you most certainly are. I'm sorry Talon, I told her this wing was off-limits."
“It’s Mr. Osborne to you, Blair.”
Her eyes flashed with rage.
“Not yet it isn’t, Talon.”
I let them glare it out for a moment and then cleared my throat.
“Please don’t fire me,” I said, letting my eyes brim with tears, “I’m a hard worker. I promise it won’t happen again.”
>
2
It didn't even come close to working. Blair showed me all the way to the parking garage, where she loudly instructed security not to let me back in. Poor Michael was probably still waiting in the server room, picturing me having the world's worst case of burrito-rhea. I wondered if he'd go check on me. Michael seemed like a stand-up guy.
Not like Talon. Garbage? Really?
Don't get me started on how much he didn't care I was on the floor. Whatever the quickest route into that guy's head was, it didn't involve me getting on my knees. Which is weird, because that usually works. The femoral artery is right there too, so when a guy is fumbling to get his pants open, and I've got my tongue out like a dog waiting for a treat, it's the perfect time to stick a small blade in the thigh meat and drag it down from the balls to the kneecap. It takes seconds for them to lose consciousness.
Usually, at least two of those seconds are spent still fumbling with the little flap on their boxers before they figure out what happened.
The point is that crawling on the floor usually works for me.
Ugh, what an asshole.
“Are the bugs live, Trib?”
“Yup, that much is working.”
“Hey, it’s all working.”
"You were going to have him wrapped around your little finger, remember? Check your finger. Is he wrapped around it? Hang on, I think I can pull you up on the security cams now that I have server access. Nope. Your little finger is empty. These cams are great, by the way."
“Thanks.”
"You look fucking incredible in that dress."
“Aww, thank you.”
“Oh, shit!”
I winced at the shriek in Trib’s voice.
“What?”
“Two o’clock.”
I looked that way and saw what she was screaming about. Two rough-looking men in suits sitting in a black SUV. They both looked away suddenly when I glanced their way. So they saw me. And they knew I saw them.
