Four Bloody Kisses

by AJ Wyatt

  But who were they? CIA, looking for me because I went rogue, and because I'm an assassin and they hate when assassins do that? Or maybe they were Russian mob, and still pissed about that thing I did in Kyiv?

  I didn't want to wait and find out. They looked like rough characters, so if they were CIA, they weren't desk jockeys. They probably had orders to take me in or eliminate me if I resisted. I've done those missions myself, and they were always ugly.

  I quickly got in the junk car Trib managed to secure for us with what little money we had between us. Unfortunately, the ignition stuck, and the car wouldn't turn over. I tried feathering the gas, and that got a little pop out of the engine and a gust of black smoke from the tailpipe, but nothing more.

  They got out of their car. From the bulges in their jackets, I'd guess they were heavily armed. Those weren't pistols either. Probably compact submachine guns that would make the shitty Volkswagen I was sitting in into Swiss cheese in a second.

  If I wanted the car to start, I'd need to get under the hood and mess around, and there definitely wasn't time for that. Instead, I took a deep breath to clear my system, and got my pistol out of my purse and attached the silencer. The little .22 pistol didn't have much stopping power, but at close range, if you put enough holes in people, it doesn't matter. It’s also quieter, which can be a handy thing in public spaces.

  Or, as they say in the CIA, Don’t get caught murdering people because it’s a real hassle for us when we have to explain ourselves.

  I slipped the pistol back into my purse to keep it hidden as I got out of the car, but I kept my hand on it, ready to shoot at a moment's notice.

  I looked at them. They looked at me. There was maybe twenty feet between us.

  We stared at each other like it was the Wild West, and then the rumble of a motorcycle echoed through the parking garage. We all tried to look casual, leaning on nearby cars, awkwardly pretending we weren't about to have a shootout as some hapless witness drove through on their Ducati.

  But he didn’t drive through.

  He squealed to a halt, took off his helmet and shook his black hair out, and then shot me a wicked grin that promised delights if I was interested in such things.

  “Need a ride, little mouse?” Vice said.

  "Depends. Can you really drive that thing, or is it just for show?"

  His smile became something more feral, and his eyes twinkled with pleasure.

  “Get on,” he said.

  It was a little awkward in my dress. I had to hike it up to my hips while the goons watched and then slid in behind Vice. His waist was slender and muscular as I wrapped a hand around it. I definitely felt abs through his thin shirt.

  The goons headed back for their own car, trying to look casual but hurry at the same time.

  Vice handed me the helmet, and I slipped it on. The smell of him was inside it, and it was terrific. How could his hair smell better than mine? Billionaires really are a different breed, I guess.

  He revved the engine, and I leaned back and fired two shots without taking the pistol from my purse. Both front tires of the goons’ car deflated as the roar of the motorcycle engine covered the sound. I threw my other arm around Vice just in time to hold on as he took off, taking corners like a street racer.

  We were at a stoplight about three blocks away when he called out, "Where are you headed?"

  So he was definitely a leap before you look type. I told him I was a student at Faulkner College, and he smiled his rakish smile and said he knew precisely where the dorms were. It was an all girl's school, so that made sense.

  He made a twenty-minute drive into something more like ten. By the time I got off, I'd been vibrated so hard between my legs by that engine that I almost wished there was a battery-powered version for my nightstand. My legs were a little weak, and my hands didn't want to leave his waist when we stopped, but I reluctantly got up and gave him his helmet back.

  He scrutinized me more seriously than before.

  “What are you after, little mouse?”

  My heart started to pound. Had he figured me out somehow? Did he see me planting the bugs, or was he just suspicious by nature?

  "Fun," I said. "Fun, money, and trouble."

  Vice locked an eyebrow.

  “My brother is two of those things, at least. And you’re set on him?”

  I wasn't, really. I wanted to know who had killed my father, and I knew Talon knew something. Vice was on my list too, but he was… irresponsible, aloof, never on time or where he needed to be if you believed the tabloids. So Talon seemed like the better bet if I wanted real information about my father's death.

  “For now,” I said.

  "Well, I know a way to get whatever you want from him. As much fun, money, and trouble as a girl could possibly desire. I can turn Talon into a genie who grants wishes."

  “I’d be very interested in learning how to do that.”

  “It’ll cost you.”

  He let it hang there. What would he suggest? He was on the Forbes list, so he didn't need money. He had every toy a man could want and plenty of women. So what would it be?

  “What’s your price?”

  “A kiss.”

  It wasn't much. I'd kissed men before that I had no desire to kiss as part of playing a role I needed to play for a mission. This wasn't any different, was it? But it felt different to me. Vice was one of the men I suspected was involved in my father's murder, and kissing him felt wrong somehow. The little voice in the back of my head said, It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Shut up, I told it.

  The truth was that I hesitated because I wanted to kiss him. My legs were still shaking from that ride, and honestly, I wanted more than a kiss. It was a good thing Trib was in the dorm to keep the temptation at bay. A kiss wouldn't be too bad, as long as it stopped there.

  I took a step forward and moistened my lips.

  He didn’t need any more coaxing. Vice slipped an arm around me and pulled me close with a surprising amount of strength. For a layabout, he was no stranger to the gym.

  His lips teased mine a little. It made me want more. It made me lean into him. He pulled slightly away, letting me chase it. The bastard. Then he let me have it. Slow and passionate. His tongue sought out mine, and I had to wrap my arms around his neck to keep my knees from buckling under me.

  When it was over, I could feel goosebumps all over me, and even though it was a record hot day in Dallas, my nipples were harder than they’d been in that server room. I self-consciously rubbed my forearms where the hairs were standing on end.

  That was when I noticed his cell phone was out. While we were kissing, he’d been snapping selfies. He scrolled through them, selecting a good one to show me.

  “Not bad,” he said. “This will do the trick.”

  A moment later, the pic was uploaded, without a caption, to his socials. No explanation. Let his millions of fawning followers figure out for themselves who the new girl was. It felt a little odd seeing my face go so public, and then I had a mild panic that broke through the post-kissing daze I was stuck in.

  “Um,” I said. “It’s probably better if I’m not on your social media. I mean, I'm sure you love to publicize a conquest and all, but—"

  My phone buzzed. I took it out of my purse, careful to keep the purse turned so Vice didn't see the twin set of holes where I'd shot through it. I looked at the messages from the unknown number.

  I want to meet — Talon.

  Vice held up his phone and deleted the post from his feed.

  "There, it's done. He has me on alert, so he knows immediately when I post something. He'll want information about me. All you have to do is make sure you get what you want when you give him the information."

  “But I don’t have any information, aside from knowing you’re a good kisser.”

  “Deception is part of the game. You can make up what you don’t know. It’ll take him ages and a lot of money to verify that you aren’t telling the truth. But that�
��s part of the game too.”

  “Is anything else part of the game that I should know about?”

  Vice smiled wickedly.

  “You are, of course. He’ll want what he thinks I’m getting.”

  So that’s what billionaire twins do to keep life interesting…

  “And how will I reach you?” I asked. “For the next round of the game.”

  He gave me his number and then took off. I watched him disappear in the distance and walked back to the dorms, wondering where I'd gone wrong in my life. I mean, I had four suspects I needed information from, and I'd just made out with one of them. It’s fake, I told myself, just like a regular mission. But the tingling between my legs and the way my lips craved more of his kiss made me doubt that voice.

  It’s not like you haven’t enjoyed it before.

  True enough. I'd had missions for the CIA where I needed to kill someone, and they just happened to be gorgeous, and I just happened to like my job more than I should have. But I always got the job done in the end, even if it was a little bittersweet.

  These men would be no different. Thinking of my father's dying moments, the way he was blind already from the blood loss, the way his breath fogged the frozen air as I ran to him, I felt a cold rage that blotted everything else out. The tingling between my legs froze and died right there. My lips…still wanted a little more. But it would have to do.

  I found Trib hunched over her computer, earphones on, eyes darting from one screen to another. A head shorter than me, blond hair pulled up and messy, but in that cute way that's infuriating to people who have to work on their hair. She hardly ever showered, and her hair looks like that? I knew she'd barely glanced at herself that morning. Her glasses reflected what she was looking at, a black screen with a million lines of code scrolling across it.

  When I tapped her on the shoulder, she screamed like a horror movie princess.

  “What is wrong with you? You’re like a ninja.”

  “You were wearing headphones,” I said, rubbing my ear where her scream seemed to be echoing still.

  “They’re on passthrough mode. I can still hear.”

  I took my earpiece out so at least I wouldn’t have to hear her twice, with a slight delay. It was disorienting.

  Our dorm looked like just any other schoolgirl's hangout, empty bottles and lingerie laying around, and piles of sweatpants. The lingerie mainly was on my side and the sweats on hers. Where we stopped looking like real college girls were the stacks of guns and ammo by my bed, and the boxes of electronics by hers. I had to kick over some ammo boxes to get into the mini-fridge for a water.

  On the one big open wall of the dorm, I'd mounted our corkboard for the mission. This was full of photographs and notes, newspaper clippings and stuff we'd printed from the internet. A few handwritten notes of ours compiled over the last few years when we started to really dig into my father's death.

  My gaze traveled to the oldest note, as it always did when I looked at the board. This crumpled piece of paper started it all. Four names in my father's handwriting and some of his blood along the torn edges, marred by age and discoloration. It had been ten years since I found him dying.

  "You have to run, Rayne. Never look back. One of them…one of them betrayed me."

  One of them. And he had a list of names. Didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who he was talking about. So I ran all the way to the safest place on earth: The United States Marine Corps. Four years later, my own father probably wouldn't have recognized me.

  The CIA transformed me even more.

  Trib and I had gathered photos of all four men. Two I'd just met for the first time that day. Talon and Vice Osborne, the newly minted heirs to the Osborne fortune and their father's energy company, though the courts were still dealing with a contested will from someone whose name and face was sealed by the court. Someone wrangling for a piece of the boy's new riches, or if our sources were right, someone trying to get their hands on all of it.

  Now, I had a pretty good idea who that someone must be.

  “We need to add Blair to the big board,” I told Trib. “Her last name isn’t Osborne, but she was married to Harold Osborne, the twin’s father. She’s not old enough to be their biological mother.”

  “Blair Milton-Keyes,” Trib said, typing away. “Step-mother. Quietly married to the old man. They got married when he was eighty-one years old, stayed married until his death six years later.”

  “Eighty-one?” I let out a little whistle.

  “Right?”

  Trib printed me a color 4x6 of Blair to pin up.

  The next photo was someone I hadn't met yet, but he was the reason we were squatting at a girl's school instead of hiding out in a warehouse somewhere: Magnus Nilsson. A giant, blond-haired, blue-eyed Swede with a thin beard and beautiful open smile. An art professor at the college, and a well-known artist, in certain circles. Not Picasso or anything, but he had gallery openings and some features in major magazines.

  The last photo was turned backward, so the face was hidden. I had scrawled the word Asshole on the back, and that's all we ever called him in conversation. I'd seen enough of his smug face a few years ago to last a lifetime. If it was just his name on the list, I'd probably have gone the high-powered rifle route and let God sort it out.

  But there were four of them. So I needed to know for sure.

  "Well, good news," Trib said. "I don't think the Agency spotted your brief flash on social media yet. But people took screenshots, and they're reposting, trying to figure out whether you're that model from that thing or that actress from that other thing."

  "They're that specific, huh?"

  “I don’t know pop culture, Rayne. Anyways, it won’t be long before the Agency knows you’re in Dallas, and they’ll know you’re attached to the Osbornes, so they’ll be around.”

  “They might already be around,” I said, and I told her about the incident in the parking garage.

  Trib rubbed her eyes. “I know, Rayne. I was watching. I’m running face recognition on those guys. Now, are you going to tell me that Talon texted you and wants a meeting next?”

  "Ha-ha. Fine, you know everything oh maven of the cable modem. So tell me something I don't know: What do I ask the billionaire for?"

  "To use his power and influence to actually get you admitted to Faulkner College and secure this dorm for us before the admins figure out we're not supposed to be here and find us sitting on an ammo dump that would make a local militia jealous?"

  I smiled. Trib was great for stuff like that.

  "You're brilliant, and I love you," I told her.

  Then I got to texting. If Talon Osborne wanted even a glimpse of what Vice got, he’d have to work for it.

  Garbage? Yeah, he’d have to work hard.

  3

  Talon Osborne only needed two hours to get me admitted officially to Faulkner College. He also got us our dorm room, no questions asked. Apparently, they were going to name the new library after him because of the size of his donation.

  Trib's brows furrowed when she saw the text I sent in reply.

  “Your bank account is… soooooo biiiiiiig?” she asked. “Really?”

  “Guys love it when you tell them they have big stuff. Big shoes, big tires, big hats. Try it sometime. They all love it.”

  A frumpy and charming silver-haired woman arrived shortly afterward. She looked a little surprised that we were already there, but she shrugged and moved on with hardly a pause.

  “Honestly,” she said, handing Trib a set of keys we didn’t need, “You may as well have the second set. You girls are forever losing them, so keep this set safe. I don’t want to hear next semester that you need a replacement set.”

  “No, ma’am,” Trib said.

  "Call me Mrs. Klaus. Everyone does. And you're sure you were at orientation?"

  “Yes, Mrs. Klaus.”

  "Just yes is fine, dear. We aren't in the military," she muttered, looking through her trifocals at the pape
rs in her hand. "Honestly, they didn't update any of this paperwork. Well, same fudge, different day, that's what I always say."

  And she handed Trib and I each a small piece of homemade fudge wrapped in wax paper that was perfectly delicious and creamy, and then she left. A slight scent of fresh cinnamon followed in her wake.

  “It would have been better with nuts,” Trib said.

  “Our friendship is over,” I said. “You’re a maniac. That fudge was perfect.”

  “What are you doing?” She asked.

  “I have an art teacher to crack in ninety minutes, and I don’t have anything to wear.”

  "What about this?" Trib said, picking up a skirt off the floor.

  “Nope.”

  “This?”

  “No.”

  “Rayne…” Trib tore open the wardrobe, which was bursting at the seams with outfits, approximately three of which were hers. “Something in here must be right.”

  “Uh uh. It needs to be… perfect.”

  Trib eyed me nervously. “No,” she said. “Rayne, look me in the eye. In the eye, Rayne. The answer is no. No, no, no. We can't afford it. Our budget is drawn so tight it's about to have a stroke, and we will be literally eating ramen like real college students. Is that what you want?"

  We got to the mall twenty minutes later via rideshare.

  “It was twenty dollars just to get here,” Trib whined, tromping up beside me in a pair of my old combat boots she’d borrowed. They looked adorable on her.

  "Relax, I'm dating two of the richest men in the world, Trib. So maybe I'll steal a cufflink. Or you'll borrow eighty grand from Osborne Energy's slush funds."

  “That would be unethical. Actually, both of those would be unethical.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  "Look, I know you're right. Of course, you are. You're super responsible with money, and I'm…not as responsible."

  “You are always broke.”

  "And you're cautious, and I can, at times, be impulsive."