Reminding myself to dial back my excitement, I check the large travel chest on the floor beside the hamper. I know I’ve found what I’m looking for when I open it and see a GO-bag and a weapons stash to rival my own. Knives of every size seem to be special to her. And every gun I inspect is loaded.
I shake my head as it sinks in.
The woman has a GO-bag.
I’m fucking intrigued.
I find my next clue to her real identity when I open a small metal box tucked under her GO-bag at the bottom of the chest. There’s a well-worn photograph taped to the top of the box. It’s a family photo. The couple is dressed in business attire. The woman has red hair, and the man has piercing eyes, just like Rose. The little girl between them must be Rose. When I see printouts of online news clippings about the same couple, I know this is her real family. I sit on the edge of her bed and read each one. Every article is about their murders.
Rose Adams is an alias. Her real name is Marie McClintock. She’s the daughter of Douglas and Rita McClintock, lawyers who were killed in their home with their daughter present. Marie was not hurt. Not physically, at least.
Rita was an Assistant DA, while Douglas was a criminal defense attorney in private practice. Douglas’ last known case before his death was the infamous Murphy brothers trial, a powerful family in the Irish mob. The brothers were charged with every gangster-related charge under the sun. Murder, conspiracy, racketeering, and the list went on. A few days after Rita stepped down from her role as a prosecutor on the case, citing a conflict of interest, Douglas had issued a press release stating that he was no longer representing the Murphy family. Douglas and Rita were murdered days later. One article suggests that Rita might have been approached by the brothers and ordered to destroy evidence. Their killers were never found.
What I know about the Murphy brothers is that back in the day, the older brother was more old school. He lived by a code, which is why Rose is still alive. Kids were off limits. But the older Murphy is long since dead. The younger one, his only rule is to leave no witnesses.
There’s a recent set of printouts among Rose’s papers that I’ve seen on the news. I hadn’t been paying much attention to it at the time, but now that I know it’s relevant to my assignment, I’m even more curious. The younger Murphy brother was charged again. He’s openly stated during press conferences that his case will never be heard, because too many household names will go down with him. I don’t doubt that. There’s so much overlap between organized crime, big industry and politics. I can almost see the connection between Murphy’s case and my orders.
Fuck.
I recognize something familiar about one of the faces in the background of one of the photos. Squinting, I bring the paper close to my eyes and try to figure it out. Dawn Bridges, my buddy’s late wife, is standing in Murphy’s entourage. Right there, for the world to see, I find proof of the connection to something much bigger than I want to know about. This shit’s way above my fucking pay grade.
After recording every document with my hand scanner, I put Rose’s things back exactly in their place and leave no evidence of having been in her room.
The image of Dawn in that photo leaves me on edge. I can’t focus after I make it back to my stakeout spot. Then I do something I’ve never done since I joined the company. I break protocol and leave. There are no eyes on my target, her place, her grandmother, nothing. Heading out on my bike, I drive the hour and a half it takes to cross into the next state and find the nearest payphone. I leave a coded message for Bridges, and I head back to my assignment.
Stopping at Rose’s house again, I sneak inside, and this time, I leave a trail. A tiny bit of proof that I was in her room. There’s no doubt in my mind that when she sees it, she’ll know. It’s my less than subtle message that I’ve been here.
It’s time we meet face to face.
7
Rose
“How the fuck did you find me, little girl?” my tall, dark and dangerous stalker says from his spot at the large bay windows, his voice threatening.
I don’t answer him when he turns to face me. All I do is take him in. The setting sun creates a menacing silhouette of his body as light floods in with hues of gold, orange, and purple. He’s gigantic. He must be close to six feet five inches tall. His broad, muscular frame has a leanness to it. It’s not quite a runner’s build, but I can tell from the fit of his clothes that he has a rigid workout routine.
I scan his body from up in his thick, jet black hair, all the way down to his dark, polished military boots. On instinct, I know to assume that a man like him is packing hidden weapons, but a thorough visual inspection can’t hurt. I can’t help but appreciate what I see in front of me. From his spot at the bay window, the sunset hits his face at an angle, and the flecks of his eyes start to sparkle like diamonds.
Then I notice that he’s doing his own search of my body. His brows raise as he checks me out from top to bottom. Not that he needs to. That camera he’s been using to watch me has a telescopic lens that can probably pick up the finest freckles on my nose and cheekbones. I’m sure he’s seen a lot. Still, that predatory expression in his eyes makes me feel like he’s looking through me, beyond my clothes and possible weapons, beyond my hardened heart, straight to my soul. Heat washes over me under his gaze. My pulse jumps, and I glance away from his face briefly to catch my breath.
Continuing my appraisal, his dark gray muscle shirt and black casual pants show the sharp lines of his fit body. There are no tattoos visible on his body, but I find myself wondering whether he has some elsewhere. I have no reason to, other than the fact that he looks like the kind of man who’d have one or two. His chest perhaps, or maybe something that takes up his entire back. I’d kind of like to find out first hand… if he doesn’t try to kill me first. Or vice versa.
I take one step backward, and that’s all it takes for him to react. He storms over to me, taking surprisingly light, ground-eating steps from the window that served as his perch to spy on me for the last week or longer.
He’s ready to attack.
But I’m ready too.
When his large, callused hand grips my upper arm, my other hand is quickly up at his collarbone. I angle my wrist, and a wave of satisfaction washes over me when my Bowie knife is less than an inch from his throat. But he’s just as quick as I am. I feel the hard steel of a handgun pressing on my ribs. I’m not afraid, though. Everybody dies, eventually. Plus, my odds are promising. I can slice his jugular in about the same amount of time it’ll take for him to let off a round from his gun. Maybe less. Except, keeping a knife at this particular man’s throat will take a hell of a lot of extra effort for me. He’s way over six feet tall, eclipsing my five-foot-one height by a huge margin. I may be small, but I won’t be intimidated. Years of mixed martial arts training, daily practice, and this knife are on my side.
“Who are you and why have you been watching me?” I demand.
He moves forward slightly, ignoring my sharp blade when it touches his skin. “It’ll take a lot more than a tiny pigsticker to scare me, Little Red,” his voice rumbles at me.
I’m not too impressed that he assumes he can call me Little Red. It’s a pet name that I only let Grams call me. Everyone else is at arm’s length, acquaintances who wouldn’t dare get that comfortable with me. And he’s not even that. At best, he’s a complete stranger. Worst case scenario, he’s my enemy.
“Haven’t you heard it’s not the size that matters?” I warn. “And by the way, that’s a nice drawl you have. I take it you’re a southern boy. Let me guess. Houston? Austin? No, wait. You’re either a Baton Rouge or Lafayette native. Am I right?”
“Good ear,” he confirms and presses up closer to me. So close that our bodies touch. So damn close that I look up and see not only his steel gray eyes but the slight trickle of blood at the spot where my knife meets his neck.
“You’d be surprised how much I can figure out about you from just spending a few more minutes here.”
“Show me,” he says, daring me to prove what I can do.
“You lace up your boots like someone with Special Ops training, tight to just below your ankle, with a few rows of the laces undone, just in case you have to wake up and shove your feet into them to move from one place to another at a moment’s notice. You cut your own hair, and I can tell from the slight nick on that one spot on your hairline. You also finished a military op very recently. Somewhere sunny, from the tan line of the chain you hold your dog tags on. Shall I go on?”
“Impressive.”
“Yes, but let’s not get too distracted. I asked you a question.”
“It doesn’t matter who I am or why I’m here,” he growls. “What matters is how much longer I’ll play your little game, and how much time you’ll have left if you keep digging that knife into my neck. By my estimation, it isn’t a lot.”
“Why you’re here is all that I care about. Although I’m starting to think it’s better if you’re not here at all.” I add extra pressure to the knife to get my point across. If I press much more, it’ll cut into his jugular and then it’s bye-bye, Mr. Sexy Stalker. “Do you like your life? Do you like breathing air? It’s a lot easier than choking on your own blood. Tell me what I want to know.”
I’ve been involved in mixed martial arts for a long time. At least ten years. But clearly, I don’t know it all. In a split second, he somehow pivots and finds a way to push the blade away. He instantly lifts me off the floor and turns me around. With one goddamned hand. I’m so angry at myself for giving him the leeway he needed to have this advantage over me now. I try to fight him off as my knife falls, but he’s too fast. He gets behind me, his gun digging into my side, and his big body has me jammed up against the wall beside the door I came in.
He gurgles out a low chuckle. “The only answer you’ll get from me is advice. Do you want to hear it?”
“No, I want you to fuck off and leave me alone,” I shout.
“Well here’s the advice, anyway. Next time you try to confront your pursuer, be ready for anything.”
“Let me go right this instant!” I scream, struggling to break free. “Or just kill me right now, because if you don’t, I’ll be the one after you, you big bastard.”
“If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t need to watch you for days or weeks before I actually do it. You’d be six feet under long before you had a chance to figure out that I’m watching you.”
He wedges me against the wall with the weight of his body, and his free hand runs slowly up my arm.
“Stop that right now!” I shout.
Ignoring me, his hand moves up from the curve of my hips and past my waist. “Fuck, all these curves in this tiny body are enough to make me want to do more than just this weapons pat-down,” he whispers at the whorl of my ear. He stops over my breasts, massaging the flesh for a moment before slipping his hand past my collarbone and across my neck.
“Please stop,” I say as his straying hand comes to rest with his fingers buried in my long hair. This time I’m begging, but I hear the weakness of my voice and can’t help but become angry at myself. His touch ignites my body, sending heat and need to places I’ve never known could feel this hot.
“Make me,” he dares, and tugs my hair back, immobilizing my head, probably so I don’t reverse head-butt him in the face. I feel his lips at my ear and his hard cock at my back, and when his hips rock forward, I know it’s intentional, to make me fear for what he’ll do next, to show me that I’m at his mercy.
Reaching back with my arms, I catch fistfuls of his shirt and try to move him away, but it only makes him lean more of his body weight into me. I use one foot to back-kick his shins, but it’s no use. I have zero leverage.
“If you’re not going to kill me, let me go,” I ask again. A faint whiff of his woodsy cologne hits my nostrils, and I swear my body reacts with a tremor. Then I feel his mouth at my earlobe. He tugs the flesh with his teeth, and his lips slide down to my neck, sucking one spot so hard I’m sure it’ll leave a mark. I curse myself as my hips push back into him, getting a firmer feel of his dick on me. I want to resist. I want to fight with everything in me, but I have to admit, I also want to stay and find out what else he’ll do to my body. I should be ashamed for feeling this way about the man who’s been shadowing me all week. I just can’t help it.
“I’ll let you go, Little Red,” he growls. “But just remember. You might’ve found me, but I’m the one who marked you. Be grateful that I don’t follow my urge to fuck the fight out of you. Right here against this wall.”
His words hit me like a Mack truck, sending unfamiliar need coursing through my veins, all the way to my pulsing core.
Losing my parents so early on made me mistrustful and at a distance from most everyone. I’ve never had a man or boy put his cock this close to me, and I never had the desire to. Survival and blending in were my only two goals. I think my life or death instinct kept the boys away too. They looked, but they never made a move on me all through high school. I probably intimidated them. But this man, he’s not in the least bit afraid of me. I’m intoxicated. It’s as though his words, his body, his mere presence is a key that unlocks my body and makes it come alive.
“I’m going to count to three,” he continues in a threatening groan and tugs my hair a little harder. “On three, I’ll let you go, and you’ll have five seconds to pick up your pigsticker and get the fuck out of here. Understood?”
“Dammit,” I answer, feeling my anger bubble up my chest for letting him have the upper hand this time. “Okay yes, but can I at least know the name of the man I plan to place at the top of my list of enemies? Just in case it isn’t clear, I mean you.”
“I can give you one of a dozen fake names. None of them will help you track me down. But as you asked nicely, it’s Thorne Pierce. You’ve been marked by The Hunter, Little Red.”
Holy crap.
I gasp and wish I hadn’t made a sound the moment after I hear it. I know exactly who he is, though I shouldn’t have been so obvious about it. I’ve heard of him. He’s a tracker, a mercenary, a cold killer with no mercy. His name is uttered on lowered breaths in underground circles, in places I make it my business to stay connected to, if only to be aware of them, if and when I become the object of a hit. To the outside world, where most people have the mistaken belief that what they see is all there is, this man is no one. A ghost. But I know better. And now, I’ve seen his face.
“One. Two. Three.” On three, he does as he promises, taking one massive step back.
I’m sure that his gun must still be trained on me. He’s not that stupid. Reaching down, I grab my knife, and I run. I’ll live another day. The first thing I need to do is get my grandmother and best friends out of harm’s way. After that, The Hunter will become the hunted, and I won’t stop until one of us is dead.
8
Rose
I’m so not letting Grams stay anywhere near this shit.
I hurry home and slip in through the sliding door at the back of the house, taking light footsteps. Grams should be sleeping. She can sleep all night tonight, but before the day ends tomorrow, I’ll make sure she’s on her way to putting two thousand miles between her and this trouble that’s found us. Dragging in a ragged breath, I glide the pad of my index finger along the raised edge of the tiny script engraved on my earring. I’m beyond upset, but what I need to do is push my rage away so I can think straight. I run a tight circle around the engraving, trying to center myself as I’ve done countless times before, but this time it’s so hard.
I should be embarrassed more than anything—I didn’t just let Thorne Pierce get the advantage on me, I went too far and allowed my body to enjoy his rugged touch. Fuck. That should never have happened.
Entering my bedroom, I head over to my laptop on my writing desk, pressing the power button as I take a seat at the upholstered chair I bought a few months ago. Had I known this man would show up after all this time, I would’ve made sure that Gra
ms and I kept our belongings to a bare minimum. All the money spent remodeling this house would be handy now, liquid cash instead of modern conveniences and useless trimming I may have to walk away from if things become too complex to fix.
The muscles in my shoulders tense up and my fingers close into fists.
Who the hell am I kidding? They’re already too complex to fix.
Logging in quickly, I immediately open the web browser to find a travel site. Grams has a younger brother out east. I think it’s time she has an extended visit. Her flight is booked within a few minutes, and I print the ticket and itinerary, folding it and placing it into as cheerful an envelope I can find. I even twist together a few ribbons and wrap it around the envelope to pretty it up some more. This has to look like I’ve been planning it for a while or she’ll start asking questions. That’s the last thing I want.
My next task involves protecting Trish and Luke. This is going to take some planning and probably some scheming, but I have to find a way. The Hunter’s reputation is one for ruthlessness. When he gets a kill order, he doesn’t just take out the target, he wipes out whoever stands in his way during the process. He’s also known to use the important people in his targets’ lives to draw them into the open. Trish and Luke are my only friends. I won’t let them become collateral damage for this assassin, or to be used as bait to get to me. No matter what it takes. I need to send them and Grams out of harm’s way before I can focus all my effort on Thorne Pierce. I refuse to have their deaths on my conscience. It just can’t get to that.
Then I remember something and smile. Paying attention to random chit-chat does serve a purpose, after all. I have a vague recollection of a conversation with my best friends a few months ago. Luke is so quirky sometimes. He added ‘go on a three-week Ozarks vacation’ to the top of his bucket list, complete with a sleek cigarette boat rental for touring, sightseeing, and fishing. They’re both on summer break from their teaching jobs, and money has been tight for them since they bought their first house together. Well, I can’t think of a better time for them to cross that unusual dream vacation off his list, together.
Wolf (Tall, Dark and Dangerous Book 2) Page 5
