The vision of her on her back, head thrown back, eyes closed and legs wrapped around my waist, was so real that felt my own desire spike. Jesus Christ, the way she’d kissed…
She was gone, I reminded myself. I forced my arms to move, pouring another shot of whiskey into the mug, and I stared down into it, hardly seeing the amber liquid. She was gone, and good riddance to her. If she’d gotten under my skin this much, the last thing I needed was to have her here with me.
My phone buzzed and I took a deep breath before pulling her out. She had better not want my help again. If she did, so help me, I was going to go find her and shake her until her teeth rattled and she admitted that it was her precious fiancé behind all of this.
It wasn’t her. I froze, staring down at the text message, and swore under my breath. It was from a number I didn’t know, but I didn’t need to have it in my phone to know who it was from.
You didn’t finish the job. Where is she?
Shit.
Chapter 10
Lara
“Well, if it isn’t miss high and mighty.”
I gritted my teeth. “Hi, Cecilia.”
My sister opened the door and looked me up and down.
“Can I come in?” I asked, as politely as I could.
“Nah, I wanna look at you for a second.” Her eyes, the same green as my own, took in my undone hair, the oversized t-shirt and shorts, and my bare feet. She waited for a moment, and then asked the one question I had hoped against hope she wouldn’t ask: “What the fuck happened to you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Right.” She stepped back and started to close the door.
“Wait!” I hated the way my voice sounded. “Please. Please wait.”
The door stopped, cracked open.
“Please, Ceci.” I knew how desperate I looked. “Please. I have nowhere else to go.”
She paused, and I saw how much she wanted to throw me out. When she stood back to pen the door, it was with a scowl on her face.
“Thank you,” I whispered, putting as much as I could into those two words.
She shrugged.
I looked around the apartment. I had to work to keep my face blank. An old couch looked almost greasy, the rug felt terrible under my feet, and what little light there was, spilling in from a crack in the shades at the end of the room, illuminated a room both dusty and cluttered.
“Uh. Where’s Sullivan?” Cecilia’s husband and I had never gotten along, but I knew I needed to make nice.
“In prison.” She thumped down on the couch and stared at me.
I tried not to wince as I stared back. Her hair, the same dark brown as mine, was lank and unkempt, and her skin had the greyish cast of someone who neither ate well nor saw much sunlight. As for the bruises on her arms… I didn’t want to know. I looked away as I felt my hand creep to the bruise on my own arm, hidden by the sleeve of the too-large t-shirt.
“So what happened?” Cecilia looked at me. There was no hiding her deep weariness, even under the contempt and…
I looked closer. Yes. Cecilia was definitely high. On what, I had no desire to know. She’d gone her way, and I’d gone mine, and she’d cursed me out every day for leaving her here.
But we’d been close, once. I picked my way over the carpet and sat, gingerly, on the corner of the couch. I bit my lip while I tried to remember what to say. Finally, I just picked up my sleeve. The rest of it was too volatile for me to put into words, but this—this—anyone could understand.
Ceci stared at me for a long moment.
“Adrian did that?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t look at her. I knew what was coming, and I just wanted it to be over.
“You thought you were so much better than me,” she said softly, venomously.
I swallowed. “Ceci—”
“Making sure your hair was all pretty, making sure you were just the most enchanting thing.” Her voice was slurring now and she gave me a contemptuous look, tilting her head in a mockery of flirtation.
“Ceci, please—”
“Turns out those rich boys weren’t as nice as you thought, huh? Not any nicer than boys here…huh?” Whatever she had taken was really starting to get to her. She swayed slightly. “Huh?” she asked again, trying to make her point. “You thought you could outrun…”
“Okay, yes.” I stared at her. “I did. And it all came back to bite me. You happy now?”
She stared at me, almost wary.
“I made the best choice I could,” I said fiercely. “You fell in love with Sully, okay. But I never fell in love with anyone, and I won’t have you give me shit for trying to get out of here. Adrian was nice, okay? He used to be nice.”
“He was never…gonna be nice.” She swallowed and looked away as she slumped back on the couch. “You can just tell…by lookin’ at him.”
It was what she had always said, goddamn her. I felt a low flush spread through me, and a second later, the prick of tears. “Yeah, I know. You said. You saw right through him.”
“Hey. Hey.” She reached out.
The tears only came faster. Under everything, Cecilia had been the nicest girl I ever met. She was the one who always cried in movies, the kid who couldn’t stand when someone got picked on. She was the kid the world kicked around until it was done with her—until it had turned her into this. I didn’t want to see what she’d turned into, but even more than that, I didn’t want to see what she’d been.
“Lara, hey.” She was trying to be nice now, speaking slowly and taking time to form the words around the drug haze. “So he—did that. Maybe he’s sorry. Maybe he’s going to be nicer now, huh?”
I could only shake my head.
“There’s—there’s more.” My voice was a gulp. I wedged my hands between my knees again as I rocked. “There’s more. Someone showed up in the apartment. There was…there was a hit out on me.”
Cecilia stiffened.
“You’re…fucking kidding me.” She shook her head, trying to focus. “Wha’d y’do?” She couldn’t keep the high away from her; her head was nodding off, over and over again.
“I didn’t do anything!” My voice rose. “I was going to bed one night and I went into the living room and there was…there was this guy, Ceci. With a gun.”
Cecilia’s hand clamped around my arm. She might be fading, but I could see the fear in her eyes—and the question.
“He didn’t…want to kill a woman.” I shook my head. “An innocent. That’s what he called it. He thought I was a mobster or something, that’s why they’d hired him.”
“M’stake?” Cecilia offered.
“No. He had my name.” I looked away.
“Adrian…”
“That’s the thing,” I whispered. “He said whoever hired him said they were working for Adrian.”
“Adrian…wants t’kill you?” She seemed to be having trouble making sense of this.
“No. Yes? No.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. It can’t be Adrian, can it? He wouldn’t do something like this.”
She looked at the bruise, just looked, and I shook my head again.
“That’s different! I made him angry. What would he—he’d never kill me because I snapped at him, Ceci. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t, would he?”
But she was fading away, her head swaying. She looked at me and I saw nothing. There was nothing in there at all. She didn’t even care about the look on my face, just smiled—a terrible, empty smile.
“You want some?” And she was gone, passed out.
I pulled my arm out of her grip and walked to the tiny bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I slumped onto the bed and let the tears come, hot and useless. My whole body shook and I tried to keep the sound in, the way I always had. I hadn’t wanted my mother to know—she always yelled—and then I hadn’t wanted Adrian to know. It had never mattered, anyway. Safety lay in making other people happy, not me.
The tears trailed away at last and I gave a miserable
look at the door. I didn’t know what I’d expected, coming back here. Maybe that she’d be better now. But she had only gotten worse.
I curled up on my side, letting my tears leak into the dusty coverlet. I didn’t know what I’d expected. I stared at the phone number written in my hand, and then licked my thumb and rubbed at it as hard as I could, until the numbers blurred and slid away. Only when it was a black smear did I let my head fall back onto the coverlet, and wait for sleep to claim me.
Chapter 11
Jack
He had guards this time: four of them, each about seven feet tall and tattooed to hell and back. I tried not to sigh. Everyone thought bigger was better when it came to bodyguards—hell, even SEALs tended to be tall—but frankly, height meant next to nothing. A short guy could shoot just as well as a taller one.
I tossed the money back, still in its wrapper, and held up my hands. “Count it if you want. It’s all there. We’re even now.”
“We’re not even.” The man gave me a look. “There was a plan. Everything had been arranged. Now we’ve missed our window.”
In the shadows behind him, a figure shifted; Adrian Witte, watching the proceedings. I looked, and looked hard; I couldn’t see his face, but I knew I was locking eyes with him.
“Why’d you want her dead?” I knew there was no reasoning with a man who wanted his fiancée dead, any reason he gave was only going to make my soul wither—but I wanted to see him squirm. I wanted someone, fucking anyone, to all him on this.
He didn’t answer. The guards shifted back in front of him and I was left looking at the second in command.
“You said you didn’t want to know,” he reminded me.
I kill the people like you, I wanted to say, not people like her. I said nothing, however. This man was aiding and abetting his friend to kill an innocent woman—what was he going to care that I usually killed cartel leaders?
My head snapped up when he gestured and the four bodyguards took a step closer. Every one of them wavered when they met my eyes. They might not be SEALs, they might not know exactly where I had trained, but they knew what I was: a killer. They knew they might take me down, four on one, but some of them were going to die in the process.
And unlike SEALs, they didn’t care enough about each other for that to be worth their while. I smiled, and a couple of them swallowed nervously.
My smile died when the second in command spoke.
“Where is she, Reed?” He was trying to be icy, I knew, but he was frustrated by the guards, and frustrated that Lara wasn’t dead.
“I honestly have no clue. And in case you didn’t get the message, I’m not going after her again.”
“Why?” The man challenged me. There was a smile back on his lips.
I should have turned and walked away. I should have.
“Because I don’t. Kill. Innocents.”
“You’re a hit man,” he told me flatly. “You kill for money. You take lives, Reed. That’s who you are. You think you’re better than taking this job? You’re not.”
I left, his words ringing in my ears.
I was better, I told myself. I was.
It would just be easier to believe if I hadn’t let Lara walk out of my life and back to a certain death.
Chapter 12
Lara
I woke to an angry voice, and for the second time in two days, pushed myself up in confusion, trying to figure out where I was. This wasn’t my bed—and these weren’t my clothes.
It would have been nice to have a few more minutes before I figured out I was at Cecilia’s. I rubbed at my face and ran my fingers through my hair. I wasn’t tired anymore, but I only wanted to sleep. If I was asleep, I didn’t have to deal with any of this.
“That’s not what you said!” Cecilia’s voice was rising. “You said ten thousand, not eight!”
I flopped back on the bed with a groan. Oh, good. Now she was arguing with someone over…well, it could only be drugs. I could feel my lips moving, going over each of the pleas I had made so many times: go to rehab, go stay with Mom, leave Sully and his friends…
She never had. And I knew how this was going to end: I’d try biting my tongue, but eventually I’d break and say the One Thing I shouldn’t and this stay would end in a fight. I’d get kicked out, and I’d have…literally nowhere to go.
Maybe it would be different this time, I told myself hopefully as I chewed on a nail. Maybe if I wasn’t with Adrian anymore, she’d be willing to get a place with me. I could try to keep her clean, and when she was sober, she’d be able to get a good job. Cecilia was so smart, so nice—I’d always thought she would make a great nurse. Or maybe a teacher.
I pushed myself up, determined. I’d tell her this idea, and I promised myself I would back off if she got angry. I’d suggest it calmly a few times and she would understand that I really did want her to be happy. I did. We’d work together as waitresses or something and she’d see that I didn’t think I was any better than she was.
I paused. If I wasn’t with Adrian anymore…
When had I decided I wasn’t going back to Adrian?
I was still frozen when Cecilia’s next words caught my attention:
“She’s asleep. I don’t know for how long, though. You should come now.”
There were only two people who would have asked about me: Sully…and Adrian. I felt cold dread settle in the pit of my stomach. It was Sully, I told myself. They were arguing about bail. It was Sully.
“Yeah, whatever.” Cecilia sounded almost sulky now. “Talk to her about it, then. She thinks it was you.”
I tried to remember how to breathe in.
“Okay. Fine. I’ll see you then.” I heard her swear as she hung up the phone.
“What the hell was that?” I wrenched the door of the bedroom open. “That was Adrian, wasn’t it? You told him where I was.”
“One of his friends. He says Adrian wasn’t in on the hit.”
“What—you told him what I said? How do you even remember that?”
“You thought I was actually high?” She gave me a weary look. “God, you’re stupid sometimes.”
I swallowed. “Ceci.” I was fighting for calm, and it wasn’t working. “What did you do?”
“I got the money you would never give me,” she said sullenly. She crossed her arms.
“Ceci, I wanted you to be happy.”
“You wanted me to slave away and be content while you had everything! You know I would never have left you like this if I had what you had!” Her hand swept out, taking in the squalid apartment. “I’d have brought you with me. But, no, you wanted to stay all pristine. You didn’t want to remind your precious Adrian where you came from.” She leaned in. “You were ashamed of me.”
“So you sold me out?” I whispered. “You just decided you knew what I thought of you and you sold me out to someone who might have tried to kill me? Ceci, I tried to get you to go to rehab, I tried to get you to come live with me and Mom before. I tried. I tried.”
She stared at me, wavering. And then her face cleared and she shook her head stubbornly.
It was too much. “I’m going,” I told her flatly.
“No!” She made a grab for me. “You can’t leave!”
“Why, because then you don’t get your ten thousand?” I tried to pull my hand out of her grip, but she was freakishly strong. “Let me go. You think he’s actually going to pay you?”
“He is. And you should hear him out.”
“I will hear him out on my terms! Not yours. Not his.” I braced my feet and yanked. “Jesus, Ceci, let me go!”
A thunderous knock on the door stole my attention, and she had me on my knees the next second, dragging me down.
“It’s open!”
I wasn’t going to make it, but every piece of reason went out of my head. I heard the footsteps and the men’s voices, and all I could think about was getting my hand out of Ceci’s grip and running. I slammed myself forward, bowling her over, and I loosed
my fist toward her face with everything I had. She let go with a surprised squawk and I was turning, seeing them with a stab of fear: three guys, all in black, too big for me to fight, all of them looking at me like I was…
…five foot two and nothing compared to them.
Burning rage kindled in my chest.
“You still think whoever you talked to didn’t have it out for me?” I called over my shoulder.
Cecilia said nothing. I could hear her breath, harsh and worried, but what could she say?
She had fucked up. There was nothing she could say, nothing at all, and we were both probably going to die for it. I felt tears start. This? This was how it was going ot end? I looked at each of the guys in turn. I let them see the tears in my eyes and the bare feet and someone else’s clothes, and then, with a furious sense of futility, I rolled up my sleeve so they could see the bruise—what sort of pride did I think I had anymore?
“What’re you waiting for?” I didn’t bother to hide the tremble in my voice. “Aren’t you here to kill me? Well, come on.”
One of them stepped toward me hesitantly. He was close when he gave a look at the other two, trying to figure out what he should do.
His mistake. With all my strength, I grabbed Cecilia’s coffee table by the leg and swung it as fast as I could. It was cheap, light enough that I could lift it, but it was enough to make him put his hands up stupidly, and enough to hit him hard on the temple. He went down with a curse and blood streaming from his head, and the other two jumped at me.
Fear lodged itself in my throat. I should have gone for one of the ones near the door so I could make a break for it. I hadn’t had any plan because I hadn’t thought I could win, and now they knew I would hurt them and they wouldn’t take any chances.
Shit, shit, shit. I backed up, casting around myself for literally anything I could use for a weapon.
“Come on, now,” one of them said soothingly. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
HUNTED: A Bad Boy Romance (Books 1-5) Page 5
