Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Kindle Edition
©Angel of Death
Copyright © 2016 Suzanne Steele
Published by Suzanne Steele
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of Fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales, are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All other characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. The author acknowledges the trademark status of various products and locales referenced in this fictional work, which have been used without permission. The use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. All rights reserved. No part of this book can be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover photo © Suzanne Steele photo
Cover Copyright © Suzanne Steele
Edited by Patricia Commander Editing
Cover Design by Suzanne Steele
Formatting by Suzanne Steele
Thank you for downloading this e-book.
Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.
All content herein is protected under copyright law.
This e-book is Rated 17+
To the reader
The men I write about are Alpha males in every sense of the word. They are the men society warns you about. They are dominant males with controlling tendencies. They are the men you know you should stay away from even as
you are drawn to them like a moth to a flame.
Each and every character I create has demanded that their voice be heard. I have been true to that calling and I have stayed true to their personalities, which the reader may not always agree with. If you are looking for a sweet romance, you won't find it here. What you will find; however, is dark passion. Often, my heroes carry what would be considered an obsession for the women they love. They are dark, they are gritty, and many times their love is dysfunctional, but nonetheless, it is real.
Stalk Me…
Suzanne Steele’s Blog: http://suzannesteelesblog.wordpress.com/
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Prologue
He stood watching her as the wind whipped the leaves up around his ankles. He pulled on the cigarette watching her fall down into a heap over the large gravestone. He wondered if that’s what had drawn him to her, the angel headstone she’d chosen to cover the burial place of her beloved one.
The overcast sky gave no promise of a better tomorrow. She’d be here until the sun went down, crying out to a soul that killed her the day it died. She was no more than a shell, another one of the walking wounded who went through the daily grind out of habit more than duty.
He wondered if he’d be able to kill her when the time came. She was a viable candidate. He had reviewed all of her personal information and it had all checked out—she was who she said she was. It was moments like these that he really got a read on people though. People let their guards down when they were alone. The real true person came out in moments just like this. When their heart and soul had been run over with a tiller, when they’d been left bleeding and dying from a pain that was so deep mere words couldn’t describe it; that’s when they became real.
The realism of a pain that went that deep resonated with the man who had seen his own share of what life could unexpectedly throw at a person. That kind of sentiment was something raw and concrete. There were no masks to cover up agony of a heart that had been left with scars. It was the kind of pain you never recover from. You learn to deal with it but you never heal, you just cope.
She looked so frail with her shoulders heaving from the sobs that racked her body. He resisted the urge to go to her. Everything in him wanted to pick her up and hold her close to him in an effort to comfort her, but he wouldn’t, he never did. When the time came to comfort her, he would do it with the sharp end of a blade between her third and fourth rib. A rapid thrust in and up would pierce her broken heart and her pain would be over—his job would be done.
He would wait here as the sun went down to ensure she arrived home safely. It was what he did, watch over her, keep her safe, and protect her, until it was time to kill her. He pulled his collar up, shielding himself from the wind. He pushed away the temptation to sit in his van with the heat on and watch her. Why should he be comfortable when she was in so much pain? No… he would suffer with her. It was the least he could do.
He wondered why this one was so different, why he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. He knew the worst thing to do was to bond with a client, and yet the flame beckoned him closer and closer with each passing day.
No… he needed to walk away. Her eventual end was death and nothing good could come from his primal need to protect her. Now the primal need to hunt her… that he would whole heartedly give in to.
Chapter One
Angel enjoyed the long shifts at the hospital as a surgical nurse. It kept her mind off of the pain and heartache. When you were so tired you were going on pure adrenalin. It cut through the pain, the heartache, and the memories. Not being able to feel was so much better than the pain. She liked it when she ran on pure instinct. When the training kicked in the emotions cut off, and for her, that was a good thing.
She was of the belief that no one should outlive their child. SIDS had robbed her of her beautiful baby girl five years ago, but time wasn’t healing her wounds. When her husband left, it was the completion
of her life being over as she knew it. Now she was nothing more than a shell of a woman. She wasn’t the walking wounded, she was the walking dead. No feelings, no emotions, no heart, just a shell.
She’d already made the arrangements to be killed. She’d found him on the deep web. His advertisement was what drew her to him. She had to go through a maze of advertisements to find him. The last one simply read:
Angel of Death. I’m the man who will help you enter into the afterlife in a peaceful way. If you’re unable to do it yourself, call me and I’ll do it for you. The number to a disposable cell was there and she had immediately called it before she could change her mind.
The odd thing about it was she had left a message with all of her personal information and she never heard back from him. She wondered what he looked like, how old he was, and if he had his own set of painful issues he was walking through. It was evident he wasn’t interested in helping her so she would continue being a dead woman walking.
She knew she should be past this. Why couldn’t she get past the pain, the loss? Rather than the pain becoming bearable as the years went by it just became more agonizing. She couldn’t even get a fucking hitman to kill her.
She pushed aside the morbid thoughts and purposed to get some errands done before she went home. She had the next four days off and didn’t want to have to go out on any of them. She would busy herself cleaning and reading and trying to get some sleep. The nightmares started after her daughter’s death. Her baby would be crying and she would search through the house for her, tormented by the cries of a child she couldn’t find. It reminded her of a rat in a maze searching for an exit that didn’t exist.
That was the story of her life now. There was no escape from the painful memories of her beautiful baby girl. There would be no mercy either. Only the pain and now she didn’t have the promise of a peaceful death to release her from her morbid existence. Pretty damn bad when you can’t get a man who kills for a living to pull the fucking trigger. You’re a coward and even the stranger knows it.
Chapter Two
Jericho sat in the white cargo van watching the emergency room exit. Even at this distance, he could tell she was tired. She was so fucking beautiful and nothing could take that away from her. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and though he couldn’t see her bright blue eyes, he could make out the dark circles beneath them with the binoculars he was using.
He had barely let her out of his sight since he had begun watching her. Something about the woman pulled at his primal nature. He wanted to take her, to possess her, to dominate her in ways that only he could. He wasn’t sure what the pull towards the woman was. Maybe it was her pain calling out to the darkness in him. She needed him to kill her and now he needed her to live. The game of cat and mouse he was playing with her was dangerous for both of them. He was a hired killer—a mercy killer, but a killer nonetheless.
He studied her every move as she did her errands. He knew you could learn a lot about a person by watching them when they thought they were invisible. She was anything but invisible to him. She was on his radar now, and the more he watched her, the more intrigued he became with her. He grabbed a notebook he kept on her and wrote down each place she shopped. Later, he would write down the items she bought.
He resisted the urge to help her carry all the items in her house as he watched her from a vantage point where she couldn’t see him. Three trips later, she was finished.
He would wait until she was asleep to make his move. The fact she lived in the country on wooded acreage would work in his favor. She was a private person and he liked that about her. It was something they had in common. Unbeknownst to her, there was much more than that they had in common.
Tonight was the night he would make his move. He’d waited long enough and the predator in him was ready to play. It would be very interesting to see just how badly she really wanted to die. He knew from all of his years of killing that the will to survive always kicked in when the time to die came. No matter how badly people believed they wanted to die, instinct always surpassed any ideas of how they thought it would be. Visions of peacefully walking into the light gave way to fear of the unknown.
Chapter Three
For once, sleep came easy for her. She never heard him when he entered. And by the time he gagged her with duct tape and bound her wrists with it, securing them to the iron headboard, it was too late. When she awoke, she wasn’t ready for what she saw. She blinked her eyes as if it would make the handsome stranger go away.
“I’m here. You called—I came.” His voice was deep, low, and very sexy, even though it carried an ominous hint of danger to come.
She studied the man seated in her bedroom chair. Dark hair with a will of its own tousled around chiseled features and a five o’clock shadow. He was dressed in a tight, black tee shirt with a leather jacket and jeans that fit in all the right places. Biker boots finished off the ensemble.
“Give me thirty days. Turn your will over to me for thirty days and if you still want me to kill you… I’ll do it. Let me take you away from here, away from your pain. Give me permission to do anything I want to you. You have nothing to lose. You’re dead already. You have the next four days off. Can you take more time off?”
His cock twitched as he watched her writhe up against the headboard; her arms and legs doing a dance as if she could free herself. When she attempted answering him, nothing more than an hmph escaped through the tape gag. He was shocked when she shook her head yes in answer to his question of being able to take time off. He smirked when she cut her eyes at him. She watched him as he pulled her closet door open, grabbing a large suitcase and stuffing it full of items. He turned, taking a moment to make eye contact with her. “I’m packing. I’m taking everything you’ll need for thirty days.”
His cock strained in his pants as he watched her attempt to get up. She looked so good wearing nothing but a tee shirt and tiny cotton panties with flowers printed all over them. It was now or never. He needed for her to know what she was getting into. He moved up beside the bed, pressing into her body, purposely trying to intimidate her. He looked down on her, catching her eye as he spoke.
“I’m going to use you for my pleasure. I’m going to take you to my home and make you my captive. I’m going to do dirty, nasty things to you that will bring you not only pleasure but pain. I’m a predator and you are my prey. You need to understand exactly what you’re getting into.” As fucked up as he was, he needed to paint the ugliest picture he could. She was looking for a savior and he was a monster. He ripped the tape from her mouth causing her to cry out in pain.
She lifted her eyes, meeting his gaze through dark lashes. “If you can make this pain go away, I don’t give a fuck what you do to me. I need to know that I can feel something besides heartache. Can you do that?”
“I’ll do my damnedest, girl. But, you’re just trading one kind of pain for another.”
She looked like she was thinking about what he said. Her face took on an exasperated expression, and she answered, “Then like you said: I’ve got nothing to lose.”
“One more thing: if you ever reveal my identity to anyone I won’t just kill you, I’ll kill any and everything you care anything about.”
“That isn’t a threat to me. I called you to kill me, but don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”
An hour later, he loaded her things in his van. When he came back, he grabbed a scarf from her drawer.
“When we walk out this door, your life belongs to me. There are no safe words and there’s no turning back. If you have any hard limits, you better tell me now.”
She tilted her chin defiantly and looked him directly in the eye. “Nobody else fucks me but you.”
“I don’t share, and I damn sure don’t play well with others. What part of you’re my property now don’t you get!?” He pulled a knife from his pocket and sliced through the tape on her wrists. “Now turn around and close your fucking eyes.” He blindfolded
her, taped her wrists together again with duct tape, and tossed her over his shoulder with ease. She grunted when her body folded over his shoulder, and his hand smacked down on her ass.
“Welcome to my world, baby,” were the last words she heard as he tossed her in the back of his white cargo van.
Chapter Four
Her body jostled in the back of the van as he drove her to his house. He had purposely purchased a country home on thirty acres of land for times like this. He had been surprised when she agreed to give him the thirty days. Pain has a way of making us try anything to get rid of it, and he could only guess that she was at that point in her life.
He pulled into his driveway, got out, and closed the gate, locking it. Privacy was of vital importance with what he would be doing. He drove down the long driveway that wound back through the woods to his house and parked the van. He turned around, smirking in her direction, and when she attempted kicking at his seat he just chuckled. He opened the door and the thud of his heavy soled boots rang off the blacktop. He made his way around to the door, taking a minute to stand staring at his new guest. When she attempted kicking at him again, his only reply was, “This is going to be fun.” He pulled her up and took the blindfold off of her, giving her eyes time to adjust. He was shocked when her mood turned from angry to being in awe of her surroundings.
“It’s beautiful.” She looked around the wooded area and at the country house he lived in. “Have you ever done this before? You know, taken a woman like this?”
“I’ve never been faced with a situation like this. To be honest, there’s never been another woman I wanted to do this to. You’re the first, and as far as I’m concerned, the last.”
His fingers trailed up her long, statuesque neck. He took a moment to wrap them around it and squeeze until he saw a small spark of fear. “I’ll use you, I’ll hurt you, but I will protect you like the precious jewel that you are. You’re safer here with me than you’ve ever been. Do you understand me?”
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