by Alexa Riley
Alexander’s men are bottom feeders. In all the time I worked with him, never did I meet one worth anything. They’d drop Alexander and be on to the next. Whoever pays the most gets their protection. There is no loyalty, but there never is with men like this.
“If I wasn’t the best for this job, I wouldn’t be in your ear right now. Yeah, he’s in there. There’s two at the front and two at the rear entrance. You’ll need to go silent once you leave the vehicle. There isn’t much traffic down here at the docks, but you never know if a beat cop will make a drive-by.”
“Thanks, Kearns. We’re even, man.”
“Good luck, Justice. Hope I’ll see you on the flip side.”
I take off the microphone and slip from the vehicle. I’m parked far enough away that I can see the small building, but they won’t see me coming. From what I could make out, they’ve finished packing up a shipment of what I presume is guns on a boat, and are about to clear out. I need to strike while they think they’ve gotten away with it. I shake my head, thinking about how poorly they are protected here and how things have really gone to shit for Alexander. Normally he’d have twenty men watching his products on a job like this. He was also never at the drops and moves. I’m guessing he’s trying to offload as much shit as possible as fast as possible, with the Feds crawling through all his business deals now.
Making my way around to the side of the building, I stay in the shadows and don’t make a sound. I take out my Beretta and screw the silencer on the end. I want this to go quietly. Just as I finish, I hear someone coming. It’s from the back of the building—the two guards in the rear Kearns warned me about.
“Let’s load up the truck and get out of here. I’m tired and I’m ready to go fuck that blonde.”
“Maybe she likes the both of us.”
I hear the two of them talk as they walk within feet of me, and I hold my breath, waiting for my opportunity. I’ll have to make it fast so they don’t give me away. It takes another ten seconds before I can get a clean shot, and I pause before I step out.
Picking the guy farthest away, I take my aim straight between eyes and pull the trigger. Not a heartbeat passes before I’m turning to the next, and I take him out, too. They both fall without a single sound, and I tuck back into the shadows, slowing my breathing.
I come around the corner, looking for the two in the front and see them leaning against the building, both smoking. They’re armed, but they’re distracted, and this will work in my favor. Again, I’ll have to be quick so that they don’t alert Alexander inside.
Crouching low, I grab a rock and toss it away from me, toward a pile of old metal barrels. Both guys sit up, on alert, and look over, waiting to see if they hear something else.
I fire two silent shots and they drop instantly, never knowing it was coming. Not another sound is made.
Cautiously, I slip down the side and to the entrance, taking care to open the door without a noise There’s a short hallway that leads to an open area in the back, and I pause, listening. When I don’t hear anything, I slowly make my way to the room.
The end of the hall is lit by a bare bulb, and as I turn, I see Alexander standing with his back to me. He’s leaning over a big table covered with what looks like blueprints and notebooks, and weapons to his right and left. An image of Paige pops into my head, and I grip the gun tighter, thinking that all this is for her. That I wish I’d done this a long time ago.
“Turn around.” My voice echoes in the empty room, and I see his jaw twitch, letting me know he heard me.
Slowly, he does as I ask. The initial confusion on his face is replaced by a sneer. “What are you doing?”
I stare into the same blue eyes of the woman I love more than anything. I wonder how she came from this man. She’s nothing like him. She thinks they share a darkness, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. She is nothing like this man. Where he has spent his life ripping people apart to get what he wants, she has spent her life fighting a battle that isn’t hers. Fighting for a mother who didn’t deserve her loyalty and devotion. A mother who should have saved her, protected her from this man and the scars he left on her.
He says it like he doesn’t have time for this. Like my presence is annoying and not threatening. I’ve got a gun pointed at him, but he has no patience to deal with me. Stupid fucker.
“How the mighty have fallen,” I tell him, glancing around the room. There’s even a cot in the corner, making me wonder if he’s staying here. Surely things can’t be that bad. Unless maybe he’s not just hiding from the Feds. Maybe some of his own have turned on him. I wouldn’t be surprised, with how everything is closing in on him. I’m sure Alexander would be more than willing to cut a deal now to keep his ass out of jail.
He stands a little taller. “All those years next to Miles and you didn’t see this coming? What was I fucking paying you for?” He points at me, his face growing redder with each second. For a guy who built an empire, he isn’t that smart. Or maybe his balls are that big. I haven’t been in contact with Alexander in over a month. Not since Miles started slipping his world out from under him. That should have clued Alexander in. No one goes dark without a reason, and mine should have been clear. He should have known I was no longer on his side.
“Let’s not beat around this. I never worked for you.” He looks even older than he did the last time I saw him.
“FBI?” he finally grits out.
I shake my head. He actually sounded a little relieved when asking that question, so it leads me to think someone bigger might be hunting him. No, if I was FBI, we would have grabbed him already. That wasn’t what my mission was. I was here for intel. To find out who Alexander worked for and worked with. Because with men like Alexander, it doesn’t matter if you take him out. If it did, he’d have been thrown in jail a long time ago. No, men like Alexander were a dime a dozen. As soon as you pulled him, another one like him would pop up like a fucking weed. You had to get to the root of the problem. You had to take them all down. Not one man in a group. In order to make real changes, the whole lot would have to go.
“I’m here for Paige,” I throw back at him. Because that’s the truth. This might have started as some job, but it wasn’t that anymore. Not since the first time I’d seen her picture. Everything changed that day. Before, I was doing a job, not even one I enjoyed. Over time, getting dirtier and dirtier, I found the lines between what was right and what wasn’t beginning to blur. It made me question who I was and what I’d been doing, and if it had been worth it to crawl around in the filth, never seeming to get anywhere but deeper and deeper undercover. Everyone and everything started to look dirty. Even myself.
Then there she was. I knew in that moment that she was my reason. The path I’d been on was to get to her, and I’d crawl through any filth to reach her. The only reason I was standing here right now was for her and her alone. I don’t care about my mission anymore. None of that matters. She’s all that matters. Making her nightmares disappear is my only objective. I’ll give her that if it’s the last thing I ever do.
His face scrunches with disgust. “Just like her mother, I see. Getting men’s attention with her pussy. All they’re good for.” He shrugs one shoulder, as if Paige and her mother are nothing more than trash.
Maybe he really has gone off the deep end. I’m standing here holding a gun to his head and he’s done nothing to protect himself. He must feel the shift in the room. The anger pulses off me and fills up the space. The smirk drops from his face.
“You didn’t even know who she was until I told you.”
“Never said it started with her,” I say flatly.
“So you’re some kind of cop?”
I don’t answer him.
He starts to move, and I take a step closer to him. He holds his hands up. “I’ve got this. It will make your fucking career.” He nods toward a stack of books. “Dirty cops, senators―there are names in there you wouldn’t believe.”
I keep staring at him,
letting him run his mouth.
“You don’t want it? Fine. I can get you money. How much do you want?”
“I don’t want your money.” I enjoy watching him squirm. A dark part of me wants to do other things to him. Make him cry and beg, after all the years he haunted my Paige. Make him pay for all of it. A single shot to the head seems too fair.
“What do you want? I’ll get it. I can get you anything.” He drops his hands to his sides, his fists clenching. Clearly not a man who likes to beg. Probably never begged for a thing in his life, thinking he was too important to do something like that.
“The only thing I want is you dead.”
“Why?” He takes a step back, but there is nowhere to go.
“I told you that already. I’m here for Paige.”
He studies me for a second, trying to get a read on me, but I give him nothing. “She hired you?”
“No.”
He lets out a humorless laugh. “You love her.” His tone suggests it’s the stupidest thing in the world. An emotion I’m sure he can’t comprehend. “You came here to kill the father of the woman you love? How romantic”
“The only reason I haven’t killed you yet is because I thought maybe the plans Miles had for you would be enough. But after hearing her talk about you, the pain I see in her eyes, the anger and fear there…I know only one thing will do. She didn’t have to ask me to do it. I wanted to make sure I got to you before she did. I wasn’t letting your filth touch her ever again. I won’t let anything touch her.”
“You think you’re any different than me? You kill to get what you want. It’s the same. We just want different things.”
“Maybe so.” I shrug, because on some level this is true. I’d do anything for Paige if it made her smile. “She wants you dead, so be it.” With that, I pull the trigger. His body drops to the ground, and I only pray that with this, my kitten finds some peace. I stand there wondering if this will be enough to win her back. I tuck the gun away. I’ll find a way or I’ll die trying.
I see a movement out of the corner of my eye, and I freeze. Paige is there with a gun in her hand. It’s down by her side, and she’s looking at me with tears in her eyes. She’s seen it all. Heard it all.
I’m angry that she’s here and that she’s put herself in what could be a harmful situation. She’s had to see another one of her parents die. Even if she hated him, I didn’t want her to have this memory branded into her brain, too. I didn’t want any of this to touch her. Seeing her makes every protective instinct I have push forward. I want to shield her from this dark, ugly world.
“Kitten,” I whisper, and I want to run to her and take her in my arms, but don’t know if she’ll let me.
Her father lies dead between us, blood coating the dirty floor, and I don’t know if she can look at me after this. It’s one thing to want him dead and to wish for it to happen. It’s another to see the man you love doing it. That is, if she still loves me.
“Captain.”
She runs to me, throwing herself in my arms and sobbing. I can feel her worry and fear melt away with every breath. I hold her tight and carry her out of this place. Away from the darkness and all the evil that can never touch her again.
I take her out to the car and set her down, pulling my gun out and placing it in her lap. “Wait here, kitten. I need to finish this.”
Her eyes are wild, but she nods and holds my weapon. She watches me as I go to the trunk and pull out the gas can and walk back to the building. “The books. Get the books,” she says, making me turn to look at her. I debate it for a second before setting the can down and running back inside. I grab them off the table. When I get back to the car, I hand them to her. I pick up the gas can again and pour it around the perimeter and then throw the container inside. Standing back, I grab the Zippo out of my back pocket and light it up.
“This is for her, you sorry bastard.”
I grab a piece of trash and light it. I look at the flame and make sure it’s caught before I throw it onto the waiting gas and watch the building ignite. I turn and walk away. No one will look into this too much, because they were all known criminals. And if anyone does decide to dig, I’ve still got enough pull to make it go away. Nobody is going to miss that piece of shit, and this world will be a better place without the filth he brought to it.
When I get into the car, I reach over and pull Paige onto my lap. It’s dangerous, and probably illegal, but I drive back to our building with her in my arms. I’ll be damned if I ever let her go again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Paige
* * *
“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” I ask, burying my face back in his neck when we get in the elevator and he hits the button to the wrong floor. I can’t let him go. I never want to let him go again.
“I need to show you something.”
It’s late, and we’ve both been through so much. I’m drained. I don’t know if I can handle much more, but I’ll be strong. For him and for me. For us. And at this point, he could take me anywhere and I would go without a fight. After tonight I’m his.
He carried me from the car and refused to put me down since. The doors open, and he walks out with me in his arms as he goes to a door. He unlocks it, and once we are inside, he sets me down and closes it behind us.
The place is sparse, but I can tell right away it’s his. The smell of rosewood and clean linen makes me smile. This is his home. There’s not a lot of furniture and no pictures anywhere, so it doesn’t take me long to see everything. I turn to him. It doesn’t feel like a home at all.
Captain takes a deep breath and pulls me down the hallway to a door. He pushes it open and then steps aside, letting me walk in. My hands go to my mouth as I see thousands of pictures of me.
“What is this?” I ask, looking at him and then at the pictures. Some from right before I went to college, around the time Miles found me; some from my college years. I take up every inch of his walls.
“I barely graduated from high school when the CIA got ahold of me. I’d shown interest in going into the marines, and they swooped in and grabbed me. I wasn’t with them long when they started pushing me underground. My target―Alexander Owens.”
He’d given me lot when he was talking to Alexander, but now he was giving it all to me.
“I had to play dirty for a few years until I built up a little bit of a name for myself in Owens’s crews. Then that day came. I’d actually thought about not going to the meeting. Just thought about getting out. I was having to do things I didn’t like, and each time things got dirtier and dirtier. But I went to the meeting to see what he’d say. My handler was pressing me hard. Alexander wanted me to get close to Miles. Keep an eye on him. Thought his son was gunning for him, as you know he was.”
I step in a little closer, showing him I want to hear more. That I’m not going anywhere. He’s just filling in the details for me. I already knew he’d never betrayed me. Only tried to protect me.
“Then out slipped your picture. All that red hair and fire in your eyes. Hit me like a fucking truck. Knew right then why I was on the path I was on. It was leading me to you, and all the dirtier shit I had to do to get there was worth it. All of it. I knew I had to have you. You were mine. And then once I met you, I couldn’t stand not being with you. When I went to Miles, I struck a deal. Told him I was with the CIA, deep undercover. Didn’t care I was breaking so many laws I could end up in a cell and never see light again, but we hatched a plan together. He thought I was working my case. I was working to get you. To do what I had to do to take Alexander down, and in the process keep him the fuck away from you.”
He cups my cheek, his thumb rubbing back and forth. I lean into it.
“When Miles and I came up with you watching over Mallory, I hired a private guard to follow you around and take pictures and keep an eye on you. It was all I had for years. I put them in here so that every night I could fall asleep looking at you while I waited for the time when you were close.”
I’m shocked and overwhelmed as he sits me on the end of his bed, and he goes to his knees in front of me.
“I’ve been beyond obsessed with you since I got a glimpse of you. I gave it all up for you, Paige. My mission with the CIA, my plan to take down Alexander. All of that was pushed aside the day I saw you. You came first. I had to protect you, and I knew the only way to do that was to hide you. I knew sending you away was the best bet. Miles and I had a common goal. Take Alexander down. I made him keep you in school and isolated from everyone. God help me, I wanted to put you in a tower and throw away the key, and this was as close as I could get.”
He drops his head to my lap, and I don’t know what to say. All of this is hitting me like a ton of bricks.
“I made sure you were alone, with no one else to lean on besides Mallory and myself. I’m not the good and perfect man you think I am, but I can’t say I’m sorry for it.” He lifts his head, and his dark green eyes are pleading. “I would do everything all over again to have you end up in my arms. I love you, Paige. I love you more than my own life. I would set fire to the world to make you smile. With one word from you, I would turn it into ash. You are the beginning and end of my life. Don’t make me live a life without you. Because I won’t survive. Without you there is no me. You have been my everything and I swear you’re all I know anymore.”
Tears fall down my cheeks, and I wonder how my body has any left to shed.
“All these years I felt like the only thing I’ve ever wanted was revenge,” I tell him. “That’s it. It was all I could see. But then today I thought I’d lost you, and my world crashed. That was the worst pain I’d ever felt. Worse than losing my mom. You know why?”
Captain leans in, kissing one of my tears. “No, kitten. Why?”
