Valen (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 2)

by Felicity Heaton

  Just as she had found some calm again, the sound of her phone ringing broke the silence. It buzzed in the back pocket of her black jeans, sending vibrations down her right leg. She snatched it and frowned at the screen.

  Damn.

  Her client.

  Not what she needed tonight.

  Eva debated not answering it, even when she knew it wasn’t an option or a path she wanted to take. She’d only had a few meetings with the man, but he had given her the impression right from the moment she had met him that he wasn’t the sort of person you disappointed and lived to tell the tale.

  That was the only reason she had agreed to drug the mark when her client had called and acted as if he had never told her she had done her job and the contract was fulfilled.

  She swiped her thumb across the screen to answer it and lifted it to her ear.

  “We need to meet.” Her client’s deep voice rang through the speaker before she could even utter a greeting, his tone brooking no argument. A demand, not a request. She was sick of hearing that tone coming from a man. He was the same as the rest of them, thinking that because he had hired her, he owned her arse. “Come to the villa immediately.”

  He hung up.

  Eva lowered the phone and scowled at it. Stronzo. The king of them.

  But it seemed he was also the king of her until he decided to release her from his rule, and that meant she was going to have to drive all the way out into the countryside to his villa just to see what the fuck he wanted at such an ungodly hour of the morning.

  She huffed and pocketed her phone, placing it in the inside one of her leather jacket this time. She zipped the black leather up as she walked, following the maze of narrow streets back to where she had parked her scooter, and tried not to think about how her body had lit up when her mark had dared to frisk her for weapons.

  When she reached the small black and silver Vespa, she looked along the wider street in both directions, scanning the parked cars and the few people moving around it. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but the hairs on the back of her neck had suddenly stood on end and for a ridiculous moment she had been sure someone was watching her. She brushed it off and unlocked the chain on her scooter, and dumped it into the storage beneath the seat. She pulled her helmet out of the same box and tugged it on, fastening it beneath her chin, and slung her leg over the bike.

  A shiver raced through her and she paused with her hand on the ignition key.

  Looked around again.

  No one was on the street now. No one was watching her. She inhaled and blew out her breath. She was just being jumpy. The combination of her client’s call and waiting for her mark to leap out of the shadows and kill her had made her jittery.

  She started the engine, switched on the lights, kicked up the stand and pulled out onto the empty road. The weird sensation faded as she sped through the streets of her beloved city, leaving the centre behind and heading for the outskirts. Bright streetlamps soon gave way to total darkness as she hit open roads. The warmth of the city gave way to cold at the same time, and she huddled down into her jacket as the chilly night air sapped the heat from her bare hands and face.

  Eva kept her focus locked on the road ahead of her, following it as it snaked through dark countryside, her Vespa struggling over the hills that surrounded Rome. She should have brought one of her cars out with her tonight, but it was easier navigating the small streets of Rome on a scooter.

  She looked across at the city as she reached the top of one of the hills and rounded a bend. It sparkled below her, a warm sea of stars in the night. She always had loved the view of the city from up in the hills. It looked so peaceful, even when she knew it was far from quiet.

  Even in the dead of winter the tourists flocked to Rome.

  Lured by its magic, its beauty, and its history.

  The Eternal City.

  The road twisted again and she reluctantly turned her back on the city and lost track of time as she drove, passing small villages and long cypress-tree-lined driveways that led down to farms and villas.

  She slowed as she neared the tree-lined avenue that would take her up another steep hill to her client’s enormous three-storey mansion and caught a glimpse of the illuminated palatial yellow-ochre building in the distance as she turned into the driveway.

  She hated this place.

  Even at night it reminded her of her old home, the one she had lived in before turning her back on her family.

  Eva pushed those memories to the back of her mind as she approached the villa. The two men dressed in black patrol fatigues at the gate nodded as she slowed her scooter and passed them. Whoever her client was, he took his security very seriously. Every time she had come to the villa, she had seen at least two men on the gate and another four in the grounds, and further men inside.

  All armed.

  She parked her Vespa beside a black Lamborghini and kicked the stand down as she switched off the engine. As she dismounted, she shoved her keys into her jacket pocket, keeping them close at hand in case she needed them. She was armed beneath her leather, but a quick escape was preferable to a shoot out if things went badly. There was no way she could out gun so many men, not even if she could get her hands on a few of their weapons.

  The golden gravel of the driveway crunched under her knee-high black boots as she walked, removing her helmet as she approached the grand villa from its side, her eyes leaping over the rows of windows, skipping the ones that glowed with golden light and focusing on the unlit ones. She caught movement in some of them.

  She was being watched from all angles.

  Her client was always this cautious, even with her. It seemed he had serious trust issues.

  Or he was waiting for someone to launch an assault on him.

  She could easily imagine there were people out there who wanted him dead, rivals who wouldn’t think twice about attacking him at his stronghold.

  The gravel gave way to sandstone slabs as she entered the enormous patio that spanned the long façade of the grand house, edged with a delicate stone balustrade to her right, where the hill dropped off and the view was stunning even in the darkness.

  Rome shimmered in the distance, a golden glow that illuminated the night sky and challenged the stars.

  She dragged her eyes away from it, focusing back on her destination. The elegant columned porch jutted out from the building, perfectly manicured topiary framing it and making it look like any other Italian mansion when it wasn’t anything like the innocent family homes or farmhouses in the area.

  A killer lived here.

  She was as certain of it as she was her name was Eva.

  Killers recognised their own kind.

  She stepped past the man on the door and into the bright foyer of the villa. Light danced around the room from the crystal and gold chandelier, reflecting off the white marble floor and pale yellow walls.

  Her heartbeat ticked up and she drew in a slow, secret breath to steady it as another man watched her closely, unwilling to let him see her nerves.

  What the hell had she gotten herself into? She should have been suspicious of her client from the start, would have been if she had first met him here rather than in a public location in the city. With so many men in his employment, he hardly needed her to spy on his target, and he definitely didn’t need her to drug him or kill him, or whatever the fuck she was meant to be doing to him now.

  Something was wrong with this whole situation. Something that set her on edge and had her wishing she had unzipped her coat and unclipped her gun.

  The security guard narrowed his eyes on her and she shot him a smile as she casually swept her fingers through her blue-streaked hair, neatening her appearance, hoping the man would think fixing it so she looked good for his boss was the only reason she hadn’t moved from the foyer.

  When the man raked his dark eyes over her, a slight smile tilting his broad lips, she flashed him a wink and sauntered towards the two staircases that curved e
legantly upwards to the first floor, a little swing in her hips to keep him off guard. She looked back at him as she walked between the two staircases and took a right, heading beneath them. The guy grinned at her, practically slobbering as he stared at her arse in her tight jeans.

  He disappeared from view as she hit the corridor and her walk lost all swagger and turned all business, her expression following suit. Her blue eyes fixed on the wooden door at the end of the long pale green corridor. She would smile for the bastard on the other side, would play her role as his obedient assassin to perfection to appease him, but the whole time she would be on alert, because she had quickly learned he wasn’t the sort of man you let your guard down around.

  She had swum with sharks, had worked for the worst of Italy’s underground bosses, but she had never met a shark like her client.

  He ate the other sharks for breakfast.

  The door opened a second before she reached it, swinging back to reveal an enormous black-walled office with a pale grey marble floor, and the biggest ebony desk she had ever seen in the centre of it.

  Leaning against that desk, dressed in a crisp black suit with a white shirt opened at the collar to reveal a hint of defined muscles, was what she could only describe as a man most women would call sex-on-legs. Blush pink full lips curved a little as his stunning emerald green eyes met hers and he pushed onto his feet, coming to stand at least six-feet-six in front of her. The tailored suit hugged his trim figure to perfection, accentuating every curve, and sure, she wasn’t immune to his charms.

  No matter how fiercely she tried to be.

  She prepared herself every time she was about to face him, shut down every feeling and locked them in place, putting herself firmly in control of her emotions.

  Yet every time he turned that smile on her, those feelings broke her hold and defied her.

  “My angel,” he said, the smile curving his sinful lips reflected in the deep baritone of his voice. A voice made for melting panties.

  She hated it when he called her that. In the underground world, she was the angel. She was not his.

  She cleared her throat, wishing she could clear her head just as easily, and nodded. “Signor Benares.”

  His smile grew wider and he shoved long tanned fingers through his wild sun-kissed blond locks, something he always did whenever she called him that, as if her tacking on an honorific set him on edge for some reason.

  “Just Benares, my dear.” Another panty-melting factor about her client. The guy was British, and said everything with a regal edge that she was sure many women would find seductive.

  Eva was too busy pondering his words to be affected by the manner of their delivery and his accent. She had tried at least twice to get him to expand on why he was just Benares.

  Like, he had no other name?

  Her Italian stock had shackled her with around a million names, so the thought of someone only having one was completely foreign, and ridiculous, to her. He merely smiled if she asked, so she had given up.

  She yawned, hoping to make a point about the hour without saying it, and he leaned back against the ebony desk, canting his head as he raked those jewel green eyes over her.

  “Tired, my dear?”

  She wished he wouldn’t call her that, as if she belonged to him. My angel. My dear. It made her skin crawl.

  Eva rolled her right shoulder, gunning for casual. “It’s been a late few nights.”

  “Since you failed?” A female voice echoed around the room, a sharp snap to the British accent that was at odds with her client’s more melodic one.

  Eva frowned at the blonde woman as she sashayed around the desk to her client’s right, a short black dress hugging her incredible figure and tall stiletto heels making her already long, lean legs look even longer. A sleek fall of golden hair cascaded around her shoulders and down to the small of her back, and eyes the colour of summer skies locked on Benares.

  Beautiful didn’t seem a good enough word to describe her. Eva was sure that if this woman walked around in Rome, every red-blooded male would be following her, calling after her and wanting her. No man on the planet could be in the same room as her and not be affected.

  Eva glanced at Benares.

  His eyes hadn’t left her.

  The blonde’s blue eyes didn’t stray from him. They held an expectant edge, one Eva could easily read. She wanted Benares to look at her. When she halted close to him, and his eyes still remained on Eva, her beautiful face darkened, her rosy pouty lips compressing into a vicious line and fine eyebrows dipping low.

  Eva had never met the woman before, but the way she looked at Benares, and then turned that black scowl on Eva, left her with the impression that she was something to her client and she didn’t appreciate the way he was looking at Eva.

  A lover?

  “Jin,” Benares whispered softly, tenderness in it, and the woman looked back at him. He still didn’t take his eyes off Eva, not even when he shot his right hand out and grasped the woman called Jin by her throat. She gasped and bit her lip, as if his touch had been one of pleasure not violence, and looked as if she might melt into a puddle at his feet as he hauled her towards him, causing her to bump against the desk. He turned his face towards her, bringing his lips close to her cheek, but his eyes still remained locked on Eva’s. “Temper.”

  He shoved Jin backwards, away from him, and she stumbled a few steps before catching herself and glaring at him.

  Jin turned that glare on her. “You failed.”

  Eva held her ground and glanced at Benares, wanting to see his opinion on what had happened, hoping that she hadn’t made a grave mistake by driving to a very private estate in the middle of a huge tract of land in the dead of night.

  It wasn’t going to end here. Now. She told herself that on repeat even as she took stock of all the possible exits in the room and recounted every escape route she had planned without taking her eyes off Benares.

  The blonde’s face darkened again and she took a hard step forwards, towards Eva. It caught Eva’s attention but not his. His green eyes remained firmly rooted on her, perusing her from head to toe at a leisurely pace as Jin took control of the meeting.

  Eva wasn’t sure what the hell their relationship was, but she wished he would stop looking at her as if she was someone he wanted to bed, because the more he stared at her with interest in his eyes, the darker Jin’s mood turned and the more the woman looked as if she was considering killing her.

  It seemed Benares wasn’t the only shark she was swimming with this time.

  Jin was in on the plan, client number two, and Eva had the sinking feeling that disappointing her would result in the same bloody end as disappointing Benares.

  Death.

  She knew that the game she played was dangerous, had always been aware of it and the fact that every job might be her last, but it was all she knew. It was her life and she didn’t know how to live it any other way now. She had stepped out of the light and into the darkness, and there was no going back.

  There was only going forwards.

  “Failure was not an option,” Jin snarled, flashing straight white teeth, and her blue eyes seemed to brighten with her fury.

  “Perhaps if you had given me all the information you already had on him, I wouldn’t have failed,” Eva shot back, maintaining the behaviour Benares would expect from her from all their meetings and telephone calls.

  She wasn’t meek. She was dangerous, took no prisoners, and certainly didn’t let anyone push her around. She was an assassin, and she was damned good at what she did. Although, she wished she had chosen to add a little meekness when she had decided what sort of personality she was going to have with him. A dash of meek might have gone some way towards placating Jin at the very least.

  Although the heated look in Benares’s eyes said that he liked the headstrong, sassy and hot-blooded personality she had chosen that was much closer to her own real one.

  Eva squared her shoulders, planted her hands
on her hips, and glared at both Jin and Benares. “Maybe if you had mentioned that he had skills… the same skillset that I have… I would have been prepared.”

  Benares casually rested his hands on the desk on either side of his hips. “True.”

  So he had known that her mark was a killer. An assassin. Stronzo. She wanted to throttle him for that, even when she knew it would be suicide.

  “We will give you a second chance,” he said and the look Jin shot him conveyed everything Eva needed to know.

  That hadn’t been the plan.

  Benares had called her all the way out to the secluded villa in order to kill her.

  What had changed his mind?

  He raked his eyes over her again, a slow slide from head to toe and back again, and smiled when his emerald green gaze met hers. Jin continued to glare at him, looking for all the world as if she was also considering throttling him.

  “You fought him,” Benares said, his smile holding. “You survived. I am sure you could do it again.”

  He raised his right hand and Jin obediently strutted to the other side of the desk and squatted there. She opened a cupboard, closed it and rose back onto her feet. Eva frowned at the seven-inch-long black rectangular case she held in her hands.

  A weapon?

  Eva tensed, preparing herself.

  Benares sighed. “Always so distrustful. That is the problem with your breed.”

  He held his hand out to Jin but rather than taking the case from her, he motioned for her to give it to Eva.

  The woman approached her, her pretty face still locked in a scowl, one that screamed of anger at Benares, and jealousy. Again, his eyes remained rooted on Eva even when Jin was in his line of sight.

  What game was he playing? Was he trying to get his lover to kill her?

  She wanted to tell him to quit staring at her, but held her tongue instead and focused on the ominous black case on Jin’s upturned palm as the woman held it out to her.

  “Since you can fight him, and he does not seem interested in killing you, then you get a second chance.” Benares nodded towards Jin.