by KJ Harlow
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by KJ Harlow
Rose Reborn
Book 1 - Death’s Contract Series
KJ Harlow
Harlow Publishing
Copyright © 2017 by KJ Harlow
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover art by Aero Gallerie.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by KJ Harlow
One
Rose, are you there?
I jolted up. Gathering my senses, I realized that I had fallen asleep at the lab – again. A puddle of drool had pooled at the bottom of the keyboard. Rubbing my eyes, I squinted at the screen. My face had typed seven pages of the letter “L”. I smiled ruefully; not as bad as my marathon thesis of the spacebar that went on for 84 pages a few months ago.
Rose, this isn’t going to work.
Damn it. Where the hell was my phone? Whenever Stan couldn’t find his phone, I would call it. This time it was my phone that was lost amongst the papers sprawled all over my desk. Thank God Dr. Riggs, the pain in the ass head forensic scientist who strutted around like he ran the place, had gone for the night.
I ran my tongue along my cracked lips. The moment Riggs had left, I had cranked up the heater. How long had he been gone for? I looked left towards the big windows facing the main road. A sickle moon hung high and imperious against the sky, darkest of navies.
My foot bumped into my glasses as I pushed my chair out. I picked them up off the floor and absent-mindedly used the hem of my black top to rub the lenses before putting them on. I wasn’t a fan of the rectangular frames; they made my face look too angular. Stan loved the sexy secretary look though, so I got them. I smiled stupidly to myself as I thought about him.
I stood up and stretched, cracking my back and groaning in satisfaction. I wandered over to the window to look up at the moon. The stars winked at me. Funny – the way it was positioned, it looked like they were eyes. The moon was the Cheshire cat’s mouth beginning its wide, mysterious smile.
That’s when I heard it: angry yelling. A man’s voice. I was fully alert now. I swiveled my head over to the clock on the wall. 11:48 pm. I had been asleep for the last half hour or so. What would anyone be doing outside yelling at this time of the night? And why was he yelling? Was there someone else with him?
I could make out some shadows against the wall on the building opposite mine. It wasn’t clear but it looked like they were holding something in front of them. Were they doing a drug deal? I smirked; choosing the outside of a criminal forensics lab as a meeting point with your dealer. How ironic.
I need to talk to you.
Vibrations pulsed from the metal waste paper basket on the side of my desk. That’s where my phone went. I closed the distance between the window and my desk in three strides, expectantly hoping to see Stan’s messages. He was probably concerned about me. He knew that I had a habit of falling asleep at work. Tonight was a record though; I’d never been back after midnight.
It was Stan, but they weren’t the messages that I had been hoping to see. My face fell as my eyes read through the texts he had sent me over the last few hours. My mind started to race.
‘Isn’t going to work’? ‘I need to talk to you’? Oh my God, he wanted to break up with me. Why? What did I do? It must be because of all of this late night work. I told him that this wasn’t going to last long, half a year, a year tops. After that, Riggs would see how good I was and I’d graduate to normal working hours. I’d been waiting for this gig for ages. He understood that – so what was with these sudden, alarming texts?
I closed my eyes. Deep breaths. It could be anything. He might have decided to quit his job as a bartender. He always did say that he would be quitting soon. I could feel my eyes moisten as I remembered how we met.
I’d matched with a seemingly perfect guy on Tinder: loved dogs, read Alain de Botton philosophy and had piercingly blue eyes. It’d been my first date for a while. He suggested meeting at 1806, a cocktail bar in downtown Melbourne.
I arrived 15 minutes early, sitting at the end of the bar. I scanned the room, looking for grey-blue eyes to meet mine in recognition but all I saw were groups huddled together, guffawing and drinking merrily. I nervously smoothed my lacy LBD down, self-consciously pulling it towards my knees as I avoided leery looks.
It was 11. Still no sign of him. The bartender noticed that I hadn’t ordered anything.
“Would you like something to start the night?” He leaned into me at the same time gesturing with his head at the wide array of liquors behind him. I half-smiled and shook my head.
11:30. I ordered a Cider Punch. Just a little something to relax me. Any time now. By this time, I had firmly turned away a couple guys who had sauntered up to me, full of bravado. One of them had to be pulled away by his buddies. My pulse was beating in my ears – and not just because of the alcohol.
Midnight. I was onto my third Roman Punch. I was a sucker for sweet drinks. Who knew that raspberry syrup went so well with port? The bartender was gliding left and right, serving customers. How did he keep it up? How did anyone keep it up when people were so shit? I didn’t care if Mr. Philosopher Hunk showed up now. He was late – and I was done.
5:23 am. I was being gently shaken awake. I slowly straightened and pulled off the serviette that was glued to the side of my face. After rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I made out a familiar smiling face: the bartender. I looked to his shirt pocket to find out his name. Stan.
“Can I take you home?” Realizing what he said, his eyes widened as he stammered, “Not in that way, but my shift’s done and you’re looking a little worse for wear, so I can give you a lift home if you’d like.”
Can you come home?
I broke out of my trance. My phone buzzed excitedly in my hand. It was Stan again. I looked up at the computer. The fingerprint scan I had begun earlier in the evening w
as only 27% complete. If I went home, stole six hours of sleep and made sure to be here at 8 am tomorrow, the scan should be done by then and I could get started on the report. Riggs wouldn’t have any idea that I’d skipped out during the night. I hovered at my desk, shifting between my feet in indecision.
Looking at my phone again, I scrolled through the texts I’d received from Stan over the last hour. I eventually moved towards the door. The angry yells seemed to have stopped for the time being. Maybe they were just a couple of angry drunks who had come across each other. As the elevator hummed down to the ground floor, I tapped out a heartfelt text to Stan.
So sorry babe. Fell asleep again lol. Back soon.
The automatic doors closed silently behind me. A breath escaped my mouth into the frosted night. I dug my chin into my woolen scarf and made my way to the back of the building. I slowed my steps as I got closer to my car.
I couldn’t see them yet, but I could hear them. Two voices, male, angry, confrontational. My pulse quickened. On instinct I moved sideways, pressing myself against the wall, almost trying to melt into it. Bit by bit, I edged closer.
“You’re done. Don’t even think of escaping.” What accent was that? It sounded sort of European. German maybe?
“Oh please. I could walk away right now and you can’t stop me. We both know how this works.” A sound shattered the tension between the two men. I hadn’t heard it before but I knew what it was: gunfire.
I instinctively ducked, putting my hands over my head. All my senses were screaming at me to forget the car and get out of there.
“You’re the one who’s in danger. Unlike yours, my weapon can actually cease you.” Was that accent English?
I had pushed myself impossibly close to the frigid brick wall. I was about 10 feet away from the men now. A few more steps and I could get a glimpse of who the voices belonged to.
“Why are you here?”
“You know exactly why I’m here.”
Silence. Sensing an opportunity, I slowly craned my head around the corner.
One of them had their back turned to me. The other was facing him, about five yards away. Their guns were drawn, pointing at one another. My heart was in my mouth. There was no escape now. I was frozen on the spot, riveted at the scene playing out in front of me.
The man closest to me was wearing a trench coat. His hair specked with silver was slicked back immaculately. Whoever this guy was, he had style. He held his gun loosely in his right hand, his stance relaxed. It glinted dark and menacing under the yellow light of the lamp post.
I could just see the features of the man facing him. In a word, he was big. Not fat big, but broad-shouldered and tall. He was at least a head taller than I was. His hair was dark blonde and drawn back tight. He had a beard cropped close to his angular jawline. His eyebrows were knitted together in anger, his blue-grey eyes were calm but focused on his enemy. Images of the Disney Hercules flashed into my mind. I loved that movie so much that I borrowed it from the library every month until they banned me, saying that other people wanted to watch it.
In that moment of distraction, my clumsy foot decided to bump a scrunched up Coke can next to my foot. My heart rolled from my mouth and landed at the bottom of my stomach. Both men noticed me and pointed their guns in my direction.
I turned and bolted.
I didn’t know where I was running. I just knew I had to get out of there – stat. In my panic, I had dropped my bag back where I’d been discovered. I didn’t care anymore. With adrenaline coursing through my veins, I threw a glance back over my shoulder to see if the men were chasing me.
The next thing I knew, I had the wind knocked out of me as I collided into someone. Sprawled in a messy heap on the wet, cobble-stoned ground, I took a few moments to gulp down some air before I looked up. It was the man wearing the trench coat. My eyes flew open, wide with astonishment. How the hell was he standing there in front of me?
I got a much better look at his face now. He was classy alright. Beneath the trench coat, he was wearing a vest and an ivory, button-up shirt. Charcoal slacks clothed his long legs. His shiny, black leather shoes were immaculate as if they were brand new. His face was expressionless as he considered me lying on the floor, propped up on my elbows.
Before I had time to react, he swooped down on me, picking me up almost effortlessly from the front of my blouse. I let out a yelp as he brought his sneering face to my own. His dark, dead irises bore into my eyes; I had to look away. Why didn’t I just stay in the office? Stan’s face swam up in my mind and I found the courage to speak.
“Let go of me,” I said. My voice quivered as I looked back at his face.
The man in the trench coat stared at me curiously. I always won staring contests but this guy was something else.
“Let her go, Mort. She’s innocent,” The blond man’s voice came from around the corner.
Mort? As in the French morte? Like Death? Out of nowhere, Mort flew into a rage. With his left hand, he jerked me to the side. His right hand pulled out his jet black hand gun and began firing wildly, his bullets pinging off the bricks.
“Do not call me that!” Mort bellowed in outrage.
Mort was impossibly strong. As his gunshots rung through the alleyway he was able to support my weight as I dropped and cowered. He looked to be in his early 60’s, late 50’s at the youngest. I wasn’t big myself, but I’d just crash tackled him and I was the one who was dazed on the floor. A crazy thought crossed my mind: was he human?
Before I had time to look up at him, he wrapped his left arm around my neck, pressing me against his body. I was about to bring my foot thundering down onto his when I felt something I would never have thought I would feel in my lifetime against my right temple: the barrel of a gun. I dared not breathe.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Mort whispered, voice as soft as a rose petal.
The blond man had appeared from the corner, his gun trained on Mortimer. He inched closer and stopped, three yards away.
“Mortimer, don’t,” For the first time in my life, I felt like I was going to die. I always thought that if I were to die in circumstances like these, I would be a hero. I’d jump in front of someone I loved who had a gun on them or I would take down an attacker or something like that. I didn’t think I’d be a hostage that would need rescuing.
The blond man in front of me would be the last person I would ever see. It wouldn’t be Stan. So be it. I wasn’t going to die with terror screaming through my mind. I would leave this earth with thoughts of happiness and pleasure. I trained my stare on him and drank in his appearance. It certainly helped that he was handsome. I imagined him shooting Mortimer and catching me as I fell. I imagined his concern as he sat with me in the ambulance. I imagined us together, my small hand in his big one, in an imagined life with imagined happiness. It was bliss.
“And what if I do?” Mortimer drawled.
The stand-off continued for an eternity until I could hear sirens in the distance, getting louder by the second. Mortimer spoke first.
“Looks like our little game’s over, Deliverer.”
The next second was the longest in my life. First, there was a deafening ringing in my ear that split my head open. Second, I fell to the ground as Mortimer released me. Third, I realized that I had just had a bullet unloaded into my brain.
Then the torment came. All the unanswered questions that I had shoved into a box and shelved away in the back room of my mind burst out, flooding my being with regret.
A gun again. Not pointed at me. Pointed at someone who looked like me. Remembering the coppery smell of blood as it splattered over me. A scream filling the room – mine?
Me. Growing up. Alone. Never having any friends. All I had were my books, my stories. Why didn’t anyone like me?
Stan. His lop-sided smile so warm that I could wrap myself all up in it and go to sleep. What did he want to tell me?
Out of the corner of my eye, Mortimer disappeared. Hm. Guess he was some s
ort of superhuman. As I lay there dying, I saw the blond man look down at me. I was expecting to see an expression of anguish. After all, I was an innocent victim that had stupidly wandered into some drug deal with a British kingpin gone wrong. He must’ve been an undercover cop or something. Mortimer had called him “deliverer” didn’t he?
But there was no anguish there, not even distress. The expression on the blond man’s face could only be one thing: hatred.
“You shouldn’t have come here tonight,” he said.
The tormenting visions continued flashing before my eyes. The hatred in the blonde man’s eyes was awakening something inside me. Somehow, I forced myself up. The torment suddenly stopped. I blinked, confused: that’s when I felt it.
Cease him…
The two words made me double over. I clasped my head and roared, a guttural blood-curdling howl I didn’t know I could make. I don’t know whose voice it was, but I knew that I only had one thing to do: rip apart the man in front of me.
I let go of my head and looked up, starting towards the blond man. For the second time in my life, I felt it: the barrel of a gun. This time though, it was right on my forehead. The blonde man had replaced his hatred with a practiced, emotionless mask.
“I might see you later in the Waiting Room.” The bullet tore through what was remaining of my gray matter as I fell backward.
I felt surprisingly lucid for someone who had just been shot in the head twice. The torment that had momentarily taken over from earlier was gone. I felt human. Too bad that it wasn’t going to last much longer.
Red and blue lights tumbled over and over on the side of the building. Tall shadows and flashlights intermingled as policemen came closer and closer. The blonde man looked up, annoyed. He straightened and holstered his gun then he too disappeared.
