Hard Bounty (The Snake Eyes Series Book 5)

by Tabatha Kiss

Lucy frowns. “None of you met your own boss?”

  “She was more of a phantom than anything else,” he explains. “Myra spoke for her.”

  I bite my cheek. “I may know where to start looking.” Again, he squints at me. “Myra slipped up back at the hotel. She said her mother didn’t trust her instincts about me and that I wasn’t fit enough for their new team.”

  Lilah furrows her brow. “Her mother?”

  “Shit…” Dante’s shoulders sag.

  “What?”

  He takes a breath. “One night, about three or four years ago, Mercer caught me checking out Myra.”

  Lucy leans forward. “Oh, really?”

  “Four years ago,” he repeats, smiling at her.

  She crosses her arms. “Uh-huh.”

  “Anyway, he offered to arrange a swap. A night with Myra for me, for a night with Lilah for him.”

  Lilah recoils. “Ew.”

  “I told him to piss off, obviously,” Dante continues, “and I never thought much else about it until now.”

  I nod. “Your sister for his.”

  He nods back.

  “Myra is Mercer’s sister?” Lilah asks.

  “If that’s true, then Mercer…” Dante says, “was the Boss’ son.”

  Lilah plants her feet on the floor and turns to look at me. “Did Myra say what this new team was for?”

  “No,” I answer. “Just that she needed a hunter.”

  She turns back around and stares at the floor.

  Dante studies her flinching eyes. “What you got, Lilah?”

  She licks her lips. “If Mercer really was heir to the Boss’ throne, then she would have been more than a little unhappy when he went missing.”

  He nods. “And she’d go nuclear if the prime suspect exposed the whole damn organization, too.”

  “She’s going after Fox,” Lilah says.

  “Then, they’ve already found him,” he adds. “They wouldn’t have set a plan in motion otherwise.”

  “That’s why you’re such a high priority right now, Dante. They think you’ll warn him and he’ll disappear again. If there’s anyone better at hiding than you, it’s him.”

  Lucy bounces. “And that’s why they needed a bounty hunter! In case Fox ran off…” She gives a sheepish smile. “Sorry, just wanted to contribute.”

  Dante lays a proud hand on her knee. “We need to find out everything we can about the Boss.”

  I push off the wall. “Shouldn’t be too difficult to trace with a family tree. And I know a hacker who owes me a favor.”

  “Use it,” Lilah says. “Then, we’ll knock right on her fucking door.”

  “Lilah…” Dante tilts his head.

  “What?” she spits. “I don’t know about you, big brother, but I want to cut the head off this snake.”

  “So do I, but think about what that requires,” he argues. “You’re talking about waging war against Snake Eyes.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “The Lutrovas did it.”

  He laughs. “The Lutrovas are the most powerful Russian mob family in the world. We don’t have their resources.”

  “I can’t use that excuse,” she says. “Not after what she did to Elijah. We have to try.”

  His eyes stray towards Lucy. I understand the instinct to covet and protect what’s yours but Lilah has a point. I don’t like the idea of war either, I never have, but I’ll follow her into battle if I have to.

  Finally, Dante sighs. “We’ll need a team.”

  “We have one.”

  “Two assassins, a bounty hunter, and a ballerina,” he nods.

  Lucy pouts. “Hey…”

  He smiles at her. “You’re training, Luce, but you’re too green. Something like this is going to take a little more skill.” He stares at Lilah. “We’ll need a sniper.”

  Lilah’s face falls. “No.”

  “If you want to wage war, he has experience with that.” He keeps calm. “Fox is our best bet.”

  “For what? Getting stabbed in the back? Even if we knew where to find him — which we don’t — what makes you think he’d even agree to help us?”

  I raise a hand. “I know where he is.”

  She twists in her chair. “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’m a bounty hunter,” I say with a wink. “A good one.”

  She screws up her face. “Eh…”

  “I caught you, didn’t I?”

  Her head falls to hide the smile.

  Dante rubs the bridge of his nose. “Fox is Code Black, just like us,” he says, staying on topic. “Strength in numbers is the best strategy.”

  Lilah bleeds skepticism. “I doubt he’ll be eager to play nice considering what we did to his friends…”

  He shrugs. “We have to try.”

  She squints with annoyance as he throws her words back at her. “Fine,” she says, shifting focus to me. “Where is Fox?”

  “Los Angeles,” I answer.

  “The house in the Hills was really his?”

  “Yep.”

  She grits her teeth. “Dammit…”

  Dante stands up. “Then, that’s where we’re going.”

  “When?” Lucy asks.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m going with you,” she adds.

  Dante smiles. “And if I thought for a second I could talk you out of it, I would have already tried.”

  Lilah nods. “We should have Grams and Gramps moved first. I don’t like the idea of them being there alone with Myra wandering around.”

  The smile fades from his face. “Neither do I.”

  “What should we tell them?” she asks. Her voice is small, like a weak child, and my heart breaks for her.

  Dante shifts on his feet, looking no stronger than she sounds. “Nothing,” he says, flexing his jaw. “We’ll say he got called to volunteer overseas for a few months. They don’t need to know otherwise.”

  Lilah blinks hard and exhales towards the floor. “We always knew something like this would happen. Eventually, one of us wouldn’t come back.”

  “Yeah.” He clears his throat. “I wanted it to be me.”

  He turns to leave and Lucy rises from her chair to follow him out, nodding politely as she passes us by.

  I step behind Lilah’s chair and lay my hands on her shoulders. “You still in there, love?” I ask, massaging her neck.

  Lilah turns her head up. “I think so…” She forces a smile. “So, Boxcar owes you a favor?”

  “He does,” I nod.

  Her eyes tilt with curiosity. “Why?”

  I wince. “Oddly enough, I promised to look the other way and not hunt down Fox Fitzpatrick…”

  She laughs. “Whoops.”

  I pinch her chin. “You let me worry about ole’ Sparky. He’ll help. His wife might not like it, but… he can be reasoned with.”

  Lilah’s right eye twitches with the mention of Caleb Fawn. “Hrmm…”

  I smirk. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep them all out of reach of baseball bats.”

  Her jaw drops as Dante returns to the room.

  “Come on,” he says, walking straight through towards the front door. “We need to find something heavy.”

  Lilah swallows her retort and stands up to follow him outside. I stay close but when we reach the door, she turns to look at me. “You can stay here if you want. You don’t have to watch.”

  “Watch what?”

  She looks out the front door and her eyes land on the black sedan.

  Chapter 18

  Lilah

  I pull Enzo towards the dock by a chain attached to handcuffs on his wrists.

  He stumbles on the uneven terrain, constantly twisting his neck around to watch as Dante, Lucy, and Archer follow us down to the water’s edge. When we reach the end of the dock, I keep a tight grip on the chain and drop him to his knees.

  Enzo cries out as he crashes against the w
ood but he quickly falls silent the moment Dante sets the cement block down in front of him.

  “What’s this?” he asks, his voice shaking.

  “It’s your atonement, Enzo,” I say, wrapping the chain around the block. “Got any last words?”

  Enzo twitches wildly, looking back and forth from our faces to the deep lake behind him. “Now, hold on a minute… we can work something out here.”

  “Pass.” I lock the chain in place and take a step back.

  “Oh… you Hart bastards,” he seethes. “Every one of ya a bunch of hypocrites. What makes your sins any better than mine, eh? Or Marty’s?”

  I look at Dante and he stares back at me. The answer to that is absolutely nothing. Either one of us could be in the same position as Enzo right now and the cosmic scales wouldn’t budge an inch.

  Doesn’t change a goddamn thing.

  Enzo huffs a little louder. “You kill my brother, I kill yours. We’re even. Let me go!”

  “Are we?” Dante growls. “Are we even, Enzo?”

  “Hey…” He points his chained hands. “You did more to us than we did to you. Yeah, Marty fucked up your girl but you got your revenge and I got mine. It’s done.” His eyes jolt between us as his panic grows. “You don’t want to do this. Killing me will get back to my little brother and you really don’t want that.”

  “Giovani?” Dante recalls.

  Enzo nods repeatedly. “Trust me. He already ain’t happy about what you did to Marty. You kill me, too? Let’s just say running to the ends of the earth won’t be far enough.”

  Dante considers it for a moment. “Good.”

  “You think I’m bad? Or my father? Gio’s a goddamn psychopath.”

  I shrug. “Sounds like we’ll be doing the world a favor, then.”

  Enzo turns away from us and pleads to Archer instead. “Hey—hey, come on! What happened to I don’t kill, eh? You capture, right?! Do something!”

  Archer doesn’t blink. “For you, mate… I’ll make an exception.”

  I raise my foot to Enzo’s chest. “Say goodbye, Enzo.”

  “Wait, you fucking bitch—”

  I kick hard and he falls backward off the dock. Dante bends over to pick up the cement block but he pauses to stare at Enzo as he flaps around in the water like a damn fish. Curses fly from his mouth, barely audible as he struggles to keep his head above water.

  We look each other, neither of us showing a hint of hesitation at what we’re about to do but there’s a tingle on the back of my neck that I can’t ignore.

  I feel Archer’s eyes on me but I resist the urge to turn to him. He already knows who I am and what I do but he’s never seen it like this. If I look at him now, there might be horror or disgust on his face. I don’t want him to see me that way; like the monster Enzo said I was.

  Dante drops the block into the lake. It splashes water onto the dock as it shoots straight down into the muddy abyss.

  Enzo lets out one last scream of agony before the chain goes taut and the weight pulls him down with it.

  Bubbles rush to the surface from below. I watch every single one as they pop. Ripples spread outward to the far ends of the lake until the water finally stills again.

  Lucy steps forward and takes Dante’s hand, entwining their fingers in a show of love and support. This isn’t the first Zappia we’ve killed to keep us safe and it may not be the last. There’s no doubt in the world that Lucy Vaughn won’t be standing beside him for the next one, too.

  Archer Allen, however…

  I force myself to turn around. He stands just over my shoulder, his handsome face blank and cold. Even his blue eyes, usually as bright as stars, seem a little darker.

  “We should talk,” I say.

  Archer says nothing. He follows me down the dock and through the tall grass all the way back to the house.

  ***

  I push open the door to my old bedroom and Archer chuckles as we step inside.

  “I can’t say I imagined you the type for pink wallpaper,” he says.

  “My grandfather did that.” I close the door behind us. “Didn’t have the heart to tell him.”

  He takes a quick walk around and pauses to look out the second-floor window. The sunset bleeds onto his face, highlighting those perfect eyes and that square jawline, and I melt inside. I look to the floor to try and make this easier but my voice still cracks on the way out.

  “Archer,” I swallow, “don’t think that you have to stay—”

  “Lilah…” he smirks, “are you breaking up with me?”

  “I’m giving you a way out.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “Archer, I’m being serious here.”

  “And so am I.” He squints. “Lilah, if you truly want me to leave, then I’ll leave. Just say the word and I’m gone, but I’m here for you, love.”

  My lips twitch. Somehow, I’ve grown to like him calling me that. “Is that all?” I ask.

  He tilts his head slightly. “I’m here for me, too, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Part of me never left that box…” he says. “Just like part of you never left that car.”

  I look away, willing myself not to flash back but the next breath I take reeks of black smoke and burnt hair. My eyes land on the window as the sun inches a little closer to the horizon over the quiet lake.

  “I know a thing or two about darkness,” he continues. “Light is a luxury people like us rarely ever find but I see it and I feel it when I look at you.”

  A lump grows in my throat. “You’re an idiot.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m your idiot,” he smiles, “and that’s good enough for me.”

  “Archer, if you stay here… everyone that’s ever gotten close to me has—”

  “Don’t do that, Lilah,” he says over me. “It’s so cliché.”

  “It’s true,” I argue. “If you go now, you still have a chance.”

  “For what?” He leans against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “A normal life?”

  I look down. “For life, in general. Every day with me is dangerous. I wake up in the morning and I don’t know if it’s the last time I ever will.”

  “Well, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention…” he pushes off and steps towards me, “but my life up until this point has been exactly that.”

  “Archer, that’s—”

  “I used to wake up and wonder if I’d ever find a family. Sixteen years in the system and no one ever wanted me. Then, I’d wake up and wonder if I’d be able to eat that day but I worked hard because that’s what I had to do to survive. For years, I’ve woken up and it’s been all about the job. I was only as good as my next bounty… until I saw you.” His eyes grow softer. “Now, I wake up and my first thought is your face, love. So, if you’re asking if I could live with waking up and wondering if it’s the last time I ever will, then my answer is yes. Waking up next to you on the day I die doesn’t sound all that bad.”

  I bite my lip to try and force the tears away but they fall down my cheeks as he cups my face.

  “I understand, I do,” he says, “but you can’t let what’s happened to Elijah break you.”

  I step back, trying to put some distance between us but he keeps his hold on me. “Elijah was a part of me.”

  “And he always will be. That will never change.”

  “He took care of me,” I say, choking back a sob. “Him and Dante, but… his death is just as likely. Always has been.”

  “All the more reason to let me in.” He guides my head up. “If you ask me, love, you don’t need another man to take care of you. Even without your brothers you’re more than capable of handling yourself. What you need is a man that’ll put up with you.”

  I chuckle, shaking a tear free but he quickly wipes it away with his thumb.

  “Lilah, you’ve spent your life surrounded by rogues and killers,” he says. “You had to be just as fierce as them or else they’d wal
k all over you… or worse.” He shakes his head. “But you don’t have to be like that with me. You can relax and smile. You can close your eyes and trust that when I lay my hands on you, it’s not to hurt you. You can submit to me knowing that I’ll put your body first.”

  I shiver beneath his touch. “Archer…”

  He leans in and kisses me, softly caressing my lips before pressing in hard. It shakes me to the core, lulling me even deeper into his arms and I don’t have the strength to stop it.

  “Lilah…” he whispers, breaking our kiss. He rests his forehead against mine and I gaze back at him, losing myself in the bright blue hue of his irises. “I can’t leave you. I won’t… not unless you ask me to but, even then, you’ll probably have to kill me.”

  I breathe a laugh. “What makes you think I won’t?”

  “Oh, I love it when you talk dirty...”

  He kisses me again. I fall even deeper as his hands travel around my back, holding me against his body. His tongue parts my lips. His fingers crawl beneath my shirt to feel my skin. It’s sweet and gentle; like nothing I’ve ever felt from any man before now. My heart bleeds his name, crying out in splendid torment as my muscles loosen and my lips curl.

  “Let me love you,” he whispers, kissing my neck. He pulls my shirt over my head and leaves quick nibbles along my collarbone as it tumbles to the floor.

  I kiss him harder. Everything twitches, sizzling with a steadily-growing warmth. All I want is to submit to him and close my eyes to forget about the outside world — about everything that led us to this moment. No more blood or killing. No more mobsters or evil organizations ruining our lives. Just him and me.

  I guide us backward to the bed and we lower down onto it, shifting to fit us both on the old, twin-sized mattress. He balances on his side, embracing me as I lie on my back beside him.

  Archer slides his hand down my belly and I melt as his finger slips between the zipper on my jeans. I shift my legs, parting them to let him in. He seduces me with a teasing touch, just barely gliding between my thighs while his mouth continues to work against my neck. I shake as his teeth scratch my earlobe, feeling an intense rush through my veins as desire takes hold of me.

  “Archer…” I breathe.

  “Say it again, love,” he says, smiling against my neck. “Say it while I please you…”