I lie back down in the tiny space that he’s so generously left me jammed into the wall. My stomach starts to turn and my mouth goes dry. More from nerves than the line of shots that I did last night. What is going to happen when he wakes up? Are we supposed to kiss? Or have sex again? Is he just going to leave? Will he expect to use my toothbrush?
I’ve never done this before and the drunken sexpot who was here last night with him has gone with the darkness. I reach for my phone to google ‘how to act in the morning after a one-night stand,’ when I wake him up.
“Huh?” he says, rubbing his eyes.
Oh, crap.
Suddenly I feel very naked. I hold the blankets up to my neck and pretend like I’m sleeping. He sits up and I sneak a peek at his toned back. He’s so hot.
“Hey,” he grunts, looking at me over his shoulder. “Do you have a class list or something?”
“What?” I ask. Is he talking in his sleep because he’s not making any sense?
“I’m looking for someone,” he says. “My cousin. I wanted to surprise her yesterday but I couldn’t find her.”
“What’s her name?” I ask, wondering how long he’s going to stay. Am I going to have to get out of the bed naked? Because there’s a lot of light in the room.
He runs his hands through his dark messed up hair. “Sara Price.”
My body goes cold and rigid as my breath catches in my throat. I pull the sheets up higher and tuck my hands into them so he won’t see them shaking. My heart is racing faster than it did last night.
Why did he just say my name?
I’m trapped beside the wall. He’s between me and the door. Not like my trembling legs would work right now anyways, but still.
“Never heard of her,” I say with a gulp. “Can I get you something before you leave?”
“Hit it and quit it eh?” He chuckles. “You’re already a pro at this.”
“Well, I am a fast learner.”
He stands up, letting the blankets fall away from his athletic body. My stomach feels rock hard as I watch his nice ass walk across my dorm room while he gathers his clothes. What could he possibly want with me? He’s definitely no cousin of mine. I’d go to way more family events if he was.
I remember all of the missed calls from my father that I ignored and feel a tinge of panic. Maybe this has something to do with them.
He turns as he steps into his underwear and despite all of the warning signs and danger ringing in my head, I stop to admire his cock. It hangs down low on the inside of his thigh and it boggles my mind that it fit inside me.
He slips on his jeans and retrieves his belt from my nightstand. My face reddens when I remember what he did with it last night. I can still feel the leather against my ass.
“I’m going to take off,” he says, his delicious arms flexing as he snakes his belt through the loops of his jeans. “I’ll let you get to your class.” He picks up a notebook off my night table and reads, “Advanced Legal Writing for American Practice.” He scrunches up his nose like he just smelled a moist hockey bag. “Yuck.”
I shrug. My insides are screaming at him to leave.
He grins as he opens the notebook with two hands. “What’s your real name Candy?”
I lunge for the notebook, not caring that it exposes my breasts. I’m too late. The notebook slips out of his open fingers and lands on the floor with a thud. He’s staring at me with unbelieving eyes.
“No,” he mutters as he races towards my purse on the chair. He rips out my wallet and I jump out of bed and get dressed in last night’s clothes as quickly as I can while he leafs through my ID cards.
He turns around showing me my driver’s license. “No class for you today Miss Price.”
I throw my notebook at him, missing him by two miles, and sprint to the door. He catches me in his strong arms and spins me around, positioning himself between me and the door. Even with my life in danger, I still take note of his biceps touching my bra-less breasts.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispers in my ear. Being held like this is both scary and strangely arousing. I’m strongly aware of his bare chest touching my body. “I work for your dad. I’m here to help you.”
I relax my body so he puts me down and steps back, keeping his large frame in front of the door.
One thing that my dad did teach me was that a good defense was a strong offense.
I strike him with my fist and it lands with a smack on his nose. He crumples back in shock and I release a flurry of fists and kicks at his hard body.
Two years of Tae Bo bitch!
I picture his face as the punching bag at the gym and let loose in a combination that would make Billy Blanks proud.
I step in for an uppercut when he grabs my fist and squeezes. I drop to my knees screaming in agony. My hand feels like it’s trapped in a vice.
“Fuck,” he hisses as he touches his nostril. His finger comes away with dark red blood smeared on the tip. “What the fuck was that?”
He lets go of my hand and I cradle it to my belly, both shocked and horrified that someone can have that much power and strength.
“I told you that I work for your dad,” he says, looking up his nose in the small mirror over the key hook. “I’m trying to bring you home.”
I push up to my feet, shaking out my crushed hand and rush back to my purse. I grab my cell. “Let me call him.”
His eyes go wide. “No,” he says, shaking his head.
I take a step back towards the window. I’m four floors up but I’ll jump out if I have to.
“I’ll bring you to him,” he says with his voice wavering. Somethings up. This guy isn’t giving me the whole story and I’m not up to hearing his bullshit version.
“I’ll just call him,” I say casually as I quickly dial the number.
“Sara,” he warns, looking at me sternly. I raise my thumb from the screen but the call goes through. We can both hear the phone ringing on the other line.
He lunges for my cell and I land a kick right between his legs. He drops to his knees and I rush past him and rip the door open.
I scream as I bump into the chest of a Japanese man standing in the door frame. He grabs my wrist as tight as a bear trap and looks from my face to the picture in his hand of me at my high school graduation. “Sara Price?” he asks in a thick Japanese accent.
“Ichiro.” A scratchy voice says from behind me. It’s Colton. He’s staring at the man holding me with murder in his dark brown eyes. “Let her go. She’s coming with me.”
The Japanese man lets go of my wrist, reaches behind his back and pulls out a gun made of gold. I thrust my knee into his groin and he stumbles into my dorm room as I escape down the hallway. I’m running down the cold tile barefoot as I put the phone to my ear.
“Dad!” I yell.
“Sara,” his deep voice answers. “What was that noise? Who are you with?”
“What the fuck is going on?” I scream. I’m the one asking the fucking questions. “Who were those guys?”
“Sara,” he says, trying to speak calmly. “There are some bad people after you. I sent a guy named Ichiro to protect you. He’s Japanese. Go with him.”
I explode out the door into the stairwell. I jump down the steps three at a time as I scream at my dad.
“That’s the guy who you sent to protect me? He has a gun! He’s killing my friend!”
“What?” he yells back. “What the fuck happened?”
“Two guys broke into my apartment, both claiming to work for you and started fighting.” I burst out the emergency exit door and into the street. The sun is shining and the pavement is warm under my bare feet. I run down the sidewalk towards the University where there will be crowds of people that I can get lost in.
“What were their names?” he asks.
“Ichiro and Colton.”
My dad breathes in hard. I lean on a tree, taking a second to catch my breath when I hear something break on my dad’s end.
I can
tell that he’s taken the phone away from his ear but I can still hear the screaming. “Fucking cocksucking piece of shit! I’m going to fucking kill that traitorous Colton fuck!”
I take a deep breath and push forward, racing across the grass courtyard of the University. Students are watching me curiously as they head to their morning classes. I just keep running onto the sidewalk and off the campus. The safest thing for me now is to get lost in the crowd of morning commuters.
“Sara,” he says coming back on the line. I stop and lean on a parking meter to catch my breath and to check my heel. I stepped on something that cut my foot. “Do not, I repeat, do not go with Colton. Go with Ichiro. He’ll bring you back to me.”
“I don’t want to go back to-”
Someone rips the phone from my ear. “You,” I whisper, finishing my sentence as I turn around. There are six men looking at me with villainous intentions.
“Sara Price,” the beefy bald man in front says. He reaches forward and I spot a shitty prison tattoo of two crossed hammers on his forearm. The logo of the Russian Crime Syndicate: The Bratva or Russian Brotherhood. My dad’s enemies.
Crap.
A man to my side wraps a black bag over my head in a flash and my feet are yanked off the sidewalk.
And today was going to be such a good day…
seven
Colton
I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.
It was inevitable. There has been so much tension between me and Ichiro over the years that it was bound to finish in an old fashioned duel.
I want to relish the moment and take my time but Sara is on the loose and I have to go find her before she disappears for good. Unfortunately, I have to make this quick.
Ichiro pushes up to his feet, cupping his sore balls with his hand. He glances down at the golden gun lying in the gray desert of carpet between us.
“I’ll let you go now,” Ichiro says, straightening his faded blue baseball cap. “You go to the boss and say sorry.”
I’m not about to fall for that. I’ll get a bullet through my occipital lobe as I walk through the door. I’ve worked with him before. I know his style.
“How stupid do you think I am?” I ask, rolling my shoulders forward and shaking out my hands.
“Very stupid,” he answers. “So stupid.”
“I didn’t mean literally,” I say with a grimace. “Why don’t you go shoot up another daycare you psycho? I’m completing this job.”
He glances at the broken condom on the floor. “I wonder what the boss will say when I tell him that you boinked his daughter.”
“Boinked?” I ask with a chuckle. “Did you just say bo-”
He lunges at me as quick as a snake’s strike and I barely have time to react. He crashes into me like a skinny linebacker sending my body flying into the wall with a thud.
Fucking Ninja Assassin.
Ichiro turns and dives on the gun. I grab his heel and yank him back. His fingertips graze the handle as I pull him back out of reach.
He spins on the floor and attacks, landing a kick to my jaw that jerks my head back and leaves white sparks in my vision like it’s the fourth of July.
I leap forward with a flying roundhouse and land it with a crack on his cheek. I’m not sure what hit harder: my fist or the back of his head slamming into the floor afterward.
It’s on.
We both forget the gun and attack each other so fiercely that it would make Bruce Lee shit his pants.
I use my brute force and American street fighting skills to attack his traditional Kung Fu. I take more shots than him but I can hit harder.
Ichiro lands a side kick to my chest with a grunt and the air is forced out of my lungs. It doesn’t stop me. I grab the little man in a bear hug, pick him up and slam him into the roommate’s desk. The cheap Ikea table shatters into shards of fake wood as Ichiro’s body rips through it like we’re in a WWE wrestling match.
He grabs a piece of broken wood as I jump on him. He smashes it against my temple as my fingers close around his throat. I squeeze. Hard.
“What’s the matter?” I ask through grunts.
His mouth is wide open looking for air that it doesn’t get. His face is turning an icy blue.
“Forgot your Samurai sword? Ninja Ass.”
Nope.
He didn’t.
A searing pain cuts into my ribcage. “Fuck!” I scream as my hands release his neck and instinctively go to the pain. I tumble off him backward feeling the wet spot on my side. My hand is covered in blood.
My blood. Not good.
Ichiro gets up holding a bloody pocketknife. It’s the first time that I’ve seen him smile. Ever.
It’s not pretty. He looks like a lizard.
He points the dripping red knife at me and glares. “You are no hitman,” he says, his voice coming out like an angry hiss. “You lack discipline, integrity, and honor.”
“I lack integrity and honor?” I say, chuckling despite the burning pain from my stab wound. “You kill kids for a living.”
He shakes his head. “I remove targets,” he says coldly. “Men, women, children. It makes no difference. They are not people. They are targets. That is the way a hitman must think.”
“That is the way a psychopath thinks.”
I keep my eyes on him but scan the room through my peripheries. I’m in a bad spot. Injured, bleeding and on my ass while he is standing over me with a knife in his hand.
“A hitman must have no morals,” he explains. “You must be willing to kill anything, anytime.” The corner of his lips curl up into a smile. “Even pregnant women carrying the child of your coworker.”
A sudden coldness grips my core.
No.
“I have to admit she put up more of a fight than you,” he says, stepping towards me with the knife by his side.
My fingers close around a flimsy piece of wood from the desk and the tops of my fingers brush against steel cold underneath. I toss the wood to the side and grab the handle of Ichiro’s gun.
I point it at his forehead.
He freezes.
“You killed Olivia?” I ask the words coming out in shaky stammers and stutters.
He glares down at me and shakes his head. “I removed a target. My employer wanted the target eliminated. I eliminated it.”
“It?” I ask squeezing the gun so hard that my knuckles burn. “Your target was going to be my wife. She had my baby growing inside her belly.”
Adrenaline is pumping into my veins like a fire hose. There aren’t enough bullets to put through this dead man’s brain.
“Which one of the Russians gave the order?” I ask. Ichiro was working for the Russian Bratva at the time. I have so many questions for him but by the way my index finger keeps stroking the trigger of the gun pointed at his face I don’t think he’ll be alive long enough to give me all the answers.
“I never reveal my employer’s names,” he says through a tight jaw.
“Well there’s a first for everything,” I say, lowering the gun to his leg. I pull the trigger and the gun recoils in my hand with a deafening pop. I hear a scream from the hallway over the ringing in my ears.
The bullet tears through Ichiro’s thigh and he stumbles backward, gripping the wall for support. He grimaces in pain as blood pours down his cheap beige slacks.
“You see that’s the first time that I put a bullet through your body,” I say, rising to my feet. I keep the gun aimed at his head. “And unless you want another one you’re going to tell me who gave you the order to kill my fiancee and my kid!”
The door opens and a chubby security guard looks at us. He runs away with a look of terror on his fleshy face.
I shouldn’t have turned. Ichiro throws the knife that was still in his hand and it sinks into my bicep. He leaps forward and slams his two palms into my chest and I fall over cracking the back of my head on the nightstand.
I aim the gun forward, seeing nothing but darkness, and fire three t
imes. I hear the window shatter and when my vision returns the room is empty.
I run to the broken window and see Ichiro limping down the road four floors down. He shoves a guy off his bicycle, gets on it and escapes, leaving spatters of blood on the pavement.
Fucking Ninja Assassin.
I wince as I touch the handle of his pocket knife sticking out of my bicep like an enemy flag on conquered territory. I take a deep breath, hold it and yank out the blade. Blood pours out of the fresh wound, cut across the forehead of my skull tattoo.
God damn Ichiro. He fucked up my tattoo.
I open a drawer of Sara’s dresser and grab the first piece of clothing that I can. I wrap the yellow tank top around my arm and tie it tight using my teeth and other hand.
I have to leave. Fast.
There’s a pounding in my ears from what Ichiro just admitted. He killed Olivia. I’m going to rip his heart out of his chest for that but it’s going to have to come later.
That security guard will be back with some more firepower. And I have to find that girl if I expect to survive another meeting with Carmen.
I tuck Ichiro’s golden gun into the waistband of my pants, slip on my t-shirt from last night and head for the door when a phone rings. My stomach hardens as my body goes cold.
I know that ringtone.
I take a deep breath and slowly walk to the pile of broken desk. Ichiro’s cell phone is buzzing on the wood. My breath catches in my throat when I see the name on the blood-spattered screen.
Carmen Price.
I pick up the phone and slide my finger across the screen, smearing a drop of blood while I answer it.
“Hello,” I say, trying to give my best Japanese accent. It needs some work.
“Ichiro,” the unmistakable voice of Carmen barks. “Have you found my daughter?”
“Not yet,” I say, flinching at my bad accent.
He exhales hard into the phone. “Find her Ichiro. Soon. The Bratva are closing in.”
There’s a long pause before Carmen speaks again. “Ichiro,” he says, his voice sounding tight and strained. “You have a new target after you find her.”
The Hitman's Baby: A Standalone Bad Boy Romance Novel Page 5
