I forced myself to stay on track. “What about my sister? Were you supposed to kill her, too?”
“No. Not her. He wants her back.”
I froze. “Why?”
“He thinks you’ve led her astray. Pulled her from the family.”
I barked laughter. “You have got to be kidding me. I’m the one who led her astray? That man doesn’t even know the meaning of family—not a family outside of whatever criminal venture he’s up to next, anyway. That’s his family to him, the people who are working with him. Or at least they’re family for as long as he wants them to be. Once he’s got what he wants from them, he doesn’t give a shit. And as for him caring about his real family—maybe you should ask him what happened to his wife!”
My anger had gotten the better of me. I was aware that I’d just ranted to the same man who’d already told me he wanted to see me dead. I didn’t know why I thought he would give a shit, but just in that moment, it felt good to talk. I hadn’t been able to speak to anyone properly for months, always watching what I said, whether that was with strangers or my own sister. But this stranger knew the truth of my life, so it didn’t matter.
I was wanted dead by the most powerful mobster in the country. Trouble was, he was also my father.
“Hey,” he said, almost amiably, and I had the feeling he’d have put his hands up in defense had they not been strapped to his thighs. “Don’t shoot the messenger.” And then, in my astonished face, he laughed at his own joke.
I scowled. “You’re not even remotely funny.”
“I’m aware of that, but what’s that saying about being in a position where you have to either laugh or cry? Considering my current situation, I’m not about to sit in front of you and start bawling like a baby.”
“We’ll see about that. If you don’t tell me what I need to know, I might just do things to you that will make you want to cry.”
His head tilted slightly to one side, and I noted the square jut of his jaw, and his long lean throat. “I wasn’t aware I’d been holding out on you.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t trust anyone. I remember.”
I had the sudden unnerving feeling that he was flirting with me. That wasn’t good. I needed him to take me seriously. Did he always use the cute half smile and the come-to-bed blue eyes as a way of getting what he wanted? I didn’t know anything about him, but I figured he probably did. I wasn’t going to let him think he could get away with it.
Rising from the chair, I rounded it to stand in front of him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I gave a smile that moved my lips but that I didn’t allow to touch my eyes, and then I reached down and took hold of the piece of tape holding the thigh wound together.
“This,” I said, as I gave the end of the tape a yank, tearing it from both the wound and the skin of his thigh. I’d torn away a good chunk of hair from his well-muscled thigh, and the wound opened up again, specs of bright red gleaming from around the darker blood which had dried and crusted to start to heal.
“Fuck!” he yelled, then clenched his teeth against the pain, rearing back and stamping his feet down on the ground. He repeated that several times, and for a moment I thought he was going to tip the chair over. Would he pass out again? But no, he seemed very much awake and now he glared at me with anger and hatred in his eyes. That was better.
I figured he’d take me seriously now.
Chapter Ten
X
THE PAIN FELT like she’d stabbed me all over again.
White hot agony burst through me, causing me to rock in the seat and stamp my feet against the floor to try to stop myself from going insane. The movement acted as an outlet to the pain instead of screaming like a little girl.
I came to a standstill and pressed my forearms best I could against the wound which had already started to bleed. My mind swam, but I clutched onto consciousness, determined not to black out again. I wasn’t going to let her think I was weak, even though she had gotten the better of me once. I didn’t intend to let there be a second time, though my current situation of being strapped to a chair didn’t exactly put me in the best of positions. I wasn’t in my job for no good reason, though, and unless she lifted that gun and put a bullet in my head, I knew I would be able to figure a way out of this situation. She wanted information from me, and as long as I looked like I was playing ball, while still holding enough back for her to need to keep me alive, I would stay alert for any possibilities.
The blinding pain gradually dulled to a throb, which felt like it pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat.
I looked up at the woman responsible for my torture. She stood, her hip jutted out to the side as she stared at me with cold calculation and just a little spark of, what—satisfaction?—in her eyes.
Crazy bitch, yet I couldn’t help but admire what she’d done. She’d noticed me getting smart and so reset my attention to her. It hurt like a motherfucker, but she’d done the right thing. I knew because I would have done exactly the same.
I wanted to take her down, just like I’d been paid to do, but the longer I spent in her time, the more she intrigued me. Part of me felt as though I was sitting here watching a female version of myself—a female version with a mouth that looked like it was designed purely with kissing in mind, and a body straight out of a Victoria’s Secret catalog. Tall and slender, but with curves in all the right places, combined with the silky black hair and the tattoos, made me struggle to think about anything other than how she would feel under my tongue, and how tight she would be when I pushed myself inside her.
A tingling rush tightened my balls and blood flooded to my dick, causing it to stiffen. I made myself focus on my situation rather than the hot curves and sexy mouth of the woman before me.
It seemed my cock wanted to be the one in charge at the moment, and I was a little concerned that would end up getting me killed.
“If the other men weren’t with you,” she said, continuing where she’d left off, “tell me who they worked for, and what they were doing here.”
“I already told you,” I replied through gritted teeth. “I don’t know.”
“You must have some idea. Be inventive.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “You want me to make something up?”
“I want you to use your knowledge of the situation to make a sensible guess.”
I thought for a moment, and then spoke. “My best guess is an enemy of your father is out for revenge.”
Her dark eyes widened in surprise. “Revenge? Killing me wouldn’t be revenge. After all, he sent you here to do the same thing. Wouldn’t that be them helping him out?”
“For you, yes, but not for your sister.”
She visibly stiffened at the mention of her sibling. Interesting. Her sister might be her one weakness. I didn’t know how I could use this to my advantage, but I would certainly try if the opportunity arose.
“How would they use my sister?” she asked.
“Your father still loves your sister, right? He blames you for all of this. So I’d say his enemies might take a certain pleasure in using your sister in whatever way they wanted.”
I realized I’d just told her who had sent me, though I figured she’d worked it out pretty quickly anyway.
She went pale beneath her caramel skin. “She’s seventeen!”
“You really think that would make a difference?”
Her face became a taut mask of rage. “Don’t you dare talk about her like that.”
“You think me not talking about it is going to make any difference to what they would want to do to her?”
She stalked toward me and I actually found myself rearing away from her, a trickle of unease filtering through my veins. Unease was a foreign emotion to me—emotion in general was foreign to me—and I didn’t like the way it felt.
Her hand shot out and she clutched the wound in my forearm, squeezing hard, digging in her nails. A fresh burst of pain expl
oded through me, and I yanked myself away as best I could.
“Don’t ever mention that again, do you hear me?” she spat. “I don’t talk about things like that!”
I knew I was pushing my luck, but for some reason I couldn’t seem to help myself. “What about the thing that put you here in the first place? Do you ever talk about that?”
She stared at me again. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I told you. My name is X.”
“Since when did a goddamn hit man know so much about his target’s past? Aren’t you supposed to just be shown a photograph and given a time and place, and that’s it? Clean. No connections. In and out.”
“I told you. I like to know who I’m dealing with.”
There was an element of truth in what I’d said, but the whole truth was that I’d been sent her photograph, name, and location, and the moment my eyes met with her image, I’d been fascinated. My heart had quite literally skipped, my breath catching in my throat. The camera had caught her unexpectedly, so she was partly looking over her shoulder, her dark eyes locking with the lens. There hadn’t been so much as a hint of a smile on her lips—if anything, I’d sensed the start of a scowl on her features. I’d reached out and traced the scrolls of tattoos down her arm—the shaded roses and skulls that made up the sleeve. From that moment, I’d done everything I could to learn about her, including the reason behind why she’d gone into Witness Protection, and why her father wanted her dead. Perhaps I should have said no and let this job pass, but if I did, someone else would be sent to kill her. For some reason the thought of that was even worse than the idea of killing her myself. Perhaps it was that her death would have been certain if I’d refused the job.
I might not have been able to stop another person, but I was always able to stop myself.
The realization jerked through me. Was that the reason I’d accepted this job, so I could make sure she didn’t die? I had never killed a woman before, and it had been my hard limit, but I’d been told of who she’d killed, and I knew she wasn’t any more innocent than some of the men I’d executed. Besides, there were some people it just wasn’t a good idea to say no to.
She’d stayed in my thoughts, penetrated my head, this picture of a woman I’d never even met, and was supposed to kill.
And had been planning to. I still planned to, I thought, if my hand was forced.
But now it seemed like such a waste, to snuff out a light that burned so fiercely.
Not that I was in a position to kill her right now even if I wanted to.
“Listen to me,” I said. “I’m worried about the two dead men over there.”
She gave me a look that made me think she was concerned I’d had too big a knock to the head and said, “They’re dead.”
“I’m aware of that. I mean I’m worried that whoever sent them is going to expect to hear from them sometime soon. If they don’t, they’re going to know something is wrong and send someone else in after them.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You think?”
“Yes, I think. Have you searched the bodies? I doubt they’d have anything on them to identify them, but they might have cell phones.”
I was taking a risk by mentioning this. Even though she’d taken the gun from me, she hadn’t actually searched me yet, and was unaware of the cell phone in my own back pocket. Miraculously, it hadn’t fallen from my pocket when I’d tumbled down the stairs. I was supposed to have used it to take a photograph of Verity after I’d killed her—proven to her father she was dead via a picture of her with a bullet hole in her forehead—but obviously that hadn’t happened yet. The other two men weren’t the only ones who would soon be getting messages questioning what was happening.
“We don’t get any coverage down here,” she replied.
“So if someone has been trying to get hold of them, they’d know something was off.”
Her lips pressed together, her nostrils flaring.
I continued. “What about strange vehicles parked close by? They must have traveled here in something. They wouldn’t use a cab, and wouldn’t have parked too nearby, so I’d look at least a couple of blocks from here.”
“You’re just trying to get me out of the house.”
“I’m not, I swear.”
“So why help me, if you were sent here to kill me anyway?”
“Because if the friends of those guys turn up here, I’m as good as dead as well.”
She exhaled a sigh, standing there with her hands on her hips, looking between me and the pile under the dust sheet.
A sudden bell chimed through the house, slightly distant as we were in the cellar. Vee straightened and turned toward the stairs. It rang again, insistent.
“Shit,” she swore.
“Are you going to get it?”
It rang again, and then again.
“If you are,” I continued, “be careful.” I flicked my eyes toward the pile of bodies.
“They’re hardly likely to ring the bell,” she said, and I knew she was talking about whoever might be following up on the location of those two.
“Just be careful.”
“Since when do you give a shit about my safety?”
She gave a small growl, and the sound did strange things to my groin, and then she bent and snatched up the roll of tape from the floor and tore off a length with her teeth. With two quick strides, she closed the gap between us, and then she leaned in and slapped it across my mouth. She was so close, the scent of her shower gel washed over me, and the swell of her cleavage was tantalizingly near. If I hadn’t had a piece of tape strapped across my mouth, I’d have been able to lean down and lick her.
The doorbell rang again, and she stepped away.
I watched her ass move in her jeans as she turned and hurried up the stairs, shutting the door to the cellar and the following click as she locked the door behind her.
Chapter Eleven
V
I DIDN’T LIKE leaving X alone in the cellar.
I’d left the wound in his leg uncovered, and hoped he didn’t lose too much blood while I was dealing with my visitor. I didn’t want him to lose consciousness again, not only because I wanted answers from him, but also because I found myself enjoying being able to speak with him. I knew I shouldn’t trust him, but I liked that I was able to bounce ideas off him, and that he was giving me advice, though I knew I shouldn’t trust a word that came out of his mouth.
Strangely, I got a sense of protection from him, as though he actually cared about what happened to me.
Was I crazy?
Yes, I must have been losing my mind. He was a hit man sent here to kill me. The only thing he cared about was seeing my corpse—he’d even admitted it himself. He wasn’t only a hit man, he was a sick-as-fuck hit man.
I’d hoped whoever was at the door would have given up and left by now, but, as I approached, I could see the shape of a man blurred by the textured glass panel in the door. My car was parked out front, so they must have assumed I was still in.
I knew the visitor’s identity from the color of the uniform he wore.
Taking a breath and plastering a smile on my face, I opened the door.
“Deputy Kier,” I said. “Dropping in on us again?”
The young deputy didn’t even smile. “It’s part of my job, Viola. Are you going to let me in?”
I hated that he insisted on using my new name. It didn’t feel like it belonged to me at all.
I stepped back from the open door. “Sure.”
Glancing down, I noticed a smear of blood on my fingers where I’d grabbed X’s stab wound. I shoved the hand into my pocket, my heart pounding. He was bound to ask questions if he noticed the blood.
Heat flooded my cheeks, so to cover my panic, and because I wanted to get my hand under the faucet, I said, “Coffee?”
I mentally kicked myself.
The last thing I wanted to do right now was offer him coffee. I didn’t like offering cops coffee at the best of times, bu
t right now I had two dead bodies and an assassin tied up in my cellar, and it was setting me on edge. I hoped he’d say no and just leave, but instead he shrugged.
“Why not.”
I went into the kitchen and he followed. I tried not to look toward the shut cellar door, but yet my eyes kept being drawn toward it, and my ears strained for any sound that might give the game away. My eyes locked on the set of shelving built into the wall beside the cellar door, and the top shelf where I’d stashed the guns. From where I stood I could see the butt of one of the weapons, and my already pounding heart went into overdrive. I’d done my best to clear up the blood, but I knew he’d see the stain if he looked hard enough. To hide my fluster, I put my head down and almost broke into a run to get into the kitchen, hoping he’d follow without noticing.
He did.
“Is Nicolette at school?” he asked, taking a seat at a stool at the breakfast counter, though I hadn’t asked him to sit down. He was good-looking, in a clean-cut kind of way that just screamed cop. I didn’t miss the way his eyes flicked over my body when he thought I wasn’t looking. He might be a law enforcement officer, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t also a man. I was used to being looked at in such a way, but for some reason it made me more uncomfortable with him than any other guy. I guessed I knew how to deal with other men—I could threaten to cut off their balls if they pissed me off too much—but I could hardly do that with him.
I turned on the faucet and acted as though I was filling up the coffee machine, while I scrubbed the blood off my fingertips.
“Where else would she be, Deputy Kier?”
“You can call me, Leon, Viola. I think we’ve known each other long enough for you to use my first name now.”
“That’s okay. I’ll stick with Deputy.”
I remembered someone had leaked our location, and a cold shiver ran through me.
Was he the one responsible?
The Choice She Made Page 5
