Assassin's Prey (Assassins Book 3)

by Ella Sheridan

  No, he couldn’t be. Those shoulders and hair fit the man I’d seen on the mansion’s doorstep. Redding was in my family’s home; he was no do-gooder. This was our mastermind, and he was here. Tonight.

  “Levi?”

  “Hmm?”

  I couldn’t focus on anything but the sudden need to find Redding and slit his throat…until Abby’s hand settled on the bare skin of my wrist. Her touch eased the bloodlust running through my veins. I met her eyes.

  “Remember why we’re here,” she said quietly.

  She was right; I knew that. I’d learned long ago not to go off half-cocked. Still… Maybe it was the realization that Redding must be in charge, maybe it was the direct connection to my father, I wasn’t sure; I only knew this felt different. It felt…primal, inescapable, this need to protect what was mine.

  But I couldn’t give in.

  A deep breath helped steady me as I absorbed the strength I needed through Abby’s touch, her look, the total belief in me that shone in her eyes. Another lungful in, out, and I dredged up a measure of calm. We both knew that somewhere, walking around this room, was our enemy, but that wasn’t our battle, not yet. “Ready.”

  She held on to me a moment longer, then slid her hand down to entwine our fingers. “Good. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Everywhere we turned, there were diamonds and tuxes, champagne and caviar. Guests who hadn’t blinked an eye at ten thousand a plate. And Abby seemed to know them all. She chatted effortlessly and smiled genuinely while I swept the room in constant search of our enemy. I should have been searching for a petite whirlwind that hit with the force of a hurricane.

  “Abby!”

  A tiny bundle of purple fabric swept into my woman’s arms. My entire body went tight, my first instinct to pull the Kimber 9 mm from its spot at the small of my back to ward off the potential threat. Only Abby’s hand landing on my arm, her soft touch reassuring me, stopped the movement.

  “Charlotte!” She eased the woman back. One look at her face and I knew: this Charlotte mattered to her. Aside from Geneva, the older woman Abby visited who’d known her mother, this was the first person who’d come into Abby’s life that she’d even mentioned, much less cared for.

  I didn’t like the green haze that filtered across my vision at the thought.

  “Is this him?” Charlotte asked, dark gaze sweeping from my head to my feet and back again. “This is him.”

  The slight purr in her voice had my eyes narrowing.

  Abby laughed. “It is.” Snuggling closer to my side, she said, “Charlotte, this is the infamous Levi Agozi. Levi, my friend Charlotte Alexander.”

  I reached automatically for her hand, busy cataloging everything about her. Eli would be processing intel as soon as he heard her full name. I wanted everything, every detail. Any threat to Abby—

  Delicate fingers slipped against my palm. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Levi.” Charlotte dipped her head closer to Abby, her gaze still trained on me. “He’s a bit fierce, isn’t he?”

  You have no idea.

  I startled when the same words escaped Abby’s mouth. The stares I’d received all night had barely registered beyond a vague impression of attention, but this woman knew Abby, had talked to her about me. What details had they shared? Had Abby told her what we did together? Who I really was?

  No, Abby wouldn’t reveal something so crucial to my safety and hers. But something in Charlotte’s stare, the way she looked over my body, said she knew other things.

  I dropped her hand, shifting uncomfortably, though I wasn’t sure why.

  The woman had a rich, throaty laugh that made you want to join in despite the fact that you weren’t in on the joke. “I do believe that’s a blush, isn’t it?”

  Abby winked my way. “I do believe it is.”

  For fuck’s sake. Could we go back a few hours to when Abby had no close female friends?

  And was I really that bastard, the one who didn’t want her to be happy? The lightness in Abby’s eyes right now, so different from when she’d looked to me earlier, worried about Redding, should have made me happy, not jealous.

  For fuck’s sake is right.

  “Charlotte, it’s a pleasure to meet a friend of Abby’s. Thank you”—I tugged at my bow tie, cleared my throat—“for the tux.”

  The woman eyed me sympathetically now. “My father hates them too, but you’re welcome. Anything for Abby.”

  Abby glanced up at me. “Charlotte and I knew each other back when…” Her smile faltered. “You know, way back when.”

  When she’d still been under her father’s thumb.

  “Thankfully both of us are in much better places now,” Abby said.

  “Places where we aren’t bound by the dog-eat-dog rich girls’ code and can actually choose friends of our own.” Charlotte’s soft voice rang with relief.

  “Where’s your fiancé?” Abby asked. “Is he here tonight? I was hoping to meet him finally.”

  Charlotte’s smile hinted at strain. “He couldn’t make it, I’m afraid. Business in DC.”

  “Of course.”

  Something in Abby’s voice told me there was a story there, not that I should want to hear it. Abby concerned me, not other people. But there was something about the petite dynamo that had me wondering.

  The women continued to talk, moving from the charities involved tonight to upcoming events to people they knew from years past. I listened, watched, and waited as the evening wore on, finding that the different parts of me clawed at each other—the assassin, the lover, the brother, all at war, all wanting control. They all coalesced when I caught sight of Warren Redding entering the ballroom when we walked in to dinner.

  Abby saw him too; her arm, looped inside mine, went tight, and her step hitched.

  “No worries, little bird.” I wouldn’t let there be, not for her. Worrying, and fixing that worry, those were my responsibilities.

  “We’re over here,” Charlotte said, leading the way. Oblivious to the byplay following in her wake.

  I slid my arm from Abby’s and flattened my palm at the small of her back, letting my touch in such a sensitive place warm her as I guided her toward our seats at a table near the front. I had just settled her into a chair when Redding appeared in front of us.

  Satisfaction blossomed in my chest at the red, angry flush suffusing his face.

  Charlotte, seeming to sense the tension gathering around her, glanced at the man. “Good evening, Warren.”

  “Redding, correct?” With one hand on Abby’s shoulder, anchoring her, I reached the other across the table toward Redding.

  He ignored the gesture, his mouth tight, expression ugly—a bulldog ready to fight.

  “You don’t want to cause a scene, now do you?” I murmured and pointedly glanced at my hand. I was in control here, and he needed to realize that up front.

  The man reached out a thick paw and grasped mine. A crushing grip. I stared into his eyes and let him see exactly how little he could hurt me. Then returned the favor.

  His wince was barely perceptible, but it brought a smile to my face. “It’s a pleasure to meet one of my father’s oldest friends,” I finally said.

  Redding extricated his hand from my grip. “Let’s not play games, Agozi.”

  I glanced around the room. Charlotte stood just on the other side of Abby, silent, dark eyes watchful, her hand on a seat back. The chairs immediately on either side of us were empty, but not for long. There were already eyes watching our exchange with interest, just as Abby’s friend was.

  “Society is a game, isn’t it?” I said. A front to cover up who you really were. Not that different from the life I’d lived, I suddenly realized. “Reality doesn’t surface till the masks come off.”

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “Why do you think?” I tilted my head, let my gaze wander down his tight tux and back up. Taking his measure. Finding him wanting. “It’s recently come to my attention tha
t my father‘s estate is in the wrong hands. I’ll be taking it back.” I scanned the room glittering with wealth and power. “And everything that goes with it.”

  Redding’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been gone a long time, son. Walking back in, picking up where your father and uncle left off—that’s not going to be as easy as you think.”

  Son. That one word was like a struck match, sending my anger into a bonfire of rage. I leaned across the table, getting close. Keeping the words just between us. “I think you’re the one who needs to be careful, Redding. You think that army you’ve hired can keep you safe? You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  Redding’s gaze dropped to Abby, trembling beneath my hand. “I know exactly who I’m dealing with.” His dark eyes speared me. “A man like you can’t afford to have weaknesses, can he?” He arched the brow. “Think about that very carefully, Agozi. I’ll be in touch.”

  With a sketchy bow in Abby’s direction, Redding turned to stride from the ballroom.

  “Levi?”

  Charlotte’s voice was uncertain. When I glanced her way, her hand was on Abby’s shoulder. Supporting her. Ready to have her back. That one small gesture warmed me to her in a way nothing else could.

  “It’s all right,” I assured her. And Abby. “Nothing to worry about tonight.”

  The couple next to me arrived to take their seats. I sat as well, took Abby’s hand in my lap, letting my heat against her side steady her. But all the while, my gaze was on the door to the ballroom, the last place I had seen my enemy. The last glimpse I’d had of the man who wanted to destroy me and everyone around me. I knew it now, right down to the foundation of my soul—Redding was the one. He’d started this.

  And he planned to finish it, no matter what obstacles I threw in his way.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Abby dug her fork tines into a dry triangle of chocolate cake while the series of ass-kissing speeches went on. I’d lost track of who was talking a half hour ago following the speech where Sister Margaret honored several of the St. Mary’s residents who had achieved remarkable goals after being, literally, at rock bottom. Graduating from college. Starting their own business. Buying a house for their small children. Abby had watched, tears in her eyes, and I knew the stories reminded her of her mother and all that she’d achieved. And all she’d ultimately lost.

  Now I eased forward until my chest cushioned Abby’s back where she sat sideways in her chair, and tugged her fork away from its owner-inflicted cake massacre. My tongue had protested halfway through the rubbery chicken, so my cake sat untouched in the middle of the table. I dipped my head until my lips barely brushed Abby’s shoulder. “I think it’s dead; no need to torture the poor thing,” I murmured.

  She turned just enough to rub our cheeks together. “You would know. I’ll defer to your expertise.”

  I managed to keep my snort between us. “Right. This expert says we should pick up some edible dinner on the way home. How could this possibly be ten-thousand-a-plate food?”

  “It doesn’t matter how much you pay, the food is always the same.”

  She’d had enough experience with these events to know. Thank fuck we managed to escape not long after the speeches finally petered out. It was late, but I made a call and, minutes later, swung by Miguel’s. When I returned to the car, I was carrying two large sacks of steaming hot, fragrant Mexican food.

  Abby stared at the bags liked I’d scavenged pots of gold. “How did you manage that?” she asked, eyeing the closed sign prominently displayed on the door.

  I focused on the road. “Miguel and I go way back.” Even farther than she and Charlotte did.

  I didn’t tell her we’d run the streets together as teens. When Miguel ended up on the wrong side of a gang after sleeping with their leader’s sister, I’d taken care of the situation. When you wake up from a sound sleep with a knife against your balls, you’ll promise anything—and Mr. Tough Guy had.

  Now when I dropped by, Miguel refused to let me pay. I glanced at Abby, grinning at the anticipation lighting her eyes. “You’ll never have better fajitas than this, I promise you.”

  Abby agreed with her first bite of the perfectly spiced steak as we sat around the table with my brothers back at the safe house, plates full of food in front of each of us.

  “Better than the foie-whatever and champagne you had at the dinner?” Eli asked.

  “God, yes,” Abby moaned around a mouthful. “You can’t imagine how many of those god-awful plates I’ve had through the years. This is better by miles.”

  When our bellies were full, we took our beers into the living room. Much as I’d rather focus on the soft weight of Abby curled against my side, I knew there was too much to discuss tonight. “What have you found, E?”

  “You saw the whitewashed bio I sent, right?” he asked, referring to Redding, then shook his head, knowing the question was unnecessary. “I don’t know a lot for certain—Hacr Tech deals in advanced technological concepts, including government research contracts, so information isn’t easy to come by.”

  “Not yet,” Remi pointed out. And he was right; give Eli enough time and he could hack anything, no matter how much security was involved.

  Eli rolled his eyes, his duh silent but obvious. “Redding is CEO of Hacr. I’m assuming that’s how he got involved with Chadwick; they’d have worked together once the trust went under Chadwick’s control.”

  “So he’s a scientist?” Abby asked.

  “He’s a politician. He’s the decision maker at Hacr, so he’d have his finger in all the pies there.”

  “And Chadwick has majority control of the company shares because of the trust,” Remi added. “Between the two of them, that’s pretty much unbreakable control of the company.”

  “And a shit ton of money,” Eli said. “Hacr has grown exponentially in the past twenty years since Redding was appointed.”

  “Are they working on anything that would warrant murder?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. Plenty.” Eli crossed the room to a desk in the corner and riffled through some papers. “Over the years the teams at Hacr have garnered dozens of patents, published research in all the most prestigious journals—”

  “Wouldn’t Redding’s position as CEO gain him a fortune of his own?” Abby asked.

  “Of course.” Apparently finding what he was looking for, Eli brought a stack of sheets to me. “I’ll know more tomorrow about which projects are currently viable, but if rumor is right, this”—he pointed at the papers—“might be the reason Redding has gotten trigger-happy.”

  I glanced over the models and graphs with bleary eyes. “What is it?”

  Eli humphed. I gave him a tired glare, Abby’s yawn beside me punctuating my point.

  Sitting on the coffee table, Eli picked up his beer. “It’s a completely secure, completely unhackable system for super-sensitive communication.”

  “Bullshit.” I flipped a couple of pages. “Nothing is completely hack-proof.”

  “This is. Or would be.”

  I set the papers on the table. “Give me the Cliff Notes version. Please.”

  “It’s a concept called quantum entanglement communication.”

  From the looks on Abby’s and Remi’s faces, they didn’t understand Eli’s words any more than I did.

  “The most basic explanation is that you have two photons that are created together, like twins. Two halves of a whole. What happens to one, happens to the other, no matter how far apart the photons are geographically.”

  “Like telepathic communication, except with particles?” Remi asked.

  “I’d need to be a scientist to know how it works, douchebag.”

  Remi grunted.

  “Anyway, you have a line of these particles in one location, and the photons’ ‘twins,’ for lack of a better term, in a different location, in the exact same order. Like a computer, you can alter the particles so they each turn ‘on’ or ‘off’—”

  “Ones and zeros,” I put
in.

  “Yeah, it reads as ones and zeros. When you turn one on or off, its twin responds too.”

  “And you can send a message without being in the same location or connecting the groups by wires or computers or anything else?”

  Eli nodded. “Exactly. There’s nothing to hack. You have to have the corresponding photons to read the message.”

  I still wasn’t certain I understood it, but Eli seemed to, and that was all I needed. The implications, however…

  “Every government in the world would be scrambling to acquire a system like that,” Remi said.

  Eli nodded. “And every criminal organization.”

  “They’ve actually done this?” I asked. “They’re not just in the theoretical stages?”

  “Unknown,” Eli said. “The idea has been around in theory for decades. Their team of scientists has published several papers on the subject in the past few years, but recently there’s been some rumors in the security community that Hacr is on the verge of a breakthrough.”

  “They’d basically be printing money,” I said. No wonder this wasn’t just about the trust. Nineteen years of investments and interest on my parents’ already substantial fortune would set someone up for life, probably more than one someones. But this… Anyone in control of such a significant development could become the most important person in the world.

  This wasn’t just about money. It was about power. Control.

  Christ.

  Abby yawned again, shifting beside me, her breast pressing against my arm. When I glanced at the clock, I realized it was well past midnight. “We need to hit the sack.” We weren’t going to figure this all out tonight. It would have to wait till tomorrow.

  Abby threw me a grateful glance as she stood and stretched. “I want out of this dress,” she said.

  Eli and Remi choked, their laughter reviving Abby’s sass. She flipped them the bird.

  Honestly, I knew how she felt. It was time for this straitjacket of an outfit to come off. And with the added benefit of watching Abby strip, I had zero compunction about leaving my brothers to clean up our dinner.