Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
“I know,” I smirk. “It sounds ridiculous. But his job isn’t. He works as a middleman for hitmen and potential clients. I wanted nothing to do with that world, but the choice was clear. Help, or he’d be forced to punish Yasmin. To maintain his sense of respect.”
I grind my teeth from side to side.
“Some respect,” I snap. “Killing an innocent woman and child…a woman whose only crime was being too proud to take money from her brother. Or who felt like she’d taken enough.”
She touches my arm again, the warmth sending a wave of something like calm through me. It’s difficult to pinpoint since I’ve never felt anything like this with any woman. I’ve never even come close.
But I know it brings me something important. The simplicity of her touch makes me realize my future doesn’t have to be as dark as my current profession.
“So I took the deal…four jobs for Mr. Red.”
“Four jobs of killing people?” she murmurs.
I can’t help but look at her now, only quickly, enough to read the confusion and the hurt in her eyes.
“I had a condition,” I tell her, feeling far more need to justify myself with her than I would with anybody else. “The targets had to people who had done evil things, things which warranted their deaths. So I required proof every single time. I wouldn’t go ahead unless I knew they’d done something unforgivable.”
“Unforgivable?” my woman asks, her voice soft.
“I’m not talking about violating parking tickets,” I say, voice grim. “These people have done the worst things to women, children, and people who never deserved it. And when I say the worst things, Freya, I mean it. I don’t regret the other three jobs. I had another condition too. No women. No children. But clearly, Mr. Red decided to ignore that on this last job.”
“Why?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe somebody paid him so much that he didn’t care. Maybe it’s an excuse to go after me. One fewer loose end. I’m not sure, but all that matters right now is keeping you safe.”
“What about Yasmin? Felicia? Won’t…Mr. Red go after them?”
She pauses before saying Mr. Red, as though she’s finding it difficult not to laugh at how strange this entire arrangement is.
“He will,” I say. “At least, he says he’s going to. Yasmin’s on the east coast. I’ve already put steps in place to make sure she’s safe. Right now, Freya, you’re my priority.”
She lets out a long breath, then throws her hands up. “Thanks for explaining all that. At least I know what’s going on now. I still have no clue why, though.”
“Neither do I. Can you think of any reason somebody would want to target you?”
“I honestly can’t,” she says. “I think I should ask Julie, though.”
“I agree,” I reply, nodding. “The fact she called you to warn you.”
“But it can’t be about this,” Freya says. “Julie’s been going through a tough time ever since her dad passed. Understandably so. She’s called me before with stuff like this. It has to be a coincidence. I can’t imagine how Julie would be tied up in something like this.”
“That’s what I thought about Yasmin,” I mutter.
We drive on in silence for a time, through the suburbs, getting closer to her house.
“Thanks, by the way,” she says into the silence.
“For what?”
I can now turn to her since we’re driving slowly through the neighborhood.
She’s looking up at me, her hair across her forehead, a playful smile on her lips. Despite the tightness at the edge of her mouth and her furrowed eyebrows, the smile is there.
“You know.” She laughs quietly. “Not killing me.”
I can’t help but laugh with her. The comment slams into me, highlighting just how crazy this all is.
And yet we’re here, my Freya and me, despite everything.
We’re together, laughing, and close.
Parking down the road from her house, I scan the quiet street, some of the properties shining yellow lights onto the street.
“Freya,” I say, turning to her.
“Yeah?”
“You’re welcome.”
She smiles as I lean down for a kiss. It’s a miracle how we’re able to exist within the darkness without letting it pull us down.
As our lips meet, our mouths open, and our tongues hungrily search for each other – as the passion threatens to make me claim her here, I know we’re going to make it.
We have to.
She whimpers as my hand comes to rest on her leg.
Pausing the kiss, she whispers, “Shouldn’t we go inside?”
I sit back with an effort, balls bulging, manhood solid, my head swirling with all the things we could do instead.
But she’s right. Lives are at stake.
I reach for the door.
CHAPTER
NINE
Freya
My lips are sore as we walk across the street, my mouth begging for another kiss.
Again, that out-of-place feeling touches me as though some force has plucked me from my regular existence and dropped me into somebody else’s life.