An Assassin's Deception

by A. K. Koonce

  It wasn’t likely I’d find anything the police hadn’t already spotted in their search of the girl’s room, but it was worth a shot. We don’t get paid until we locate Allison, and my bank account was already crying form the lack of funds. This girl, and her parents’ money, are now my number one priority.

  We find the correct building, head inside, and take the elevator to the third floor. Being in an inclosed room for less than sixty seconds with someone you’re attracted too is a strange, strange thing. It’s like your sex drive is competing with your logical mind about how you should act behind a temporarily closed door.

  Luckily the shining metal doors open, tramping down my rising dirty thoughts in an instant and making me face the real world again. Jameson’s warm gaze lands on me as he waits for me to exit first.

  “Damn, this brings back the memories.” The goofy grin on Jameson’s face has me lifting my eyebrows as we head down the hallway.

  “An ugly dorm hallway brings back the memories?”

  “Yeah. Of college, you know? If you’ve seen one dorm room, you’ve pretty much seen them all.”

  “Wait, you went to college?” I try to remember back to the file I’d read on Jameson before we’d officially met. I knew he’d received a full ride to college, but I also knew he’d disappeared not long afterward. I wasn’t sure he’d ever attended. The rest was a black hole of nothingness until he’d resurfaced as part of the League.

  “Football scholarship to Southern Rochester University.” He says it proudly, and I wonder what the hell could have happened in his life to make him abandon something he clearly loves.

  He looks like a jock. He would have fit perfectly here. This place would have been his kingdom, I can see it clearly.

  “So what happened?”

  His expression slams closed and he pulls his arm from around my shoulders. I’ve never seen Jameson grow cold before, but his warmth suddenly chills.

  I want to dig into the meat of the story I’m dying to learn about, but he points to a number on one of the light wooden dorm room doors.

  “318. What’s your plan?” he asks, matter of factly changing the subject.

  I raise an eyebrow but pull a lock pick from my pocket.

  “Her roommate has biology right now. The room should be empty.” Another perk to working with a genius hacker. Mason is getting all the praise today.

  The lock gives way easily beneath my working hands and we slip inside. We’re quiet while we sweep the small room; we each take a side.

  Allison’s room is neat and tidy and there isn’t anything interesting in any of her drawers other than a bright pink vibrator and some skimpy underwear. Typical college girl it seems. There’s nothing under her bed or mattress. I even went as far as to check the vents above her twin bed.

  Nothing.

  I shuffle through her desk only finding notes and homework, and the laptop she owns is password protected. I try a few basic guesses but it isn't doing the trick. I wish I had Mason’s skills. He would be able to crack the code and get into her personal documents. If my search doesn’t turn up anything useful, I’ll have to take the computer with me and let Mase work his magic.

  A stack of textbooks and a large notebook sit on the bookshelf over the desk. Grabbing the notebook, I flip through copious notes. Scribbles of lectures scrawl over the pale blue lines of every page. Shaded drawings twirl off to the side of the important notes.

  Fuck. I pause on a recent set dated less than two weeks earlier. Doodled in the margins is a slashing, curving symbol that I’m intimately familiar with. The Mark of the Hunter.

  I grab the notebook and turn toward Jameson.

  I find him standing by the single window, the light falling across his features. The muscles in his defined jawline are clenched as he stares down on the campus. His eyes are far away, and I wish I knew what he was thinking about. It’s the first time I realize how much depth there is to my jokester. And how little we actually know about each other despite how close we’ve become.

  He's as good at closing himself off as I am.

  “Found something.” I break the silence and watch him shift toward the sound of my voice. His face clears as he saunters closer, shaking off whatever dark thoughts he was obviously drowning in mere moments ago.

  I don’t say anything further as I hold out the notebook, but there's a curious look that crosses his face as he sees the same familiar mark I had.

  “Shit. This just got deeper than we planned.” He scrubs a hand down his face, clearly letting the stress he’s battling take over.

  The subtle decline in his mood pulls at his shoulders and it hurts to watch him like this.

  “Hey.” I reach for him, my hand rubbing up and down the defined veins of his arm but he won’t meet my eyes. “It’s going to be ok.” And I don’t just mean the case. Whatever it is he’s struggling with, I want to share the burden. Because even though we have a ton to learn about each other, I find that I want to know all there is about him. He’s someone I want to invest in. I feel one of my carefully placed walls crumble.

  The impact of how much I care about him hits hard within my chest.

  Abruptly, I close the notebook and head out of the room, making my way to the main door before he can see the vulnerability that was just exposed. I don’t do this. I don’t get close to people. The only person in recent history I let close was Armond, and that ended in a cluster fuck and his death.

  And let's not even mention my bestie Nala… who I also killed.

  My track record with relationships is not the best.

  Still, there’s a longing in me that wants to truly know my assassins. Each one of them. And that scares the shit out of me.

  I feel him looking at me. His attention is louder than the pounding of my heart right now. I hate that it scares me. All I tried to do was comfort him and it almost gave me a fucking panic attack.

  We’re both lost in our own thoughts as we leave the campus. I check the time. Tylin isn’t due back home until this evening, and we have a couple hours to kill.

  I cross the street and head downtown. Jameson doesn’t ask where we’re going, but he trails after me like my shadow. When I reach the store I want, I dart inside and start browsing the racks of clothing. Petite mannequins display pretty sweaters and soft leggings and I eye each of them as I pass through the quiet department store. I drift around, touching fabrics and price tags here and there. Jameson follows.

  The random change of scenery melts away my anxious thoughts and his pensive mood. Slowly a smirk tilts his sexy mouth as he snatches a slinky, basically see-through lingerie set from a nearby rack.

  “Here you go, Lex. I think it will bring out your… eyes.” He winks at me and I roll my eyes at him, trying and failing to hold back a laugh.

  As if he knows the color of my eyes.

  “You’re a horndog. Is sex all you ever think about?”

  Pot meet Kettle, Kettle meet Pot.

  I try and fail not to smile at how alike we secretly are.

  He steps closer. “Can you blame me? I sleep next to the sexiest woman every night.” His gaze searches mine with deep intensity.

  I step back from him, his sexy lingerie, and his sweet words. I shuffle through another aisle of clothing, plucking some basic pieces from their hangers to try on as I discreetly check the price tags and look for things on sale or on clearance. Confusion clouds my judgement as I listen to his flirting attempts. I understand it’s part of his personality and I know how Jameson is with me and the guys, but I don’t truly know anything about his life outside of that teasing demeanor. Jameson likes to keep me close, but he’s never shared anything of worth with me about his past. Not that I have, either.

  “What’s that look for, princess?” A crooked grin rests easily on his lips, but he sobers quickly when he takes in the look that mars my face. “What’s wrong? I thought we were back to normal.”

  I shake my head and move a few paces in front of him as I mindlessly scour the
clothing.

  “What do you think of this?” I hold up a sexy top and try to change the subject. His brows raise just slightly and I know I assaulted him with mental images just as I had hoped.

  It doesn’t work for long though.

  “Don’t deflect, Lex.”

  “What, like you do?” I snark at him. “Look, I get it. If you don’t want to let me into your life, I’m not going to force it.” I shrug and try to build the wall around my heart back up, brick by cracked brick. I mean, I get it. I’m not Mrs. Open-Book myself, but at least I’ve been vulnerable around him. I’ve only gotten the tiniest glimpses of the deeper man I know Jameson is underneath the veneer he wears for the world.

  The slash of my eyebrows must be deepening, because Jameson is suddenly at my side, his big frame looming over me. I slide some hangers around, using the movement as a distraction. One large hand wraps around mine, staying my motion.

  His skin against mine is an awakening feeling that spreads all through me. I can't ignore that sensation no matter how awful I feel right now.

  “Seriously, Lex. What the hell? We were having fun a minute ago, weren’t we? Why do you look like I just killed your cat?”

  “I don’t have a cat,” I say sarcastically, but he doesn’t bite at my attempted humor.

  “So you’re going to ignore that you totally withdrew from me just now?” He crosses his arms, and the sexy underwear still clasped in his hand distracts me momentarily.

  “You completely withdrew at the dorm room, so we’re even.” My arms cross over my chest, and I know that I probably look like a petty toddler, but fuck it. If he wants to know how I feel, then here it is.

  A hand comes up to run against his smooth jaw, and for a moment, he looks as pensive as Tylin. It’s rare to see Jameson in serious mode, but the glimpses I get into the man behind the humor are the moments I find myself growing closer to Jameson. I love his easygoing personality, and there’s no denying we’ve become great friends, but I know there’s a depth to Jameson and all I want is to see it.

  I see him. If he lets me.

  The thought cuts through me like a cold wind, leaving me breathless in its wake. I… care. Like really care. It’s been so long since I let myself invest in someone the way I have with my four assassins. I’m not even sure if they realize it, but the more time we spend together, the more they break down my defenses. Things are… different… with them. It’s a shitty adjective, but it’s all I have.

  Jameson’s pale gaze bores into mine, and I see the very moment he breaks. His shoulders deflate, as if he just let go of the tension that was keeping his spine so rigid.

  “Fair enough,” he relents. “I was struggling at the dorm because I miss never getting to finish college, and the reasons behind that… they’re not pretty.”

  “What happened?” I step closer, my clothing search forgotten. The hard panes of his chest brush just slightly against mine and I want to lean into him. Wrap my arms around him and never let go.

  “My scholarship was the best thing that ever happened to me. I finally got to leave home and live on my own. The only thing I wanted my entire childhood was to move out from under my father’s roof. He’s a rich son of a bitch. A real piece of work.” His jaw flexes once again, and I see that he’s battling a storm of emotions. I reach for him, squeezing his bicep encouragingly. He’s been carrying this burden around for so long, and I want to help him shoulder it. “He used to beat my mother. Nearly every night, I fell asleep to her cries. But she’d never leave. I spent my entire childhood trying to shield my sister from his anger, always scared that one of us would be next. We were lucky that he never laid a finger on us. I got cocky and confident and when I got that scholarship, I didn’t even think twice about accepting it and moving out. I left her. I left my sister alone with that man and as soon as I was gone, my father turned his sadistic rage on her. I got a call one night, just before the end of my first semester at SRU.”

  He swallows, and grits his teeth together.

  “He hurt her.” It’s not a hard guess, but I say it anyway.

  Jameson nods. “She called me. She was beaten so badly that by the time I’d gotten there, she’d lost a shit ton of blood. She was so pretty. Angelic. It was hard to see her face so swollen. She didn’t even look like herself. I got her to the hospital and swore neither of us would ever set foot back into his house. I couldn’t take my sister back to my dorm room because he’d know where she was. The school would never allow it. She was still a minor. He had complete control over us and he knew it. So we ran with nothing but the clothing on our back and the money I had in my pocket. It wasn’t long after that when Armond recruited us.”

  “Your sister’s in the League?” The breath rushes out of me as I think about the implications of that knowledge. We need to get her the fuck out of there.

  He smirks then, trying to shake off the ghosts of his past. “No. She left before I did actually. She works independently now with another small group of ex-Leaguers.”

  “How many of us are there?” I gape. I had no idea there were other ex-League members out there. Was this rebellion we were involved in bigger than just our group? And if it wasn’t… could it be? I needed to talk to Tylin.

  “You did the right thing. You saved her.” The words leave me on the quietest breath.

  He scoffs at me. “None of that would have happened if I hadn’t of walked away. If I hadn’t been a selfish asshole.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for the actions of your father. You were kid. You didn’t know what would happen. You hold no responsibility in what happened to your sister. Or your mother.” I move closer, and he opens his arms as I step into him. That tingling feeling inside me blooms the moment his hard body is against mine. He holds me like I’m precious, and my heart breaks for all the pain he’s experienced. We all have our own demons that we battle, and I hope that letting me in helps him let go of the guilt he carries.

  “I’ll never let anyone hurt you, Lex,” he murmurs into my hair.

  My heartbeat quickens, warming me all the way through just from that simple promise.

  I swear I fall in love with him a little more in that moment.

  Six

  Past and Present

  Moonlight pales the room into colors of white and gray and the only sound is Mason’s steady fingers tapping rapidly over the keyboard. I’m tired from the emotionally draining morning.

  I came home with too many spent emotions and a small bag of new clothes. Tylin took the information we found today and is looking into the League’s involvement in our case. Right now, we’re all decompressing. Tylin and Jameson sit at my side on the couch, staring at the television like it’s not the third time they’ve watched Guardians of the Galaxy this week. At this point I think they’re more attracted to Chris Pratt than I am.

  Not likely but…

  A short span of silence cuts through the constant tapping of keys and I can’t help but peer back at Mase once more. Bright light reflects off of his black frame glasses. I like when he wears his glasses. He should ditch his contacts and wear his sexy frames all the time. His left hand scribbles against a piece of printer paper and then he’s right back at the keyboard.

  I know he’s working. I know I should let him work.

  And yet, I’m standing even as I chastise myself. Jameson’s palm skims down my arm as I pass, but he barely looks up at me as a rumbling laugh shakes over his lips from something that was said by the trash panda on the TV.

  The swift clicking sound dwindles down the closer and closer I walk to his little desk in the corner. And then it stops altogether. Dark eyes look up at me with curious attention.

  “Hey,” I whisper.

  “Hey.” A half smirk tilts his lips as he waits for me to get to the point.

  But there isn’t one. Not at all. I just… was drawn over here simply because of the determined look in his eyes while he was working. I wanted nothing more than to bother him just because of the way he made my
heart stutter from looking at him.

  What is wrong with me?

  The computer light washes out his warm coloring and I tilt my head down to try to read the endless text on the screen.

  “What are you working on?” I lean against the tiny desk and the cheap plastic gives a crying cracking sound the moment my weight settles. I pull away instantly.

  Okay.

  My arms fold awkwardly as I stand with stiffened posture.

  A breath of laughter leaves his lips. I love the quiet rumble of his laughter. His hand sneaks around my wrist just before he pulls me down onto his lap.

  I settle my back against his chest as he swivels us to face the computer. He feels good. The abundance of sex we’ve had lately is an obvious indication that Mason feels incredibly good. But aside from that connection, he just feels safe.

  Strong but gentle.

  “I was just checking the cameras in Crystalline. Trying to pry further into their company files and see what they’re not showing us on the surface. I’m also keeping an eye out for any connection to the League they may have, but so far there either isn't any or they're very good concealing the connection.”

  My lips part but it takes more than a moment for me to find the words.

  “You’re working into their files?”

  “Yeah. For running a rising business, they’re not the most precautious company in town. I’ve seen daycares with better data security than this.”

  My brows lift high and my gaze flickers over the mile long essay of notes he’s compiled on the League, Club Crystalline, and Allison Meeks. Her picture is stapled to the top left corner with a short list of facts next to it. My hair shifts along my shoulders when I look back at him, his eyes meet mine before drifting down slowly to my lips.

  “What?” he asks.

  Warm skin meets palm as my fingers slip into his.

  “You’re so smart, Mase.” It’s a quiet statement that sounds so pathetic. I knew he was smart, I’ve just never seen him completely in his element like this.