It took a special person to fit into this lifestyle. Lucas wouldn’t go as far as describing himself as a cold-blooded bastard but the summary wasn’t that far off the mark. Oh, he could be as charming as the next guy but deep down, Lucas had figured he wasn’t like most guys his age a long time ago. He’d dealt with that and found a career that worked for someone who was missing a good moral compass. Lucas’s inner compass was so out of whack it wasn’t funny anymore.
****
Isabella Karalla had never been more scared in her entire life as she was in that moment. The FBI had said they’d be able to protect her, but she hadn’t believed them then and she didn’t believe them now. She’d spent the last few days in the Arcadia and damn if they hadn’t felt like the longest in her entire life.
She knew that as soon as she’d opened her mouth, her days would be numbered. Nobody spoke out against the Kinas family and expected to live to a ripe old age. Isabella was surprised that she’d managed this long without gaining a set of concrete boots and going out on a late-night swim.
She’d already turned off the television and raided the mini bar. The bill would go to the FBI, so at least she wouldn’t have to worry about that.
A week ago the body of Marcello Kinect had been found, washed up on the banks of the Harlem River, with three bullets in him. There had been two in his head and one in his chest. Isabella had seen it happen and her stomach flipped at the memory. She’d been working as a secretary for Kinas Incorporated for five months. She’d like Marcello; the Italian had always flirted with her about when he’d be able to take her out to dinner, and even if he was as old as her father, Isabella had been tempted to say yes. She hadn’t fancied him but it would have been nice to have shared a conversation over a bottle of wine with a beautiful view.
Anyway, the night that he’d been murdered, Isabella had been sent to the filing room to put some files back and then told she could go home. If she hadn’t had to go back for her handbag, she might have never known the truth about her bosses. Over the last week, she’d wished that she still didn’t know. There was something to be said about living in ignorance.
She pushed the curtain aside and looked out over the Harlem River. At this time of night you couldn’t see the stars, one of the reasons she missed the home she’d grown up in, at least in Sea Cliff, you’d be able to see the faintest of stars.
She looked down into the alleyway and spied the police car that had been parked in the alley, covering the back entrance. She suspected it was mostly there to make sure Isabella didn’t try to escape.
A knock on the front door made her jump. She’d been under strict instructions to not open the door. Isabella picked up the panic button the FBI had left her. Her thumb hovered over the red button. “Who’s there?”
There was a cough, deep and distinctly male. “Excuse me. I seemed to have misplaced my room key. Can I borrow your phone?”
She walked to the door. “Why can’t you go back downstairs?”
A soft chuckle reached her from the other side. “My son’s asleep; I don’t want to risk waking him. I promise I’ll be quick.”
Against her better judgment, she reached out and opened the door. Her eyes went wide at the sight of the barrel of the gun. They went wider when they reached the face of the man holding it. “Lucas?”
****
Lucas had always prided himself on having nerves of steel. He knew how to keep his head in a crisis, especially when people were losing theirs. Not that he’d ever used decapitation; it wasn’t easy to keep a target still long enough to remove a head. Unfortunately this was going to be one of those rare moments that he was going to lose that feeling of detachment.
“Isabella, is that really you?”
She took a few steps away from him and he remembered the gun he was currently holding. He slipped it back into its holster and raised both hands. “I’m sorry if I scared you.” What the hell was he playing at? He should already be halfway down the stairs and out of the building, not having a conversation with the woman he was supposed to be killing.
“Lucas, what are you doing here?”
He noticed the small device in her hand, probably a panic button or something. “Have you pushed that?”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “Not yet.”
Lucas took a few more steps into the main area of the hotel room. “I haven’t seen you in forever. Last time must have been graduation. What are you doing in New York?”
She looked confused and Lucas couldn’t blame her. This wasn’t what was supposed to be happening, but seeing her? It had left him feeling more than a little confused himself. He’d never suffered from a moment’s hesitation when it came to this job. It was why he was considered to be one of the best at what he did. He just never expected to be sent on a job to kill someone he used to know. That was a bit of mind fuck. “You come in here with the intention to kill me and now you want to talk?”
“Would you rather I just shot you and left?”
She shook her head. She still had that stupid device in her hand but if it made her feel safe then Lucas wasn’t going to ask her to drop it. If he wanted to kill her the device wouldn’t bring help in time anyway. One quick shot to the head and dead was dead.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“You can sit down if you want.” Lucas pointed at a chair behind her and Isabella looked at him with wide eyes. “You want to tell me why I’m here to kill you?”
“You mean, you don’t know?”
“I just got instructions to come here. I didn’t have a name or a reason.”
“Nice job you’ve got.” There was no mistaking the sarcasm in her tone and Lucas did his best to ignore it, since he never cared what people thought before. Isabella was different, though. They’d been friends at school, much as Lucas had considered anyone to be his friend. He studied her keenly; she wore a blue summer’s dress, which had small white daisies along the helm. She didn’t wear tights, and her legs looked pale and smooth. Ten pale toes wriggled into the plush dark blue carpet. She looked cute and Lucas suddenly wished that he hadn’t noticed.
“What did you do, Isabella, for someone to call me?” He sat down into one of the chairs; thing felt like it was stuffed with steel instead of duck feathers.
“Why do you want to know?”
Why did he want to know? It was a good question but one he didn’t have an answer for. Did he think that he could fix whatever she’d done? Yeah, he might as well try turning water into wine; he’d have better luck with it.
****
Isabella could barely breathe. She should have kept the door shut, that been one of the rules the FBI had given her, right next to the ‘press the panic button if something bad happens’ one. So, why hadn’t she pressed it? Because the last person she’d expected to point a gun at her was the man actually holding the gun? Lucas had changed a lot, not counting the most obvious one. He’d been a boy, growing into a body that had seemed too big for him. Of course, he’d been quiet but so had Isabella. Her family had just come over from Italy and tensions had been rife. The guys at school had teased her mercilessly until Lucas had stuck up for her.
How times changed.
“I saw my boss kill a man. I planned on running until the FBI tracked me down.” She laughed bitterly. “I knew that as soon as I opened my mouth, I was a dead woman walking.”
“So, why did you talk?”
“Two reasons, they threatened to deport my whole family back to Italy and I liked Marcello. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
She looked down at her hands, long fingers that always seemed to be stained with typewriter ink. She’d always been used to feeling like an outsider, even when she got older. It didn’t matter how much she conformed, she never fitted in. Now she would never get the chance, all because she’d tried to do the right thing.
Isabella glanced at the man sitting opposite her. His dark hair had fallen out of its careful style and locks of it fell in front o
f his face. It made him look vulnerable and uncertain. He had a strong jaw and the first thing she’d noticed, besides the gun, was those startling blue eyes. She could imagine falling towards them and landing on those lips. How was it even vaguely fair that a man could have lips a woman wanted to recreate, full, soft and that you wanted to nibble on?
He quickly got to his feet and Isabella flinched. If he noticed her jump, he didn’t comment on it. He paced in front of her and she didn’t look away from him. If he was going to shoot her, she wanted to see it coming.
“You’re going to need to pack a bag.”
Isabella frowned. “Excuse me?”
He stopped in front of her, grabbed her bare arms and pulled her to her feet. It all happened so quickly that Isabella nearly forgot to breathe. It wasn’t just that though, it was feeling his hands on her. The moves were smooth and to the point but they were punctuated by Isabella’s beating heart. A dark look in Lucas’s eyes made her wondered if he felt it too, or if he could hear her heart. It was beating so loudly that there no way he couldn’t hear it.
“I want you to go into your room and pack a bag. This place isn’t safe. I wouldn’t be surprised if the men in the cars downstairs haven’t had their hands greased by my boss to look the other way. The safest place for you is out of town.”
“You want to help me, why?” Isabella could hardly believe it but judging by the look already on Lucas’s face, he was deadly serious about his decision.
“I owe you.”
****
Lucas never thought about the life he’d left behind, before he’d moved into the main city. Growing in Sea Cliff, which overlooked the Mosquito Cove, had been difficult, especially since he hadn’t been like anyone else his own age. The day Lucas and Isabella had become friends it had been a wet and windy day. A lot like any other day in Sea Cliff..
He’d gotten into a fight with some kids from school. One on one he could have taken them but they’d wanted to fight dirty. They’d found him near the cliffs and Lucas had managed to hold his own until they pushed him off of it. That hadn’t been fun. They hadn’t checked to see if he was alright. They’d run. Lucas had wondered if they’d realized that he’d landed on a ledge and was alright, they would have helped.
Lucas hadn’t been able to get back to the top. He’d yelled out for help when he realized. Hours passed, it got cold and Lucas had ended up shivering on the ledge. Wet and cold, Lucas hadn’t been looking forward to a long night out there. That was when the rope had been thrown down.
“Grab it, I’ll pull you up.”
Those were the first words she spoke to him and they’d ended up becoming friends, as much as Lucas considered anyone to be his friend. Lucas hadn’t been kidding when he said that he owed her one. He’d never thought he get the chance to repay her, until today. It would have consequences, it meant he’d have to play this carefully or he could end up taking a take a long walk off a short pier in concrete boots.
He’d ended up breaking into one of the empty rooms on the same floor. The first thing that they had to do was get out of the building. The FBI knew what Isabella looked like, which meant they had to change that. He collected some clothes that might fit and as he was throwing them on the bed, Isabella walked out of the bathroom. She’d tied up her dark hair into a bun and she was just wearing a pair of white knickers and matching bra. His eyes traveled greedily down her body, until they stopped at her feet. They were going to be a problem; there was no way he’d be able to find men’s shoes that would fit her.
He turned his attention back to the clothes that he’d collected instead of focusing on the fact he was getting harder by the second. Isabella walked towards him, all soft curves and pale skin. Disguising her as a man was one hell of a long shot but it was all they had. The FBI wouldn’t just let her leave, not if they thought that she was the only way to bring down a crime boss.
That was another problem that he needed to add to the growing list.
“Lucas?”
He looked up and into worried brown eyes. Her arms were tightly wrapped around her naked waist, pushing her breasts up and nearly out of the bra she wore. Lucas dragged his gaze away from her and back up to her eyes. A small smile, the only clue that she’d caught him checking her out.
“What is it?”
“I can’t just leave. Don’t get me wrong, I want to but that means they’ll get away with killing Marcello.”
“I’ll sort it out.” Lucas picked up a crisp white shirt and a pair of black trousers. They’d need to be turned up at the ends so they fitted properly. He’d already picked up a belt, so she wouldn’t have to worry about them falling down. Nothing would draw attention more than Isabella’s trousers falling down around her ankles, revealing a butt that couldn’t belong to anyone but a woman. Isabella’s hand on his arm drew his attention back to her.
“How do you plan on doing that?”
In all honestly he wasn’t sure, he’d have more hope of changing water into wine but he’d find away. He’d keep her safe. “Do you trust me?”
****
Well that was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? There was no doubt in her mind that Lucas would have killed her without a second thought if he hadn’t recognized her. Now he was asking if she trusted him. She bit her bottom lip, acutely aware that she was half naked in front of him and instead of the fear she should have been feeling, there was an intense need for him to touch her, to pull her into his arms and tell her that everything would be alright.
She nodded. “I know that I shouldn’t, but yes Lucas, I trust you.”
“Then put these on.” He handed her the shirt and trousers. “Do the agents downstairs check in at any point during the day?”
“Every hour, they call the telephone and I have to give them a phrase, so they know I’m alright.”
She pulled on the clothes as Lucas checked his wristwatch. “It means they’ll be ringing in a few minutes.”
The trousers were miles too big for her but as she was about to comment on it Lucas was in front of her, threading a belt through the hoops. He was so close that she could have breathed him in. He killed people for a living; it seemed strange that of all the people she could have felt safe with; it was with the man who’d been sent to kill her. Without her shoes on, she felt dwarfed by him. He’d always been tall but he’d had a body that he’d needed to grow into. Now everything about him screamed male, powerful and dominant. She closed her eyes as his hands traveled up her arms, leaving goose bumps in their wake. They ended up resting on her shoulders.
“Open your eyes, Isabella.”
She followed his instruction, letting her eyes follow the line of his body up until she met his dark, unreadable eyes. He lowered his head slightly. Was he going to kiss her? The thought made her heart race. The situation had changed so dramatically but she couldn’t deny that she wanted to feel his lips on hers. The hired killer and the target, it would be tragic if she didn’t want him so much. She needed to forget all of it. She needed to forget the fact that as soon as she left this building, she might as well have a huge target sign strapped to her back.
He never took his eyes off her as he lowered his head, brushing his lips against hers. The sound of the phone ringing broke the fragile silence and Lucas stepped away from her. It had barely been a kiss but her lips burnt from the intensity of it.
She took a deep breath, trying to stop the racing pace of her heart. The agents downstairs would suspect something was wrong if she answered the phone out of breath. She picked up the handset. “Hello?”
“Is everything alright up there?” It was the voice of the older man with the team downstairs.
“Yes, thank you. I don’t need any room service at the moment.” She put the phone back down. She was putting a lot of faith that Lucas wouldn’t get her killed, but she only had two options, stay in the hotel room and wait for death to come and get her or leave with the man she’d know a lifetime ago. ..
The man who’d just kisse
d her.
She plucked the shirt out from his fingers, not meeting his eyes since she had no clue to what she’d see in them. Her hands were shaking, making it hard to do up the white buttons on the shirt. “What’s your plan? You have one, right?”
“The first step is getting you out of here without the protection detail noticing. From there, we have to get you to the train station. You need to vanish, Isabella.” He said it with a certainty that frightened her a little. She didn’t have any family to worry about, not anymore, but the thought of leaving everything behind was scary.
It’s either this or a bullet in the brain, Isabella, which one would you prefer?
“How do I do that?”
Lucas smiled and Isabella looked down at her feet again, her cheeks going hot. The way her body reacted to him was insane; she’d never felt such a deep-seated attraction before. She’d had a crush on him when they’d been younger but she’d been one of many girls who had been interested in the silent loner. “I’ve got a little bit of money that you can have,” he said.
“I wish I knew why you were helping me. Aren’t you going to get into trouble for letting me leave?”
Lucas took steps towards her, lifting her chin with his fingertips. “I told you, I owe you and don’t worry about any trouble I might be in. I can handle it. I just want you to be safe.”
****
Kissing her hadn’t been part of the plan but for the first time in his life, Lucas wasn’t following a plan. He’d diverted so far from the original plan, which at least had been simple, to a place where he couldn’t find the original plan even if he had a compass and a really good map.
The phone might have interrupted them, but in reality it had been a blessing. If the phone hadn’t rung there would be no telling where the kiss could have led to. Where he’d wanted to it go.
Her Type of Guy Page 4