by RC Boldt
I glare at the bastard who betrayed my husband. The man who murdered my family and nearly succeeded in killing me. Aiming for his forehead, I grind out the words from between clenched teeth, disgust flooding me at the mere sight of him. “It’s over for you, Cash.”
Before I pull the trigger, with more speed than I’d expect from someone who’s been shot in the neck, he fires, each bullet savagely striking me as he empties the clip. As my vest absorbs the impact, the force has my body slamming back against the shelving and I teeter, my vision growing hazy from the pain before I shuffle around the corner and take cover.
Sirens sound in the distance, and I hear him utter a harsh expletive before he yells out, “You’re fucking dead, you hear me?!” Then his heavy footsteps retreat in the other direction as he heads to the exit.
Huh. The sirens sent him running? I wonder if maybe there are some good cops at the precinct after all. Perhaps Warren’s not the only one.
With a shaky hand, I reach for the Velcro strap of my vest and tug to release the snug fit. Fuck! I let my emotions take hold of me and lost my focus, and now I’m in trouble. As soon as I allow for some slack in my vest, I use my hand to reach inside along my chest, needing physical evidence that none of the bullets pierced it. The only bad hit is the one to the top of my shoulder, but I should be able to patch myself up at home. Knowing I need to get out of here fast, I refasten the Velcro and bite back a whimper at the agony that courses through me at even the most subtle of movements.
I can’t be discovered surrounded by dozens of dead bodies. Dammit, I have to get out of here.
Drawing on my last reserves of strength, I run to the side window I know I can climb through. It’ll be a bitch to hoist myself up since it sits just shy of six feet up and every movement of my injured body already has me nearly blacking out. Luckily, the window faces the small alley separating the shop from the next building, and it’s darker outside since I’ve shot out all the nearby security lights.
Hurriedly, I flip the locks on the window, but shoving the damn thing up takes more effort than anticipated.
“Motherfucker!” I hiss. “Fucking open, goddammit!”
Once I finally slide it open enough to eke through, I pull myself up, the sound of the sirens growing closer pushes me to move faster, and I have to bite back a whimper when I jostle my shoulder after dragging myself through. I need to get my ass out of here now. Each second I’m here increases the likelihood that I’ll be intercepted by police.
I drop down, rolling with the impact like I was trained to do, and every movement causes pain to lance through me so sharply I have to breathe through the nausea. Shooting up to my feet, I dart away, the cold air serving as a much-needed shock to spur me into action. Rushing through the next alleyway, I don’t allow myself to relax until I’ve made it back to the house and secured myself inside.
Patching up a bullet wound on your own shoulder is fucking ridiculous. Even though it was a clean shot, it still did a number on me. It doesn’t look pretty, but I’m thankful it didn’t nick any arteries. My main concern is any repercussions from the impact of the bullets hitting my vest. I’m certain my ribs are bruised, so I need to stay alert for signs of internal injuries as a result of the hits I took to the chest.
Staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I wince at the sight I’m faced with, but I don’t have the energy to do much more than remove my green contact lenses. I’ll remove the liquid latex and makeup and change my bloody shirt later. For now, I need to address the wound on my shoulder.
Using scissors to snip at the shirt’s neck line, I watch until the fabric gives way enough to allow me to clean and bandage my shoulder as securely as I can with one hand. A small part of me yearns to ask for Doc’s help, but I can’t. It’s too risky, especially now that Hunter’s on my tail.
I head into the kitchen and toss back a few ibuprofen before gingerly lowering myself into the chair at the small dining room table. My weapons are laid out before me to be cleaned. I need to repair the damn firing pin spring on the gun that jammed earlier, but luckily, it’s a relatively easy fix.
Once I’ve tackled that task and cleaned everything, ensuring my guns are lubricated accordingly, I slump back in my chair as a thick blanket of exhaustion settles over me. Dragging in a shallow breath, I wince as even the slightest rise and fall of my chest jostles my sore ribs and injured shoulder. Searing pain still radiates, and the pills barely took the edge off, but I can’t afford to take anything stronger and not remain semi-aware of my surroundings.
I need to load more ammunition into the clips and reload my guns, but weariness plagues me. Willing the fatigue and pain to subside, I tell myself I’ll just close my eyes momentarily before I regroup.
38
Hunter
“I think it’s time to pay Warren another visit.” I stare down at my notes before pushing back the chair and rising.
Everything I’ve come up with is leading me in a direction that confuses the hell out of me. Logic screams I’m completely off base, but my gut instinct is telling me that I’m right on track. Regardless, I know I need to follow through on it.
Warren might have some insight to offer about the Ashford woman that isn’t found in a police file. That means I need to head to the precinct since he’s still on duty.
Minutes later, just as I near the precinct parking lot, the radio clipped to a patrolman walking to his cruiser suddenly bursts with chatter.
“Code ten-ninety-six at Bullard’s Gun & Pawn shop…”
The hairs on my arms stand on end at the mention of gunfire at the pawn shop, serving as a glaring indicator that I need to head there and take a look. See what I can glean from observation alone.
Kingsman Street sits a few blocks away from the pawn shop with only one working streetlight at the far end of the street. Striding along the darkened sidewalk, the flickers of moonlight peeking out from the shifting clouds, I pick up movement in my periphery between the run-down homes.
I can’t believe my fucking eyes.
Dressed in all black, tall, and lanky—he fits the description from the other witnesses. I follow carefully as we travel a few more blocks and watch as the suspect staggers up to a small, quaint-looking house that looks like it belongs to someone’s grandmother.
When the suspect glances around, reaching out a hand to steady himself before stumbling inside, I know I’ve hit a goddamn goldmine. Alone and wounded aren’t a good mix. For him.
I smirk as I spin around, breaking into a fast run back home to get my gear.
For me, it’ll be fucking nirvana.
39
Kate
I’m jarred awake by a brutally hard slap across my face. My entire body jerks in response, triggering such excruciating pain that it robs me of all breath.
“Ah, so nice of you to join me.”
Fighting through the haze of pain, I will the foggy sensation in my brain to subside just as I recognize two things, one far more terrifying than the other.
One, I recognize that voice, and two, I’m strapped to the chair I’d been sitting in with zip ties securing my arms and legs. He hasn’t granted me any mercy with the bindings; my arms are pulled so taut, the position causes pain from my injured shoulder and ribs to batter away at me mercilessly.
Once I lift my gaze, I barely restrain a cringe at the way he looks at me. He impales me with his menacing glare as fury spills off him in thick, oppressing waves.
“Who’re you working for?”
It takes me a moment to register his question. “What?” What the hell is he talking about? Who am I working for?
“You heard me.” His steely tone grates on me like someone’s taken the coarsest grade of sandpaper to my wounded flesh. “Who hired you to take out the Dixie Mafia?”
Practically gritting out the words, I war against my sluggish brain. “Nobody hired me, asshole.”
He backhands me across the face, and the jarring movement has me crying out in pain. I’m bom
barded by a sudden metallic taste and the subsequent sensation of wetness dripping from my lip.
“Who are you working for?” he bellows.
Clinching me with its sharp talons, rage fully takes hold, and I explode, even though the noise sends shooting pain through my skull. “I don’t work for anyone!”
He clenches his jaw tight, eyes narrowing as he gets in my face, lips curling in a sneer. “You’re a goddamn liar! You fucked me thinking, what? That you’ve got a goddamn golden pussy so good I’d ignore what you’re doing around here?”
Instinctively, I tug at my restraints, overwhelmed with the urge to attack, but the searing pain at the movements pummels me.
Fixing a glare on him, I fight back against the nausea threatening to overtake me and grit out, “Fuck. You.”
40
Hunter
“Why’d you come looking for me in that bar?” My words are harsh and cold.
I want answers. Now.
I should’ve fucking known better. I should’ve expected this to happen, to be betrayed like last time. Goddamn her for making me feel something toward a woman for the first time in years.
And it’s all at my expense.
She scowls at me. “I already told you.” Then from between clenched teeth as if she’s fighting against pain, she adds, “I’ve never done anything like that.”
Leaning in closer, my gaze flinty, my tone lethal, I curl my hands into tight fists. “You knew who I was, didn’t you? That’s why you came looking for me.”
Her eyes drop to my fisted hands, and she stiffens as if preparing for the hits. And I should. I should fucking beat the truth out of her. Yet something holds me back; the idea of doing that has bile rising in the back of my throat. My brain wars with that fucking organ in my goddamn chest that urges me to take care of her and see to her injuries.
“I didn’t know who you were until that morning.” Her breathing is ragged, as though each syllable and each breath are agonizing to produce. “Not until I saw the file on your desk.” Her eyes close, features marred with pain.
I want so badly to believe her, but it all seems like too much of a coincidence.
Cinching her chin in a punishing hold, I force her to look at me. Each of my words is clipped and demanding. “Who. Do. You. Work. For?”
Despair and defeat co-mingle in her voice. “I don’t work for anyone.”
I don’t say a word because I can’t believe her lies. I’ve let my feelings for her overrun every rule I’ve lived by.
Her chest heaves, and her eyes grow a bit unfocused, but she still manages to bite out, “They killed my family.”
I stare at her while her words linger between us, and her breaths grow even more ragged when she adds, “My daughter—they shot her. Right in front of me.”
She’s either a damn good actress or… Fuck. I don’t know what the hell to think right now.
Tears spill down her cheeks, trickling off her jaw. “Those bastards who did it need to die, Hunter. Every. One. Of. Them.” She pinches her eyes closed before she whispers, “I didn’t know who you were until the file. The one with my name on it.”
Rooted to the spot, I can’t tear my eyes off her. What the fuck? Her head slumps forward as her body goes limp.
“They killed my family.”
Her words, ones that sounded like they were ripped from somewhere deep inside her, echo in my mind. But it’s what she said a moment ago that sends ripples of shock reverberating through me.
“I didn’t know who you were until the file. The one with my name on it.”
The only goddamn file I had out that night was on Caitlin Ashford.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Head slumped, her chin nearly touches her chest, and I reach forward to check her pulse. It’s there and steady. Gripping the bottom hem of her shirt, I slowly lift it up while an oddly ominous voice inside my head whispers that I already know what I’ll find.
That same scar I’d noticed the night we spent together. Even then, I knew it’d been a relatively newer wound. Seeing it now, amidst the severe bruising from the bullets her vest had stopped, has me dropping her shirt as though it’s just singed my goddamn fingers. I stagger back, staring at her in disbelief and confusion.
Everything comes flashing back in rapid fire.
“…the guy was tall and gangly…”
“…a tall, lanky man…”
“…caught a glimpse of them from the side and swore the person had small breasts.”
Tall, as in, five feet ten inches.
Small breasts. The same ones I’d had my hands and mouth on just days ago.
“Dude sounded like a chick when he grunted. Think he got hurt ’cause he was holdin’ his side.”
An eerie sense of knowledge in the recesses of my mind had been triggered when I’d initially noticed her scar, but I’d shoved it aside. Because everything about this woman has thrown me off-kilter and intrigues me unlike anyone else. She stirs something deep within me that’s been dormant for years.
I grind the heels of my palms against my eyes, reeling from the undeniable facts. Kate is goddamn Caitlin Ashford.
Fuck. I’ve never been in a position like this before. There’s no way in hell I would’ve climbed the ranks to become the best contract killer if I was so easily fooled. But this woman…her effect on me is like no other.
I’ve never been taken like this before. Goddammit! I clench my fists so tightly my fingernails dig into my palms as I’m slapped with the reality that I missed the clues. All because Kate’s had me thinking with my motherfucking dick.
I exhale a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding in and smooth her hair back from her face, cataloging the differences. Skimming my fingertip along the bridge of her nose, across her cheek, and over her chin, I realize she’s used liquid latex and tricks with makeup. It’s clear now that she’s skilled in applying those. Contacts changed her eyes from brown to green, and those combined disguises assisted her in rendering me blind to what’s been right in front of me this whole damn time.
Entire body stiff, muscles coiled tight with a mix of apprehension and agitation, I lift the hem of her shirt once again.
“Shit, woman.” My eyes skim over her face again, and a sense of awe edges its way to the forefront of my mind. I wonder how the hell she managed to get out of there after being shot these many times. Even with the highest quality vest, it still hurts like a motherfucker to be shot once, let alone more than a half dozen damn times. Not to mention, I’d bet anything she’s got bruised ribs from these hits.
Letting her shirt drop from my fingers, I lock eyes on her limp form. She’s still as beautiful as she was in those photos from seven years ago. Except now, she holds a strange quality of tough badassery that masks the anguish.
“They killed my family.”
“I didn’t know who you were until the file. The one with my name on it.”
I can spot a liar a mile away, and I know with every fiber of my being that she was telling me the truth. And as that settles in, along with it comes the realization that this woman has single-handedly been taking on the fucking Dixie Mafia. Others have tried to dismantle the crime organization, but it’s resulted in them being tortured before finally receiving a bullet to the head. Yet even then, no one had either the balls or had been insane enough to go it alone.
“What the hell am I going to do with you?” My hushed words seem to echo throughout the small house. I force myself to take a step away from her.
She’s a goddamn complication—and a huge one at that.
Raking a hand over my jaw, I internally war with the protective instinct that spears me with staggering intensity. While I resent how this development—how this woman—has sent me off track, I know what I need to do.
Even if it defies every single rule I’ve lived by for years.
41
Kate
I tuck Willow in her bed with her unicorn comforter pulled up to her chin as she snuggles her oversized stuffe
d unicorn.
“I’m ready for sweet dreams kisses, Mama.” Her light brown hair fans across the pillow, and she closes her eyes in expectation of our nighttime routine.
I lean forward, dusting a light kiss to one eyelid. “Sweetest of dreams.” I do the same on the other. “Sweetest of dreams.” Then I press a kiss to her forehead. “Sweet dreams, my sweet baby girl.”
Once I lean back, her eyes flash open, and she smiles. “Can I have a sweet dreams blessing, too?”
“Of course.” I smooth my fingertips over her forehead and say softly, “Only kind, loving, and happy thoughts and dreams, love bug.”
“Thank you, Mama.” She withdraws her arms from beneath the covers and extends them for a hug. I hold her tight to me and then press a kiss to her cheek and whisper, “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Mama.”
Suddenly, I’m rendered powerless to an invisible suction that draws me back, ripping us apart. I reach for Willow, crying out her name. Everything spins in a dizzying swirl, and then I find myself hovering above the pawn shop, somehow suspended in the air, and watch as a familiar scene unfolds.
When gunshots ring out, I realize I’m being forced to witness this horror once again. Multiple bullets pierce Willow’s body, and the impact propels her small frame backward before collapsing to the floor, the bow flung from her grip and skittering across the shop floor.
“Nooo!” I scream, trying to run toward her, but my entire body feels like it’s fixed in place with cement, keeping me rooted to the spot. I watch in terror as my father’s and Deacon’s bodies jerk when bullets spear their flesh. They fall to the floor, bodies shuddering as the life bleeds from them.
Face soaked with tears, I scream for help countless times, causing my voice to grow hoarse. I struggle to move, desperate to break free from whatever force is restraining my body. I need to save them. Panic begins to smother me. “No! Please! Somebody, please help!” My daughter lies there, blood saturating the hard floor surrounding her.