by Lea Griffith
Who the hell was he kidding? He’d noticed her that first day. She’d taken his breath with that first glance, and even knowing her a killer, he’d been pulled into her gaze.
“Weapons?” She pulled away from the wall, a mask of indifference settling over her features.
“Tomorrow,” Rand replied.
“Now.” There was no give in her.
“Tomorrow,” he bit out, looked at her face, and growled. “Fuck it, come on.”
He didn’t wait around to see if she followed. Down the hall, across from the workout room, was another room. He punched in a code, knew she watched every move, and showed her in.
He glanced at her once they’d walked all the way into the room, and what he saw made him grimace.
She was smiling. It was hard and cold, bitter, but so at ease it hurt to see it.
She walked over to the rifles and immediately went for a Remington M24 sniper rifle, pulling it from a cabinet and taking it to the table in the middle of the room. Her face blanked as she sat down and began to deconstruct the weapon.
He watched her, unable to take his eyes off her movements. It was like a deadly dance between her and the rifle. She handled it like a lover, caressing the pieces as she held them before she set them down on the table. His fist clenched, and it took everything in him to unclench them. He did that entirely too much around her.
She closed her eyes once it was completely broken down and said, “I’ve never shot this model.”
“It’s an amazing weapon.”
Bullet shrugged. “Amazing would be a pre-1964 Winchester Model 70 .308 caliber bolt action rifle with an ivory inlaid, mahogany stock.” Her eyelids flickered. “The only thing to make amazing even better is to top it with a Swarovski Optik Z6 30mm scope.”
He had no response to that. She was absolutely right. That gun would be a sniper’s wet dream.
Then amazement shifted through him in great waves, forcing his heart to beat faster and faster as she reconstructed the Remington in less than a minute. She didn’t open her eyes until it was completely back together.
“I need ammunition.” She glanced up at him and said, “And a scope.”
The look on his face was priceless, but she couldn’t afford to lose herself in him. She’d done just that in the library and wanted more. His mouth on hers had been so strange but so right. It scared her.
And Remi wasn’t afraid of anything. Except that now she was. She was afraid of what Rand Beckett had made her feel moments ago. His tongue had been warm velvet against hers, his body a safe haven—
She shook her head. Thoughts like those were dangerous. She couldn’t afford to tread a path like that.
He walked deeper into the room, and then returned with one box that said Leupold on it and another that said Winchester. She installed the Leupold scope and pulled out three Winchester .300 caliber rounds. The Remington was a bolt action. She loaded the three rounds and stood.
“Where’s the range?” she asked.
“It’s dark. Tomorrow.” His voice was hard.
Her hands moved over the weapon, the smell of gun oil and metal a sweet tang in her mouth. This was what she knew, what was familiar. What he’d forced her to feel earlier was wrong and detrimental to her objective.
She had a job to do.
“This scope is rated for night shooting. Show me the fucking range.” If desperation rang in her tone, it couldn’t be helped. She needed to reacquaint herself with why she’d come here, needed to ground herself in the reasons.
He ran a hand through his hair. The muscles of his arm flexed, bicep pushing against the thin cotton of his white T-shirt, pectorals moving underneath the white material, taunting.
She closed her eyes, reached for her center. “I’ll find it myself.”
He grunted. “Look, you can’t shoot this late around here. It’ll draw notice. Tomorrow is soon enough.”
She set the rifle down on the table and walked out. She had to recognize the boundaries here. It wouldn’t do to draw notice. She moved to the stairs and stopped when he called her name.
“Yeah?” She didn’t turn around. She may look at his lips, and then she’d want again.
“Be down here at five and we’ll hit the lower range.”
Remi barely restrained the urge to salute. Nodded instead and headed up the stairs.
She had to rest, which meant she’d have to banish thoughts of Rand Beckett and his kiss from her mind. But she found it impossible, and ended up hours later staring out of the big bay window that overlooked the trees on the property.
She rubbed her lips and wondered what he’d been thinking. She was becoming introspective. It was going to cause issues for her when it came time to do what she had to do. His lips against hers had been bliss. Warmth had curled through her, so much hotter than anything she’d ever experienced. He’d taken her breath and her mind. She wanted closer to him.
Remi wanted closer to someone—it was mind boggling. And it was her temples she rubbed now. The darkness outside the window made her think of her sisters. How were they? Had they began their journeys, and if so, how were they faring?
The need to speak with them was a pressing, dull ache in her chest, and yet she knew they’d agreed to radio silence. The trust between them was implicit, had been ingrained through time and circumstance. They’d suffered and lost together, formed a bond deeper than anything Joseph had foreseen.
He really had no idea, and that’s what had ultimately gotten Remi through the water pit the other night. So many expectations she had of how this would end for her, but Joseph’s head against the barrel of her gun was the one she’d held to. Would he submit to death or fight it?
She hoped he fought.
The sill of the window allowed her enough room to recline, and she took the opportunity, hoping the moon would lull her to sleep. Rand’s daughter would have loved this room. Oh, the pain he must have felt when he found out his wife and precious baby girl were gone.
Remi knew who’d pulled the trigger. Each person in Joseph’s stable of assassins was allowed to forgo one job every year. Rand had been a thorn in Joseph’s side, nothing more, but when an entire shipment of poppy had been burned to the ground by Rand and his team of spec ops soldiers eight years ago, Joseph had been furious. Rand had moved from a thorn in his side straight to a priority for revenge.
Remi had been slated for the job. But she’d seen his picture, and despite Joseph’s interest in her reaction, she’d decided to use her first pass. She closed her eyes against her reflection in the window.
Rand had been her first and only pass. Joseph had mocked her. She’d told him his attempts at revenge would eventually get him killed. He’d laughed. And seven years later, he’d once again tasked Remi to kill Rand Beckett.
It had been Minton whom Joseph had sent to kill Rand’s wife and child. Punishment maybe for Remi too. Though she’d thought Rand the target, she’d not known Joseph would seek to do harm even greater than killing the man. She’d berated herself for seven long years. Lily and Anna were still anchored to her soul. She was responsible.
She opened her eyes, saw something wet on her cheek, and watched in the glass as she reached for it. It wasn’t possible. Unless a response to physical pain, she’d not cried in more years than she could remember.
But that’s just what she came back with. Remi took a shuddering breath, released it, and gave in. In the middle of a dead child’s unfinished room, she shed tears. For what could have been and what would be.
Chapter Twelve
“Five out of five,” Rand said as he lowered the binoculars and looked back to Bullet. “Un-fucking-believable, Bullet.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen the best snipers in the world take on targets at that distance and miss by feet.”
She snorted and reloaded three more bullets. The sound of her moniker on his lips was beginning to bother her. But that’s all she’d given him. All she’d allowed him to have. Remi tested the wind, made the adjustment, and set
her eye to the scope. “You’ve not seen me.”
“Pride goeth before the fall,” Rand said.
“It’s not pride. I have no idea what that is,” she murmured, and made her final three shots.
Rand snorted this time.
She glanced at him, noticed his disbelief in the raised eyebrows and quirked lips. “What?” she snapped as she rolled to her feet and headed to a bench.
“I find it hard to believe you have zero idea what pride is. You seem pretty full of it.”
She closed her eyes and began to break down the rifle. The comfort she found in this duty was indescribable. The feel of the metal beneath her fingertips, the smell of gunpowder and oil, brought a measure of peace to her. She ignored his attempt to goad her. He’d been trying it all morning as she’d made shot after shot. He’d placed targets at three, five, eight, and fifteen hundred meters. She hit every one. It was what she did. Nothing came between her and a target. Ever.
Remi had realized two hours ago it wasn’t so much his need to goad her as his disbelief that she was the one hitting the targets.
“I have no concept of pride. I have been trained, Mr. Beckett. There were certain, rewards if you will, for hitting the targets,” she explained in a low voice, sighing as she placed the last piece of the gun on the table before her.
She opened her eyes and discovered him less than a foot from her.
“And if there were rewards, were there also punishments if you missed?” His dark eyes burned with a strange light, and she blinked the sun out of her own.
She closed her eyes again, unable or unwilling to delve too deeply into that, and put the rifle back together. She took a long, deep breath and glanced up at him standing over her, so intense she wondered where the severity of his emotion came from.
“Sometimes, Mr. Beckett, they were one and the same. A reward can often be confused with a punishment. And sometimes punishments are a reward.”
“Rand. My name is Rand,” he ground out. His hands were clenched at his sides, and with no idea why, she reached for the right one.
He watched her like a hawk, confusion lowering his brows.
“I don’t know why you care either way what I call you. I am just a killer,” she whispered as she stroked a thumb over his knuckles.
“You are a killer, self-professed. I’ve seen you in action.” He tugged at his hand and lifted hers up.
His thumb stroked over her palm and then down her forefinger to the pad there, rubbing. “You have no fingerprints.”
“So very astute and observant, Mr. Beck—” He threw her a nasty look and she inclined her head. “Rand. If there are no prints there is nothing to leave behind for comparison.”
“There’s DNA,” he reminded her.
She laughed. Not a full belly laugh, rather one without humor. “Someone would have to be found to compare it to, wouldn’t they? It is the reason I never fail. Until you,” she whispered, and then cleared her throat. “I’m hungry, and I need to exercise.”
Remi needed this discussion to end. Now. She tugged her hand away, stepped around him, and grabbed the rifle. She walked to the path that would take her back to the house.
“You’re like a game of chess. Thing is, I play a mean game of chess. I’ll figure it all out eventually, Bullet,” he called out.
“Oh, I have no doubt, Rand,” she called back. “I have no doubt.” She headed back to the house with a smile on her face.
Rand couldn’t tear his gaze away as she left the clearing. The sway of her hips was an enticement he finally had to close his eyes against. The woman was a walking death machine. He’d never seen anything like her before. Something settled over her when she touched the rifle, something lonely . . . deadly.
He’d had to suspend his skepticism when he’d seen her hit the target at three thousand meters. She’d nailed it, a smile on her face the entire time. His body had hardened as she’d first taken the gun apart and then put it back together. With her eyes closed, her total focus on the materials in her hands, she’d been too damn beautiful.
He hated himself for noticing. His cock didn’t care, though. Hell, there wasn’t a part of his body that seemed seem to care she’d murdered people. It just wanted to press against her curves and do wicked things. He sighed. As much as he wanted to be angry, that emotion had fallen by the wayside when it came to her.
It was bizarre, and he didn’t understand it, but there was no use dwelling on it. He could control his body, but his rage may cause her to do something he’d regret. He needed Joseph. She was the key to making that happen.
He entered the kitchen and found her making coffee. “Thought you said you were hungry,” he said.
“I am. But I can’t drink that stuff you call tea. It’s insanely sweet. I’ll have to make do with coffee. Water is tasteless and um. . ." she quirked her lips, “not my favorite thing to drink. So coffee, it is.”
“Carmelita made a shepherd’s pie, and it should be done in a few. Think you can answer some questions for me?” He was willing to tread lightly and though it galled him to ask, he’d known for a while now he’d get more flies with honey.
She shrugged and sat down at the table. “Depends on the questions.”
“Of course it does,” he said sarcastically.
She rolled her eyes and waved a hand. “Go ahead, ask away.”
“Where are you from?”
She stood up, walked out of the kitchen, and headed to the stairs.
“Hey! You said ‘ask away,’” he reminded her as he rushed after her.
She glanced at him and said, “You just don’t give up, do you?”
“Not when it’s something I really want.” There was an edge to his words even he wondered at.
She shook her head, long red braid flowing over her shoulder. “I do not want to discuss me, Mr.—Rand.”
“I understand, but I have to know a little about you.”
Her gaze was brittle, and anger flushed her cheeks. “You don’t have to know a fucking thing about me, Mr. Beckett, to know that I’ll hand The Collective to you on a silver platter. Our objective when it comes to that entity is the same: destruction. Other than that, any tell-me-about-yourself questions should end.” She snapped the words, and they flew between them like barbed arrows.
“It’s Rand,” he said lightly.
“What?”
“My name is Rand. You agreed to use it,” he reminded her, keeping his tone easy, non-threatening.
She snorted. “I don’t understand you,” she spit out. She came toward him, glorious in her sudden pique. “What happened to the hard-ass who put me in the water pit? Where is the man who thought I killed his precious wife and daughter?”
Rage bled off her words. It took him aback. Something was there, and it resonated within a part of him that couldn’t let it go.
Rand held his hands up, palms outward. “We’ll share information, then.”
Her jaw dropped as a strangled sound emanated from her throat. “I don’t fucking want to share information with you. I want to do what I set out to do and end this!”
Her face went white, and for a moment, Rand thought she’d explode with fury. “What is this, Bullet?”
He was dying to know her name. The flavor of Bullet rolling of his tongue was acidic . . . wrong.
She turned away from him, hands on her hips, shoulders set in taut lines. Her figure was hidden pretty well by the sweats and T-shirt, but he knew the curves under the material. He shouldn’t, but he did.
He walked and stopped within a few feet of her. “What did you set out to do?”
“Don’t do this to me.” Her voice was soft, filled with, oh holy shit, her voice was filled with pain.
He wanted to soothe, while at the same time destroy anything that had ever harmed her. Insanity, but there it was.
He reached for her and she pulled away. “Don’t do this to me,” she said again.
Rand hardened himself against the plea in her words. “Tell me then. Wh
at did you set out to do?”
She drew in a deep breath and turned back around, spearing him with a look from dulled blue eyes. “I set out to kill, Mr. Beckett. It’s what I was bred to do. I eliminate targets. I put holes in people that can’t be plugged up. I’m a—what did you call me? A murderer. A killer.”
Her pain sliced at him, drew welts on his soul. A soul he’d long thought incapable of feeling at all.
“Have I lied?” he asked, then wished he hadn’t.
She went cold. Ice fucking cold. It seemed every hint of heat had been sucked out of the room. The change devastated him so that he rubbed his chest before he could check the action. He liked her heat, her rage.
But this frigidity he couldn’t handle. Her eyes were blank, face lax, breathing even.
“No, you haven’t lied. You’ve told exactly the truth. Therefore, let’s keep our communication as limited as possible. When it’s time, I’ll give you what you need to have your revenge. But tell me, does that keep you warm at night?” She cocked her head and continued to simply stare at him.
“I didn’t mean—” he began, and then cut it off, unsure what he’d been about to say.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she whipped out between clenched teeth.
“Look, you’ve got to know that—”
She raised a hand, cutting off his words. “I know all I need to know. And you’re right,” she said as she stepped closer to him, going on tiptoe and getting in his face. “I am a killer. There’s no use denying what you’ve seen with your own eyes. But all these questions you keep asking mean nothing to your end goal. So stop asking them, Mr. Beckett. I will neither answer them, nor will it engender your cause to me. Revenge is a wonderful emotion. I’ve reveled in the thought of it for long years. And yet, ultimately, it is a vacant feeling, empty and cold. And when it’s all said and done, I’d rather not have to drag your dead body behind me as I struggle to enact mine, oui?”
He grabbed her by the upper arm, loosening his hold when she grimaced. He lowered his head. It seemed he was always in this woman’s face, crowding her space. It was an ineffectual tool, though, as it never threw her off.