by Amarie Avant
Black Queen,
Dark Knight
An Action Adventure of Sorts
By Amarie Avant
Copyright © 2018 by Avant, Amarie. All rights reserved
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means–electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other–except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Thank you, Jesus, for the gift of creating an outlet for others.
~
This book is dedicated to my husband.
Brandon, you have approved (most of) the action scenes. A few of them are a bit farfetched, but that just makes for a better story...
Thank you, for picking up a copy of Black Queen, Dark Knight.
I enjoyed every moment of writing this story.
Strap on your seatbelt because this gripping, wild ride is full of twists, turns, and titillating sexiness.
Oh, and as a thank you for reading this book, I have a little something, something of a gift for you once you’ve finished this wild ride, so get to turning those pages.
Love and blessings,
Amarie Nicole
Prologue
Mikayla Bryant
Long Beach, California
“You will listen and comply to every command I make from here on out,” my abductor orders. “Obey, and you live. Disobey, and you die.”
There’s no confusing what he just said. Even though the drumming of my heart pounds in my ears, I heard his threat just fine. It’s just the two of us in the ladies’ room at Gianni’s Café. Travertine tile, silver finish fixtures, and soft Italian music had created quite the ambiance before he’d followed me in here. Now, there’s an equally impressive Magnum revolver pressed between my breasts. The nozzle is still warm, maybe from its last use. With that thought in mind, I glance down nervously at the long, shiny barrel, and another random thought pops into my head… his gun complements my accessories and the golden shimmer of my dress. After this observation, my world suddenly faded to black…
I awaken seconds later in the powerful arms of this seemingly deranged, beautiful man. He smells like heaven, with undertones of death and… of hell.
This is supposed to be my last day, or night rather, in California. I recently graduated from Cal State University, in Long Beach, at the beginning of summer. It’s early fall, and I’ve waited until the last possible minute to leave for medical school. Tonight, I’ve donned an expensive little dress, and paired it with a cheap tiara. I’m at the classy yet quaint Gianni’s Café. This was supposed to be my last hoorah. Yet the celebratory buzz, I picked up from my three apple martinis, has now gone to shit…
My abductor spins the shiny revolver in his hand with agility and grace, like he belongs in an old western film. He presses it down at his side before holstering it in his jeans. Damn, why hadn’t I noticed it before. When he’d walked by my table earlier this evening, I stared maybe a second too long. His beautiful eyes seemed to have seen straight through me. Either I was intoxicated on the drink in my hand or it was him. Heck, it was definitely him.
Regardless of his obviously psychotic murderous tendencies—which I just literally became aware of—he’s the type of man that women salivate over. It takes my mind ages to decipher that my blatantly staring, while drooling, is bad etiquette. Though bad boys are not my type, it’s hard not to be captivated by a man who’s tall as hell and built to perfection. He’s perfectly proportioned, not like one of those muscle-heads who spend so much time in the gym only to have a strapping top half with tiny stick legs. No, his jeans fit like they were made just for him. When checking out his muscular ass earlier, I was so lost in its deliciousness, I forgot how to think and speak. His flannel button-up caresses cut muscles and broad shoulders. I could have believed he was wearing football padding, but clearly, with me clutched to his warm solid chest, that’s not the case. I tell myself no more fainting. He’s crazy as hell and there’s no telling what he’d do.
After noticing I was no longer passed out, he set me back down on my own two feet. He shoved a mass of shoulder-length, wavy blond hair from his face. I catch a glimpse of a tattoo that’s just as intimidating as the Magnum that he scared me with. I have never been so afraid, yet so turned on, in my life. His eyes are the color of a warm summer’s day, which I was hypnotized with, for at least twenty seconds, earlier. He grabs me again, gripping my arm harder than before, and then pulls. “Let’s go.” The harshness of his voice sends a chill down my spine.
“No, you listen to me. You don’t want to do this. It’s a mistake.” My voice is filled with a sudden reemergence of the confidence that I thought had died out only moments ago. I rear back on my stilettos. “I’m the princess for the night, okay, psycho? You have the wrong woman! I spent half of a month savings to purchase this damn dress, but the tiara is fake. It was bought by my friend at the–”
“I’m not robbing you, Mikayla, I’m taking you,” the man says through gritted teeth.
Alright, next form of defense. I slap at his thick forearm. “There’s a table full of eight of my closest friends out there that will kick your ass–”
“You’re celebrating your last night in town, before beginning medical school, with six biker friends and another girl. If you value their lives, you’ll stop fighting me, and come along quietly. Got that?” He grabs my chin. “Sweetheart, I’m a man who gets what he wants. Taking a life is just like asking for a few extra pieces of bacon at breakfast for me, so consider your friends before defying me.”
He presses the door open with one hand and guides me with the other. My favorite server, who welcomed me by name, even during the token times when I couldn’t afford to actually eat at Gianni’s, is lying flat and unmoving on the ground. My abductor undoes a silencer from his Mangum when he steps out. There’s a tiny hole in the server’s head. I gulp down bile as I make the connection that the beefy psycho murdered him!
“C’mon, Dr. Bryant, let’s agree that this will be the only casualty tonight.”
After hearing that, I almost trip over my heels. He knows my first name. That, along with me leaving off for medical school, is easy to gather during my night of partying, but my last name? How is he aware of it?
The man walks straight over the server’s dead body, with me in tow. The hallway to the restroom is angled, but I turn my head toward the large table I’d been seated at an hour ago. The balloons decorating the table block the view of my friends still partying and drinking. None of them even glance over.
“Not that way, Mikayla,” my abductor says, noticing the direction of my gaze.
He escorts me through the kitchen, instead. The crew of cooks, support staff, and servers eye us questioningly.
“Hey, you can’t be in here…” The dishwasher starts to speak up, but quickly shuts his mouth when my abductor pulls up his shirt to display his impressive piece. He offers such a deadly glare that there’s no reason to insert an audible threat.
Without further interruptions, we make it outside. The air is crisp, and my breath fogs out before me. He moves swiftly, causing me to take two or three steps to his one, around to the front of the parking lot. We stop before a black matte motorcycle. The lights of the lamp post reflecting off its smooth surface. The bike has a much larger back wheel, like the
one in the Batman movies. There isn’t a license plate or any information to help identify the type of motorcycle.
“Kayla?” Suddenly, a familiar voice calls out, making my heart jolt with hope. “Mikayla, what are you doing outside?”
I whip around in the voice’s direction. My boyfriend Cree’s best friend, Ronald, is standing next to his motorcycle. His eyes narrow. “I came outside to grab a ring. For Cree. For you. Who the fuck is this?” he demands, getting angrier by the second. His confusion morphing into damnation right before my eyes, temporarily halting my thoughts of getting some help.
“Crap, this is not what you think,” I say quickly, trying to figure out how to put what’s happening, without endangering him, too.
My eyes tear at the thought that there is already bad blood between myself and Ronald. Now, he probably thinks I’m breaking up with his bestie and ditching him for this guy. My cousin was adamant that Cree intended to propose. It sounds like she was right. A newfound sense of dread slams into me. At the last second, I finally remember that Ronald might actually be able to save me. “Help–”
“The name’s Jagger.” My abductor cuts me off, his tone cold. His Magnum seems to magically appear in his hand. The sound of the gunshot rings in my ears. Ronald’s face doesn’t have time to change from disappointment before his body, with the new gaping hole in his chest, slams down onto his bike. His Kawasaki begins to fall over, from the impact, causing a domino like effect with some of our friend’s motorcycles.
I stutter, “You-you–”
“He saw my face, Kayla,” he says, cutting me off, again. He rubs a hand over his prickly, strong jaw, seemingly in thought. “I like that. I think I’ll call you Kayla, too,” he says, like he didn’t just kill a person I know, right in front of me.
Jagger grabs my waist and pulls me onto the back of his ride. Although my boyfriend runs with a crew, I don’t know much about bikes, but this one growls like the hounds of hell when it starts up.
“One last command, for now: let go of me, and you die,” Jagger warns, slamming a helmet down over my head.
I tremble against his rock-hard body. He starts the bike as his boot flips up the kickstand, taking off so fast that it’s just too dangerous to try and jump off.
“Mikayla!” my boyfriend, Cree, screams.
Was he honestly going to propose tonight? More tears slide down my cheeks, the air whipping past them so fast they dry instantly. Our eyes connect as Jagger does a 360 and stops. That’s when Cree notices Ronald and all the blood drains from his dark brown face.
“Cree, help!” I scream out. I have just enough time to breathe in the smell of burning tires before Jagger takes off and zips over the curb onto Pine Avenue. Car brakes screech, but I still hear the faint sound of motorcycles starting up just as Jagger guns for a yellow light.
He’s a murderer. He said it himself. There’s no telling what sort of psychosis he is in the throes of. Driving like mad, Jagger shifts back and forth between two lanes. The side of a Lexus is only a fraction away from scraping my knee. In shock and fear my body begins to waver, but I don’t dare pass out.
“Let me go,” I scream at the top of my lungs, yet my screech doesn’t come close to meeting the sound of his engine roaring.
Pine trees blend into one another, along with the buildings lining the streets and their buzzing lights. Bright yellow illuminates the night from the traffic light before us.
We won’t make it!
My fingers unlatch from around his waist.
I close my eyes and fully let go…
Jagger Johansson
South Africa
A Week Ago…
It’s good to be home. Sometimes it feels like I’m a native of nowhere when a mission sends me away. I’ve traveled the world a hundredfold. The Amazon is an inked map tattooed on my forearm. I no longer need it.
I’ve watched the ground turn red with blood, when I murdered a politician on vacation at the Great Pyramid of Giza. The same goes for holy ground in Israel. I murdered the great false “messiah,” but he might have slain even more people than I have, during his reign of lies.
Soot and oil cover my hands as I glance up at the engine of my newest baby. Stripping trucks and Humvees help center my mind after less than stellar sex, or better yet, after I commit a murder. There’s nothing like your hands painted with someone else’s warm blood. But then again, there’s nothing like chopping a vehicle and removing the perfect bits, chucking the rest, and creating something new.
The home I had built for myself is my own slice of tranquility. It’s on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean to the west and surrounded by trees on the other sides. Through the sound of the water chopping against the rocks below and the various species of birds, I hear an engine.
I’ve grown weary of the human species. I’m assigned to murder the powerful ones, and I have no time to give a fuck about the rest, so the only engine sound in a ten-mile radius should be that of one of my new vehicular inventions.
I recognize the sound of a 6.75 L… twin-turbocharged engine to be exact. My mind calculates the weight of the vehicle and determines it to be a Rolls Royce Phantom. I place the wrench down, wipe my hands on my jeans, and press off on my knees. I roll from beneath my truck and grip my revolver just as the Phantom comes to a stop at the edge of my land.
One of those stuffy fuckers in a suit and cap gets out of the driver’s side, comes around the car, and opens the back door.
A gorgeous woman with straight blond hair and an all-white suit takes his hand. The diamonds in her ears reflectively twinkle across my sweaty bare chest.
“Allow me.” I extend my hand out, and then thinking better of it, snake it back down to my side. I’m too dirty to touch the likes of Ava Sinclair.
“Good morning, Jagger.” She looks me over. Her blue eyes slide across the ridges of my abdomen. There’s no hiding her lust, she doesn’t play coy like other women. She seems to have forgotten her anger momentarily. And then, just as quickly she remembers it. Placing her hand on her hip she asks, “You received our latest proposal?”
“And I declined it,” I reply.
“There are a lot of people in this world who fear you, Mr. Johannsson. I’m not one of them.” She wiggles her left stiletto which displays a sharp jagged edge. Should I take a step back? Ava has a knack for slicing arteries with them. However, I believe she prefers the neck.
We murdered a man together, once—technically. We’ve murdered many together, but one particular occasion, during sex, we were cornered by a man. I assumed she kept her stilettos on because she has ugly feet. Of all the damn ways to murder a man, she kicked up her leg, and sliced clean across the man’s throat. Blood squirted against her alabaster skin. Under any other occasion, I may have commended her on the kill, but she was riding my cock, and it was a real mess.
I smile and step forward. In her lengthy heels, I only had to look down slightly. “Don’t come to my home uninvited, and never threaten me!” I warn her, as if she doesn’t already know.
Her fingernails are pointy talons with platinum and diamond crusts at the ends. Also, one of her choice tools used to slit throats. Her fingers skim across the tribal tattoo on my chest. Ava murmurs, “So hard.”
“It can always get harder.” I glance down at my cock. It’s a brick against my jeans. Even looking death in the face, I’m not fool enough to pass up Ava’s beauty.
Her fingernails walk along my left pectoral, the sharpness prickles at my skin, drawing blood with each press. “You have a blood oath with the organization, Jagger. You’re willing to die over a simple contract?”
The X Members is an organization of assassins, and we get shit done. On occasion, we aren’t ending a mark’s life, but keeping him or her safe. When I cut my left palm and joined the organization, there were certain stipulated options that I flat out refused be included. Murdering women and children is one of them. There’s not a single day that goes by that I don’t wish I hadn’t added ‘keeping
a mark safe’ to my list of ‘no can do’s.’
Without creating a list of provisos prior to making the blood oath, you must take on any assignment. There are assassins without morals who’ll do anything, yet, the case that was offered to me isn’t technically a bodyguard gig. Those requests normally come straight from the person in need. The woman in this particular mission has no idea why I’d be taking her. And I sure as hell won’t be labeled a knight in shining armor. More like a lunatic wolf.
I step closer to Ava, glaring the beautiful blonde straight in her eyes. “I’m a murderer, Ava. A fucking assassin. I don’t babysit. Besides, I’ve got a thing…” I turn an about face, and go to the hood of my truck, to slam it close.
“A thing?” She peers at me. “Your next assignment is to murder a nobody in Nevada–”
“A nobody?” I scoff, cutting her off. “The mark is a billionaire. Has at least five guards on him at any given occasion.”
“Sounds like fun. Five days out... ample time. That’s nothing! All I’m asking you to do is babysit one young woman. Just escort her to Zihula on a private jet. Sounds like a vacation to me. She’s beautiful. You can’t touch her, but she looks as sweet as honey. Would be nice to have eye candy around before you get to a real mission, right?”
I blink twice. I’m not the type to be jealous. The woman Ava is speaking of is named Mikayla Bryant. Damn right the woman is beautiful. She has skin the color of malva, which is my favorite pudding in South Africa. The close-up photo on the X Member profile displays a gorgeous, poised woman in cap and gown from when she obtained her undergraduate degree. Shit, I’d be lying if I said I’m not attracted to her amazing face. Those lips are thick, heart-shaped, and thinking of them is causing my already hardened cock to seep with my desire for her. The confident sparkle in her sultry brown gaze ropes me in. If the rest of her body is just as beautiful, she’s fucked! It will be her downfall.