by Nova Drake
Jess was dragged to her feet and felt a knife press against her throat while being handed off to one of the two remaining men. He wrapped his arms around her upper body, and the other moved around in front of her again. The knife dug harder into her neck as the guy moved closer, and reached out a hand toward her.
“Stop being such a pain in the ass and maybe we’ll let you live,” he growled.
She held still, waiting. Her head sagged to the side, still ringing. The pressure of the knife loosened slightly, as the attacker holding her assumed that she was passing out. Her head dropped forward once the knife was no longer holding it back. Her chin dropped to her chest.
She heard a soft laugh from the guy that was cautiously approaching. He nudged her in the stomach, checking her reaction. When she didn’t react, he dropped his hand a little lower. The breath of the guy behind her told her exactly where he was. The guy that was about to be crying let his hand trail down her abdomen before she threw her head back with enough force to crush the nose of the guy behind her. Her head rang with the impact, but the damage was already done. She stumbled forward, off-balance, but skilled enough to connect her fist with the guy’s throat. Not that she’d been aiming for his jaw or anything.
He’d already drawn his hand away, but she managed to catch two fingers and twist, breaking both, and holding on for balance as she brought her boot up into his groin. He dropped to his knees. She snapped two more fingers. No one got to touch her and keep their fingers. A hard kick to the chest knocked him onto his back. One more kick broke the ribs of the guy who was still nursing his broken nose and sent him stumbling away.
Too injured to chase, she turned her temper back to the whimpering guy on the ground. She stood over him, head spinning, breathing a little heavier than she typically liked to reveal. Jess pulled one of her knives out and dangled it over him.
“Seems you’re in the mood to play.” Her words were slightly slurred. That was a little concerning, but she did her best to hide it. “Fine by me, I’m an entertaining kinda girl. Not seeing too straight right now, but that just adds to the challenge. Pretty confident that I can still hit an immobile target." She held a boot firmly to his throat, wobbling slightly, before regaining her balance.
The guy saw her weakness and reached for her leg, trying to throw her off balance. Just as quickly, her knife was thrown, piercing his upper thigh. The guy groaned and recoiled.
Jess frowned. “Yup aims definitely a bit off. I was trying to hit a little higher. No worries, I have plenty more where that came from.” She produced another knife and held it over him. “Now, who do you work for?”
The guy gritted his teeth but didn’t answer. With a sigh, Jess tossed the knife, and it sank into his leg. The guy yelped and struggled. She stepped down harder on his throat to compensate as she pulled another knife.
“Small target I guess. I’ll get it eventually. Usually, my aim is dead on. Now, I didn’t catch the name you gave me.”
The guy was shooting her a death glare. If she ever crossed paths with him again, he was either going to run for his life or kill her on the spot. Though, maybe she wouldn’t leave him alive regardless of what he told her. He was gasping for breath, and his answer came out as a garbled whisper.
“Key. I work for Key.”
“What the hell does that mean? Is that a name, a company?”
“It’s a guy, that’s what they call him.”
“Is that like his last name?”
“I don’t fucking know!”
Not liking his attitude, Jess threw the knife into his shoulder. “Whoops,” she said sweetly. “My bad. Where can I find Key?”
The guy struggled under her foot. She pulled it off and kicked him to the ribs to speed the process along, her head was not getting better, and her balance was getting worse. She removed her knives from his bleeding body while he recovered and tried desperately to hide the bout of nauseating dizziness that took over as she stood again.
“Where?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” he coughed. “There’s an old warehouse on 3rd and Main, I get my jobs from his people there.”
“Names?” She kicked his already bloody stomach when he didn’t answer right away. “Names?” she repeated.
The guy groaned. “I don’t know, there’s like three of em. One is called Harris I think.”
“Ever worked any kidnappings?”
“No,” he coughed.
Jess crouched down next to him. “And what’s your name, scumbag?”
The guy rolled away from her onto his back, breathing heavily. “Nick,” he gritted out.
“Got a last name Nick?” She played with her knives teasingly while she awaited his answer.
“Barrett,” he grumbled.
“Well, Nick Barrett, if you ever try to lay a finger on me again, I’m going to do much worse than break yours. Do we have an understanding?”
He gave her a death glare and a half nod. She smiled and stood again, trying to compensate for the spinning in her head. “Great.” Giving him one last kick, she was satisfied she had enough time to walk away before he could recover.
The adrenaline washed away as she walked around the corner. Her vision was darkening at the edges, and her limbs began to tremble. She gave her head a shake, which turned out to be a terrible idea. Reaching out a hand, she steadied herself against the building as she started to stumble. Checking to make sure no one was around to see her weakness, she leaned against the building and lowered to the ground, giving herself a moment to regain her strength.
“You draw too much attention to yourself.”
The voice came from next to her and scared the hell out of her. She tried to hide her reaction, but she’d just jumped out of her skin, and she was sure it was noticeable. The voice was familiar, but she glanced up to confirm. Sure as shit, his creepy damn eyes stared down at her. Blurry eyes, but she was pretty sure that was on her end.
Jess refused to act like everyone else did around this guy. She took a breath trying to hide the fact that he really did scare the crap out of her.
“Do you make an effort to be this creepy or would you say it’s just something that comes naturally?”
“It comes naturally,” he answered.
Did creepy guy make a joke? There was no amusement in his voice. Maybe he was serious? She didn’t know how to respond.
“I’m trying to draw attention, that’s the idea,” she huffed, throwing a glare in his general direction.
“There’s been a price put on your head.” He spoke calmly and without any kind of threatening tone, but his words were obviously a warning.
Jess inhaled sharply and stood, intending to defend herself. “Is that why you’re here?” She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on his face, but her quick change in altitude had everything spinning even worse. She tried to squint through her darkening vision.
“You have a concussion.”
Weakness. He saw it, and she was in trouble. The situation didn’t matter - never show weakness. Her vision was going, but she planted her feet and fumbled a knife from her pants. The darkness closed in around her. She was still conscious, but not for long.
“Shit,” she muttered as she fell back against the wall.
She had the sensation of falling, but the impact she’d expected to follow never hit, or if it did, she was out before it happened. If she woke up, it was likely she’d be meeting whoever had put the price on her head. This wasn’t going exactly how she planned it.
Chapter 10
The pain in her head told her she was alive. For how long, she didn’t know. The throbbing of her headache made her stomach turn with nausea. But Jess had a feeling that was the least of her worries. Before she even cracked an eyelid, she was cursing creepy guy for dropping her at the feet of a crime boss unprepared.
Shit! If she got out of this mess, she’d have to avoid Archer for a while. There was no way to know if he’d been asked to find someone to hunt her down. She wasn’t naive
enough to think there was any loyalty there.
Not that any of that mattered at the moment. She was still alive, and she would find the opportunity to get what she needed. Jess slowly let her eyes open a crack to adjust. What she saw was not what she’d expected.
She opened her eyes fully to confirm, and sure enough, she was in her apartment. The same place she'd confronted Creepy. He’d taken her home instead of collecting the bounty on her head. Why?
If he was trying to get her to stop looking for him, that wasn't the way to do it. She was twice as curious now. Was hiding his identity more important than claiming his prize?
The guy legitimately scared the shit out of everyone. Was it possible that he wasn't as dangerous as he’d seemed? No. Her instincts told her that he was easily as dangerous as her, if not more. And he was still a stalker. That automatically upped the disturbing factor. It had to be the identity thing. Why was it so important that no one know him? What the hell was he up to?
***
Justice laid low for a few days, wandering around her safe houses, bored out of her mind, and focused on training. The next several days she spent watching the warehouse. Nick had been right. There was definitely something going on there. Seasoned killers were in and out at a steady pace. Some she recognized, some she didn't, but she could tell they were shady just by the weapons they carried and the blood on their clothes. Still, she didn't see anyone that seemed to have a ton of authority. It was all muscle and guys that did the dirty work.
The most respect she'd seen anyone get was Creepy. She needed to get some info out of him but how the hell could she get him to answer any questions when he wasn't afraid of her in the slightest. Jess frowned and leaned back in the seat of an old, abandoned, stripped-out car that was parked in an alley across the way. She dropped her head back and blew out a slow breath. How did you get people to tell you things without threats of violence? She shook her head. "I've got nothing," she muttered to herself. "So something better come out of this lead."
Justice got out of the car and made her way around the back of the building, looking for a window or obscure door. Just her luck the window she found was ten feet off the ground. She shoved a wheeled dumpster closer making a little more noise than she would have liked in the process. But when no one showed up, she hoisted herself up and stood on the bowing top inching to the edge where she peered inside the window.
Her line of sight was mostly obscured with dusty boxes. With a frown, Jess reached through the small section of broken glass to quietly nudge some boxes over for a better view. Since she could only reach the back of the boxes, they turned instead of sliding over. Of course. Needing to see what she was getting into, she tried again with little success. It didn’t help that she was standing on the edge of an uncooperative dumpster that was slowly inching away from the building every time she pushed off too hard.
With a frustrated sigh, Jess settled her hips back slightly to counter her balance so she could dig her heels in pressing the dumpster closer to the building instead of away. She braced one hand on the top of the window frame and bent in half to shove her other arm through the broken glass reaching as far as she could into the shelf to nudge the front of the box over as well.
“Well, can’t complain about this view.” The amused deep male voice came from behind her.
Jess jumped slightly in surprise, causing the broken glass to slice into her shoulder. Just a scratch, but she was in a bad enough situation. If this guy kicked the dumpster out from under her, her arm would be sliced halfway through before she could get it out. Luckily, he didn’t seem interested in an amputation. Slowly, she slid her arm out as she turned to get a glance at the guy enjoying his view of her ass.
Standing below her was a specimen that could have been used in textbooks to define masculinity. He was standing confidently, arms crossed over his very muscular chest, making his biceps bulge under his stretching shirt. The guy obviously spent half his time working out.
An amused smile tickled his scruffy face, his dark hair a little longer on top and sheared close around the sides, clean-cut in contrast to his unshaven face. Reflective sunglasses hid his eyes. On his hips rested an unmistakable belt, and obscured by the giant arms folded over his chest was the hidden symbol that made her situation so much worse.
Jess took a frustrated breath. “Shit!” she complained as she jumped down from the window. He had to be close to a foot taller than her. She kept her distance to make it less obvious.
Scruffy smiled a nice grin revealing a dimple in one cheek. “Wanna tell me what you’re doing, Sweetheart?”
Jess cringed at the pet name, but she bit her tongue. “Just looking for a friend is all,” she answered innocently.
“A friend?” He smirked and uncrossed his arms revealing the badge emblem on his shirt. “In there? Your friend got a name?”
He knew damn well what went on in that warehouse, and he was outside interrogating her instead. Typical.
“Harris,” she answered confidently.
“Is that right? You know him well?”
Jess’s eyes narrowed. “We have a mutual friend. I just wanted to ask him a few questions.”
Scruffy smiled again. “Anyone I’ve heard of?”
He assumed she was bluffing. Fine. She could play along. Maybe she’d get out of this if he thought they were on the same side. “Nick Barrett.”
One eyebrow arched over the top of his sunglasses, but he didn’t answer. She could feel him sizing her up, even behind his reflective lenses. Finally, he pulled off his sunglasses and hung them from his shirt collar. His intense green eyes continued sizing her up. She noticed how much they stood out against his dark lashes. Damn, he was good looking, and he seemed to be well aware of that. He was beyond cocky. It was written all over his body language.
Getting uncomfortable with his inspection, Jess shifted her weight, brought her arms across her own chest, and let her eyes run him up and down in a very obvious manner. Two can play that game. His lips separated into a slow smile, revealing his dimple again.
“How’s Nick doing? I haven’t seen him in a few days,” Scruffy finally responded.
Jess held back her smile the best she could. Good. She hoped she did some serious damage. “I haven’t seen him in a couple days either.”
Scruffy’s dark eyebrows rose slightly at her response. Maybe she hadn’t hidden that smile as well as she thought. “You got a name, doll?”
Jess gritted her teeth. She hated when guys used those stupid pet names to act superior. She could take this guy. So his biceps were bigger than her thighs. Size wasn’t everything. If it wasn’t for that damn badge on his chest, she’d have already gotten rid of him. But killing a cop was beyond a bad idea. They don’t just look the other way like they do for everything else. Even if you survived the trial, you’d never see the sun again. She couldn’t afford to piss this guy off. The only people that got away with killing cops were other cops, judges, and politicians. Jess had to tread lightly. She swallowed every retort that had come to mind and dodged his question.
She softened her body language with effort. “I didn’t do anything illegal. I was just looking through a window for a friend.” She carefully kept her calm.
Scruffy was about to respond but was interrupted by two new players.
“Cash, there you are. We saw your car on the way in.”
“What ya got here?” the second guy asked, noticing Jess.
The humor had fallen from Cash’s face for an instant, and he flicked a glance at Jess that looked strangely like concern. Faked for her benefit, she was sure. Just as quickly, his charming smile returned, but this time he turned it on his buddies.
“Late as always, Zak,” he teased with an easy familiarity. “She’s no one important, just keepin’ myself occupied while I waited on you two.” He sent a smirk their way that gave the impression he’d been working his magic on her before they showed up. “You guys ready?” he added, as he took a couple of steps toward t
he street. Jess didn’t have time to ponder his strange behavior.
His friends didn’t follow.
Cash stalled sensing he was alone and turned back to face her, watching the two guys closing in. She could take these two, but there was a cop watching, one that clearly worked with them. Her hand dropped and hovered over the sheaths in her pants where her flat throwing knives were hidden. Her finger touched a knife and hesitantly flicked it up a fraction of an inch.
She glanced back at Cash, and his eyes locked on hers. His masculine jaw flexed, the ever-present smirk finally gone. He gave her a slight shake of his head. A warning. A warning that he would be arresting her if she defended herself? That would be typical. Or was he warning her that she wouldn’t get away with killing these two?
Most likely the former. That was how the official justice system worked. The highest bidders got defended, and crime pays.