Guarded in Darkness (The Antihero Syndicate #2)

Chapter 1 Contract of Blood

April—Chicago, Illinois

Freedom comes with knowing you’re going to die.

Because the heart beating inside my chest isn’t mine.

It spasms, a violent misfire under scar tissue. Every beat is borrowed time.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Blood soaks through the black shirt under my leather jacket as rain lashes the cement overhang of the parking garage. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Chicago Memorial Hospital looms before me, a beacon of hope I don’t deserve on this dreary morning.

Any minute now, she’ll be here. I’ll get my fix.

Five seconds. One glimpse.

One inhale of rain-soaked air around her—long enough to make my chest stop clawing.

Then I’ll disappear.

“Please. Let me go. I-I’ll do anything,” the man I’ve pinned in the shadows sputters. “I need a doctor.”

Apparently, the knife—his knife—that I twisted in his gut as punishment for slicing my arm wasn’t enough to shut him up.

“You’re a sick bastard, just like they all say,” he rasps.

My lips twitch. Sick bastard. Cold monster. Compliments to my ears.

Dragging my gaze away from the emergency room entrance, I glare at the dying man.

“Be quiet,” I mouth.

Before I shut you up. Permanently.

The man clams up and grips the knife hilt with his broken fingers.

I eye him—skin waxy, pale lips, weak as shit.

Disgust twists through me. If it weren’t for my plans, I would’ve ended his miserable existence before he could blink.

My phone buzzes for the tenth time this morning. I ignore it.

I scan the ER entrance again, clocking three cameras to my right, two to my left.

Harried professionals dodge the rain while slinging their badges around their necks. Soft laughter reaches my ears when a new group comes into view.

Two men and two women head toward the doors, laughing like the world doesn’t end in this building every day. The redhead grins, and I frown.

I don’t know her.

That’s unacceptable. New variable.

I make it my business to catalog everything about—

My newly beating heart thrashes inside my rib cage. I clutch my chest as pain flares.

She’s here.

My breathing falters. The wool half-balaclava mask itches against my jaw. Every hair on my body rises to attention like wires drawn to a current, attuned only to one thing, one person.

The first woman to ever catch my attention and hold it.

Aria Elizabeth Connors. Emergency department nurse. Twenty-six. Always orders decaf with a splash of milk. Frequently takes late shifts no one wants. Likes scary stories and horror films.

Has the most beautiful laugh.

Tidbits I’ve picked up over the past year rattle inside my head. Useless facts.

At first, I told myself it was because she was Lana’s friend and I was tasked with protecting Elias Kent’s wife last year.

Everyone in Lana’s orbit had to be vetted.

But I don’t need to protect Lana anymore. Aria should’ve remained in that closed chapter, part of the past and forgotten.

But she didn’t.

And it’s gotten worse since my heart transplant. This craving. This ache.

Like this borrowed organ infected me with a terminal disease.

A fucking nuisance.

She glides into view, her amber-streaked brown hair tucked into her usual messy bun, her navy scrubs disheveled. But her gait is determined—she’s here to save lives.

Not like me.

I take them. And I’m damn good at it.

Her eyes, a shade of molten gold—or tawny brown as she tells her friends—are lifeless, twin ghosts peering toward the automatic doors.

Like she went through the motions of dragging herself out of bed, pulling on clothes from the fresh pile on top of her dryer, taking her five subway stops and a line change to work.

Because she’s grieving.

Her fiancé died a year ago, right in this very hospital, in the same shootout that nearly took my life.

Pain scores through my torso, and air stalls in my throat.

It’s unacceptable.

Assassins don’t have feelings. Only orders and targets.

And yet, I can’t look away.

My hand balls into a fist, the dark compulsion hacking at me from within.

Go to her. Get closer.

Figure it out. Fix it. Make. It. Stop.

“Pl-Please, let me go.” The annoying asshole staggers forward. “I need—”

Anger surges up my spine. He’s blocking my view.

I clamp my leather-gloved hand over his mouth, grab the knife, and twist it.

He howls, and I shove him back into the shadows. I couldn’t care less.

He likes little girls. I’d kill him for fun.

I search for Aria again, the strange, desperate itch returning when I don’t see her.

But then I spot her, half hidden by a trash can, tying her shoelaces.

There she is.

Exhaling slowly, I track her delicate fingers brushing water droplets from her hair. She angles her bewitching face toward the sky, as if she’s noticing the rain for the first time.

She frowns, pivots, and disappears behind the doors.

Jaw clenched, I kick the bleeding man at my feet.

Show time.

The sick bastard doesn’t respond.

Fuck. That last knife twist may have done him in.

I crouch, yank off my glove with my teeth, and place two fingers on his neck.

Thready pulse. Weak. Slipping.

He’ll never make it.

I’ll give him fifteen minutes, max. Then he’ll be body number two hundred and fifty-six.

After taping a pre-written note to his chest, I drive my boot into his crotch and relish his sharp cry as his eyes snap open.

I point to the emergency room doors.

“Go,” I mouth. “Before I change my mind.”

With a pained gasp, he stumbles toward the cement fortress where Aria is.

What will she do when she finds my gift? I’ll find out later.

I’m a sick, twisted man.

With grim purpose, I rip the hem of my shirt and cinch my arm wound. Can’t leave DNA behind. That’d be a rookie mistake for the Kong family’s favorite blunt instrument.

The Triads prefer their monsters careful. Mistakes aren’t tolerated in one of The Association’s ruling families.

My phone pings again as I stride to my motorcycle—a black Yamaha YZF-R1M. Elias’s message lights up the screen, followed by notifications from the TellNo1 confessions app.

Elias Rook

Syndicate meeting in two weeks. Ten p.m. Need to plan our next move.

The Antihero Syndicate. Six of us. Six chess pieces.

One vow: destroy The Association at all costs.

I type my acknowledgment, then swipe to TellNo1.

ILoveDarkStories

Do you ever have one of those days where it’s raining and you don’t notice until you’re soaked through? Yeah. It’s one of those days.

Did you break any rules today?

She always asks me that—like she craves permission to break free. What’s stopping her?

My attention drifts back to the hospital. Does she feel me out here in the rain? What would she do if she knew I’d been watching her for far too long?

Before I can respond, another text comes through.

Master Kong

Tomorrow in my office. New target for you.

I frown. My orders usually come through secure email, not personal messages.

An image follows, and the light snuffs out of the world.

Long, dark-brown hair streaked with red, an impish glint in those tawny-brown eyes. A screenshot of a bounty posted for ten million dollars.

No. Why her?

My fingers tremble—another post-transplant fine-motor failure.

Fucking humiliating.

Master Kong

Simple task. Will explain in person. And I have an update on Celia.

Celia. My sister’s carefree smile flickers behind my eyelids. She’s the only person I care about in this world.

The only thing the Kongs know I won’t survive losing.

My fist tightens around my phone.

Everything’s too loud—the crackling thunder, the car tires screeching against gravel. My boots squeak on wet cement as I stare at the ER entrance, and an ambulance skids to a stop.

Aria.

They want me to kill Aria.

The fiancée of the man whose heart beats inside me.

This should be simple—a vulnerable target. Unprotected.

But all I can hear is grating static. A sharp pull cuts through my torso.

Traitor.

Because the only person this stolen heart answers to…is her.