The Devious Heart, Part One (Toxic Hearts #3)

Prologue

The gang leader of Port Taylor reserved Saturday nights to screw his favorite mistress.

While Angelo Amato was upstairs getting sucked and fucked into oblivion, I was in his office, watching a progress bar on the icy glow of his computer screen.

Sometimes it felt like cheating, to destroy a man with a reputation like Amato.

Men who thought their strength was a shield that would keep them safe.

They didn't realize the world had changed around them, and left their security decrepit and open to someone like me. I knew what it felt like to have your life in someone else's hands which was why I joined The Unseen.

My gloved fingers flew over the keyboard, and my encryption tore through the old system, until data, names, bribes, financial records, poured through the gaps.

Angelo was meticulous, or rather, someone he overpaid kept every single piece of evidence.

I selected everything and hovered my finger over the key that would wipe it clean.

My stomach clenched tight, and I blew out a shaky breath.

Get it together. I couldn't say what made me hesitate.

The fire in my veins that came from being an agent for The Unseen was missing.

The glow of the computer screen illuminated an ornate silver frame with a border collie in it.

It had a mangled soft toy in its mouth and its gaze twinkled.

The sight made my stomach clench. I turned the frame face down with a shudder as I made a second copy of data and saved it onto my drive.

It wasn't part of my mission.

But something about the bare bones office, no furnishings except for a treasured dog picture, made me pause.

Angelo Amato was supposed to be… I shook my head and cursed under my breath.

It reminded me of my childhood home. Simple except for a few treasures.

They had sentimental value, not monetary, yet they made the house glow with warmth.

Making something out of the scraps I was given was one of my gifts.

I jammed my finger down on the keyboard and ignored the toss of my stomach as all the files dissolved into nothing. I couldn't get distracted from my mission. Angelo Amato created ripples with his reckless crime, and I was the only thing standing between him and carnage.

Who watches those in the shadows? We do.

My breath caught. Part one of my mission was complete. Now I had to kill the man. Technology was where I was most comfortable, but I wasn't worried. I watched him take his mistress upstairs earlier, and she was working for us as well. Her job was to keep him distracted while I killed him.

I dragged a finger along the textured wallpaper in the hall.

It was understated, but of good quality, unlike the peeling paint of the places I was used to.

The carpet on the second floor had a worn path.

The Amatos had been a great family until Angelo ran them into the ground with his outrageous drug trade.

The reason The Unseen wanted him removed.

There was no sign of the reckless opulence in the reasonable townhouse.

It backed onto the canal, where he kept a dinghy tied to his jetty.

I scented iron in the back of my nostrils, and it focused me.

Who watches those in the shadows? Me.

I wouldn't let anyone go through what I did.

Still, the unease didn't lessen. The house was decorated to suit one person.

I walked past a room with the chair askew and a book face down with the spine bent.

Like its reader was coming back at any moment.

There was comfort in the thick rugs and the scent of cool water that drifted in on a night breeze.

I'd been in many houses, dripping with opulence.

They were pretty, empty shells designed to impress visitors.

I didn't have a lot of experience with what this place was, but my muscles relaxed.

It was a home.

It only made my mission more confusing. Angelo was supposed to be a corrupt criminal, busy running his empire into the ground. Not someone who, I thumbed the book, read stories about foster dogs. Shadows chilled my limbs as I hurried out of the room.

My thoughts clouded my senses, and as I grabbed the bedroom handle, I heard a click.

A safety being released.

I turned as a voice melted out of the shadows. "He told me you'd come, but I didn't believe him."

Angelo Amato stood opposite me, framed by the doorway. His top button was askew, and his feet bare. The blooming red stain on the cuff of his shirt told me something had gone sideways. He held the pistol in his hand with a tremor, but his gaze flashed with icy determination.

"Angelo." I whispered.

"Finally found a woman who fucked me how I liked, and it turned out she was one of The Unseen. Fucking rats. Like you, huh?" He stepped closer. "Now, tell me why I got an alert that my database was wiped five minutes ago."

"If you kill me, they'll just send someone else."

My gun was in my back pocket, and there was no way I could reach it before he shot. But maybe I could convince him to wait. Who warned him I was coming? I searched for signs of bloat, sweat and widened pupils. But Angelo was sober. That didn't match up with what I'd been told, either.

His smirk was sharp. "So you admit you're one of their lackeys?"

My pride pricked, his tone insinuated that I was a mindless robot, following orders without question. Resentment throbbed in my stomach.

But I had done that, hadn't I?

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Not exactly. I duplicated his data before I erased it.

"Who told you I would be here?"

He widened his stance. "Whatever The Unseen told you about me, they're wrong."

I flattened my lips, and he scoffed at the slight movement. My heart pounded in my chest as I choked on the questions I wanted to ask. Deep inside, doubt flickered like a mouse cursor. But I kept those thoughts to myself, trailing my fingers over my trembling thigh to my gun.

Angelo's eyes flashed. "Fuck you. Your dead body will be my message to The Unseen."

He fired.

My vision tunneled as heat and sound barreled past my ear and embedded in the door behind me.

But Angelo's head snapped to the right. Half of it painted the frames of a family that had genuine smiles.

Another shot rang out, and Angelo's body jerked.

Splatter painted framed photos of dogs. I blinked through the noise.

The bullet was a force that ripped through the fabric of my world.

A hand clamped on my shoulder, and my unfocused vision narrowed on the shadow in front of me.

"Little Liar? Are you hurt?" Beck peered into my face with a frown.

My heart gave a giant, pathetic thump at the sight of my mentor.

"No." I caught a whimper in my throat. "What are you doing here?"

Beck's arms crushed me to his chest.

"I didn't recruit and guide you for years just to have my efforts wasted. I had a bad feeling about this mission. You're lucky I was here." His breath whispered over my lips.

The adrenaline turned violent and heated in my veins. I dug my fingers into his arms.

"I had it handled."

"He was about to kill you," Beck growled, raising a thick eyebrow.

I felt the rumble in his chest as he pressed closer. Like I'd always wanted him to. He curled a hand around my neck, and I went limp in his hold.

"Beck?" I whispered his name across his stubble.

"Did you delete everything?" Beck's fingers tightened.

I nodded, my thoughts racing to everything except my mission.

"Good."

He swept me into his arms and carried me away from the spreading blood on the rug. A clean-up crew would take care of it. Planting evidence to frame someone else or making it disappear entirely.

Who watches those in the shadows? The Unseen does.

My stomach cramped, and I turned my head away, blinking until the nausea passed. Beck set me on the kitchen bench and wrapped his arms around me again. I swallowed hard, unable to relax in his hold.

"I got distracted," I whispered, compelled to explain my lapse in judgment.

My ears rang, and all I could think about was dogs painted red and how Angelo Amato wasn't at all who I thought he was.

"He knew you were coming."

"You heard him?"

Beck hummed. "Yes, and also, he dropped four dogs off at his brother's yesterday. He only does that when he's traveling overseas. Otherwise, they go with him everywhere. But he came straight home and waited. It tipped me off."

He filled a cup of water and placed it on the bench next to me. My breath shivered past my lips.

"You knew all this and didn't give me a heads-up?" My stomach dropped from a great height.

Beck's eyes were darker than all the shadows that swathed this house. But they flared with an inner fire.

"You're angry I saved you?"

I swallowed once. Swallowed twice. My throat tasted like iron, and my nostrils too. I couldn't breathe for the loop of red choking my lungs empty. I wanted to shout yes. To rail at him for saving me when pride demanded I do it myself. But his arms slipped around me and my anger melted.

"Forgive me, Little Liar. I need you too much to leave it to chance."

Nothing he said could have shocked me more.

My heart strangled itself. How many years had I pined for Beck?

First, it was coveting the power and strength he held.

How untouchable he seemed, always remote and in control.

But then the ends of his lips tipped up occasionally in my presence.

His voice, rough, would chase me into the night as my hand snuck between my legs.

I dared to flirt, and finally, to offer myself outright.

Beck taught me everything he knew, and I wanted him to teach me still.

Our bodies could impart lessons together. But he turned me down.

"N-need me?"

His stubble scraped my neck.

"There is no me without you. I can't live another moment without admitting the truth."

I pulled back and searched the sharp edges of his face for the truth.

His thick, dark eyebrows drew together, and his dark, almost black eyes were an endless abyss.

He was a silk, shadowy noose. Every pass of his rough calluses told me danger.

But I wanted his hard chest pressed against mine. To be swallowed into his muscular hold.

I'd been close to death before. Beck reminded me of it, but he held death at bay.

His lips drew toward mine like magnets, and my insides melted into liquid. I'd almost died, and on the kitchen bench, I died again, charred by the fire of desire in his gaze.

"I didn't know you—" I tasted his breath.

"You. Consume. Me."

I stole the hiss of his voice with my lips, and we crashed together.

I didn't want to be saved, but if it had to be anyone, I was glad it was Beck.

His fingers clutched at me like spikes, leaving sharp but welcome marks.

He wasn't soft, this mentor of mine. I'd caught the shadow I chased through the night.

He demanded, without words, and crushed my lips until my back bowed.

He stripped my clothes with the same ruthless efficiency he used to kill Angelo Amato. Briefly, doubt bubbled in the shape of a desperate man and his furred best friends before Beck forced my thoughts on him and him alone.

"I-I've wanted you for so long." I couldn't help but tremble as he freed himself.

Beck's hand tugged lazily, as though his lips weren't swollen and red. He dragged his thumb over the slit of his cock and brought it to my lips that throbbed from his hunger. He painted the musky pre-cum over my bottom lip. His lips tipped up with the whimper of lust that escaped me.

"You will regret craving me, Little Liar." Beck fit himself between my thighs. "But not tonight."

He gave me little time to ponder the warning.

Pleasure surged and wiped all caution. There was only the feel of him inside me.

The swelling, throbbing pleasure that dragged jagged cries up my throat.

Beck bit at my skin, like a snake injecting venom.

His touch made a fire churn inside me. It built and built.

Beck's hips snapped with unrelenting passion.

I felt him everywhere, but especially his fingers on my clit.

He touched me sharp. With ownership. He said I consumed him, and now he returned the favor. Pushing out any thought but him.

"More," I begged, desperate for him.

He muttered something against my skin. Another promise, and he carved a deeper path inside me. His thumb and finger pinched my clit, and he swallowed my cry as I tumbled over my release.

His hand clamped under my jaw and I tasted blood. Iron on our mingled tongues. Down my throat and on my hands. My heart crashed and my pulse thumped in my ear.

Everything came back to blood in the end.