Chapter 2
Apparently “spite” is not a correct answer when asked what motivates you.
— Dima to Nastya
DIMA
I watched her walk past me, and felt my entire body go tight like a bowstring.
She was magnificent.
I didn’t think that scrubs could be attractive, but I was proven wrong in that moment.
The tiny little thing that was all of five foot nothing was so goddamn attractive that I popped a semi in the middle of a mission.
Her curly brown hair was bouncing with each of her steps, and even though I couldn’t see the color of her eyes, I somehow knew they’d be green.
But what really topped off the entire package was the hunting knife in her left hand.
She held it in a backward grip, knife swinging behind her as she walked.
I inhaled my cigarette and cursed myself for forgetting what I was here to do—kill a man.
Shasha had given me the man’s name and address a month ago to take care of, and I’d spent that time researching.
I didn’t kill indiscriminately, even for my brother.
Not anymore, anyway.
Once upon a time, before the US government decided to use me as their rabid dog, I’d have given my brother the same trust he gave me. I’d have been his to point and aim.
Now , I was my own man, and I did things based on how I felt.
So I took my time learning everything I could about Dr . Cordell McCinnish , and what I found out, I didn’t like.
According to Shasha , McCinnish had decided to start supporting a certain bill that was set to go up to vote in Congress next year. The bill would “crack down” on organized crime and give the authorities certain rights to do things, whether they were highly illegal and invasive or not, if the ‘criminal’ was suspected of organized crime.
McCinnish had become quite vocal about it and had gone through multiple avenues to ensure that this bill would pass. Using his voice as a prominent doctor in the community to do it.
Upon investigating him, Shasha had discovered that McCinnish wasn’t clean himself. Where he’d spouted his disgust with organized crime from every rooftop party he could get into, he was assaulting his patients in their sleep after shooting them up with sleeping drugs to ensure that they didn’t wake up.
Over the past week, I’d stopped McCinnish from doing just that twice. Both times during the two nurses on shift’s lunch breaks.
The first time I’d stopped him, I’d given him a little warning on his car as I’d left to keep him in line.
The second time I’d caught him, I’d called the alarm company and told them that I was about to break into the building next door.
Cops had come screaming into the area lights and sirens, and McCinnish had hauled ass away from his patient like he’d never been there.
But it was enough information for me.
I’d seen enough.
Which was why I was here today.
The woman, however, was the one that I was waiting for.
She opened the sleep center at night, and I needed her and the other one to get inside and turn on all the lights before I could slip into the back and observe.
I’d found a nice little hidey hole in the back of the sleep center. A rarely used room that they didn’t keep ready for patients because the monitors in the rooms were broken, and the owner wasn’t willing to repair them.
Having been into the building twice now during non-working hours, I found out that the room was perfectly located so no one saw into it or accidentally walked into it without purpose.
Also , I’d put in a couple of cameras so I could monitor the rest of the place from my hidden position.
After fifteen minutes, when the patients started arriving, I went right in the front door, unsurprised to find that no one was there.
I moved with purpose through the building right to the back room while the short nurse and the mouthy one were busy with patients.
After I moved to the back room, I got comfortable on the bed behind the curtain, slipped my phone out of my pocket, and deposited one earbud into my ear.
For the next four hours, I watched and listened.
By the time the two women started talking about their sexual desires, I thought I was going to literally die on this mission.
A mask?
Kinky .
I had a mask.
Just knowing that this woman wanted some stranger to fuck her while remaining anonymous really got my crank cranking.
That excitement flagged when my target showed, bitching and moaning the moment he walked through the door and, gasp, found the women doing their jobs.
I listened to him continue to be a complete dick and leave after he’d checked on the patients.
I knew he was supposed to be here for a solid eight hours along with the nurses, but his MO was to leave and come back, and act like he was here the entire time.
And since he was the senior doctor there, no one usually complained.
Hours into the shift, I heard whispers coming from outside the door of the room I was in, and looked up.
“ Listen ,” I heard the tiny nurse say. “ I know this is super, duper crazy but…”
There she went explaining her fantasy again, and I started to slowly rub my dick through my pants.
God , just hearing her explain it sounded…heavenly.
“ I , uh…” The doctor she’d been talking to, Craig something or other, was stuttering like a fool.
I guess it wasn’t every day that you got propositioned to fuck someone wearing a mask outside in the dark alley behind their work one day during her lunch break.
A grin played at my lips.
“ I know this is insane,” she whispered. “ But Dorie told me you belonged to Torment , and I thought this would be okay. You’ve asked me out so many times, and I just didn’t think that you’d be into the same things that I was into. Now that I know you are…”
“ I’m , um.” He stuttered some more. “ I’m …”
I nearly snorted a laugh.
“ Can you give me some time to think about it?” he asked. “ I know this sounds stupid, because I really am part of Torment and experience this a lot. But it’s in the safety of a club setting.”
“ Would that make you more comfortable if we do it there?” she asked.
I grinned wickedly.
Smart girl.
She needed to do this in a safe place.
Not outside in an alley on her lunch break, but I could see the appeal. The ‘danger’ wouldn’t be there at the club.
A club that I just so happened to be a part of…
Thoughts and planning started to filter through my brain rapid fire, and a plan started to form into place.
If she wanted a masked man…
I listened for the rest of the night as the two ladies talked, and then when Craig finally got the balls to agree with sweet little Nurse Keely’s request.
Keely was actually Tequila .
Her full name was Tequila Rose Clayborne , and she went by Keely always .
She had a bachelor’s in nursing from the University of Texas . She lived in an apartment in the middle of the swanky part of downtown, and shared a cat with her neighbor, Trixie . I’d dug more into Keely’s past, but I usually didn’t get to know my target’s complete life backgrounds unless I also suspected them.
Since I didn’t suspect Keely , I’d tried not to invade her privacy too badly.
But maybe I’d dig into her a little more, find out more about the woman I was about to fuck…
The dawn’s rays started to shine through the glass of the room I was still in around five fifty that morning, and with it, came Dr . About to be Dead .
Shortly after Dr . ATBD arrived, he dismissed the rest of the work crew, and I knew what was about to happen.
At least, what he thought was about to happen.
The moment that the staff was gone, leaving only McCinnish alone to handle patient checkout, I struck.
The kill came quickly—much too quickly for the man that’d just administered all of the patients enough sleeping medication to make them dead to the world for hours—and soon he was on the ground looking like he’d suffered the heart attack the medication I’d given him alluded to.
I waited until his eyes lost the color in them before I cleaned up my mess.
Mostly , I put him in a room that didn’t have a woman in it.
I moved him into the three-hundred-pound man’s room that had been suffering from what he’d assumed were ‘sleep apnea episodes.’
Ol ’ dude would burn through his medication faster and sound the call for help.
After I was done, I headed back out the main room door.
I called Shasha when I was about halfway down the block and asked, “ Want some coffee?”
“ No ,” Shasha answered. “ I just had some.”
“ Huh ,” I breathed. “ Well , I guess I’ll go have some by myself.”
My older brother sighed. “ You’re a pain in my ass, Dima .”
I chuckled. “ I live to make your life miserable.”
Shasha snorted. “ I know you do.”