29. Jackal
TWENTY-NINE
JACKAL
Fuck me, the more I tried to keep from falling into her traps, the more I tripped over my own feet and went down swinging.
She’d weaseled her way into coming along for this kill, and as such, Dingo insisted on cutting her in on the percentage. That meant less to go around for the rest of us, and I didn’t like that. Not that I wasn’t already rolling in money, or that I didn’t have access to even more if I just went home and played the good son, but still.
It was the principle of the thing.
I didn’t want to share this with her. Hated that she was a part of our boys-only group now. I had to give a damn about her safety now, just like I did the guys.
Well, okay, so I supposed I didn’t have to. Nobody was forcing me to. But I couldn’t help it. I might not be the leader, or even the backup head of household, but I was aware of everyone in my squad, including her.
Try as I might to change that fact.
Dingo and Coyote hung around the door like whipped dogs, masks on, bats in hand, ready to fuck up whoever and whatever we’d been turned loose on. I leaned against the counter, waiting for our leading lady herself to decide to make an appearance. She had locked herself in my bathroom and insisted she’d be out shortly, a duffle bag in hand as she closed the door in my face and flipped the latch.
We’d been waiting ten minutes already, maybe longer.
I checked my watch again, sighing heavily. “If she doesn’t hurry up, we’re leaving her ass here.”
“Nobody’s leaving me anywhere,” she purred, standing in the doorway of my room with a smirk on her lips and?—
Fuck all, what the hell ? —
She leaned against the frame, a pair of the shortest shorts I’d ever seen a woman wear on her ass—well, not really on her ass. More like crawling up her ass. They hugged the lowest point of her hips, revealing a fair amount of skin. She’d paired it with fishnet tights, a pair of Converse shoes, and a black tube top, which she’d thrown a puffy half-jacket over. Slung over her shoulder was a bat that made my mouth water, signed at the tip by Mickey Mantle, from the looks of it, and wrapped at the base with pink grip tape. She dangled a mask like ours from the tip of her finger, spinning it absently as we gawked openly at her getup.
When her eyes lifted, it was to find us all staring at her like we’d lose our collective minds. Which, to be fair, was growing increasingly likely the longer she hung around us.
“Are you just going to stand there staring at me, or are you going to get a move on?”
We shook ourselves from the stupor and headed out the door, bringing up the rear like her personal hounds. Not that I minded right now. Hell, if those shorts were any shorter, we’d be looking at her pussy. As it was, they hugged the swell of her asscheeks so perfectly it made a man drool with desire. Hell, the longer I stared, the less I wanted to leave the house and complete the contract. No, if I had my way, if she were any other woman, I’d be dragging her back into my room to fuck her senseless, take my time peeling all that skin-tight clothing from her pretty, hot, rocking ass body.
Get ahold of yourself, man. She tried to kill you. She’d do it again if you gave her half a reason.
Knowing that didn’t change things, though.
I still wanted to lick her from head to fucking foot.
“So,” she started when we entered the parking garage, a sparkle in her eyes that I did not like in the least. “Who am I riding with this time?”
Coyote turned away with a choking cough, slinging a leg over his bike with such haste he nearly took himself out and tipped the damn Kawasaki he rode. Dingo was conveniently silent, his eyes anywhere but on her .
That left me.
“Oh, hell no.”
I was beginning to think her main goal in life was to piss me off. Hell, I was beginning to suspect the other two were in cahoots with her about it. It seemed like any time she was up to no good, they managed to avoid the worst of it, leaving me to play the fall guy.
It was getting irritating, if you asked me.
“You’d better not wreck me,” I growled, slinging a leg over my dirtbike with a grumble. “Get on, bitch.”
“Can I drive?” she asked plainly, tilting her head so that the high ponytail she wore slipped over her shoulder and teased the bare skin of her collarbone.
“No,” I snapped, growling to assert my dominance. “And put your fucking mask on before you lose it.” With that, I tugged her damn mask down over her face and shoved her behind me, waiting oh so patiently for her to take a fucking seat and get ready.
The urge to take off before she’d wrapped her arms around me was strong, but I resisted. Knowing her, I’d likely end up on a fucking medieval rack or something as payback.
Now why did my dick have to go and get hard over that idea?
“Hold on.”
The second her hands were secured around my torso, I took off like a bat out of hell, hoping to scare her. I wove in and out of traffic, being more reckless than usual. Hell, I wouldn’t even go this hard when I was alone, and yet?—
She drove me to madness and had me doing things that could very well get us both killed, all in an effort to unnerve her as she did me. I wanted her on edge, wanted her to feel the closeness of the ledge she stood us all on with this little jackknifed deal she’d conjured with Coyote.
Instead, when I leaned back as we sped through two red lights, narrowly missing two cars and a box truck, I could feel her chest heaving, her head pressed against my shoulder, her hands clenched tightly against my waist, her hips?—
Was she fucking rocking her hips?
Was this bitch fucking masturbating on my damn bike?
Oh, my god, hell to the no.
But also?—
Hell fucking yes.
“Does that turn you on, bitch?” I yelled back at her, groaning when she ground her hips into my ass, humping me as we flew over seventy fucking miles an hour down a main thoroughfare on a dirtbike that had no business traveling that fast. “Do you like the taste of near-death?”
She didn’t answer me, but the hip grinding ceased, and I felt her pull away just a bit, just enough to cause me concern.
I slapped a hand over her hands as I slung us into a knee-scraping drift turn, my back tire spinning out as I howled through my mask and straightened it out with ease. Her grip had been loose enough for her to have fallen off, and I could have even claimed I had nothing to do with it since it was her own shame that led her to release her hold on me.
Instead, I grabbed her hands and ensured she stayed on the back of my bike, which was?—
Odd.
Out of character.
Degrading.
But I really liked the way she’d ground her hips into me, seeking pleasure against my ass as the bike’s engine, and the associated horsepower, vibrated through her.
She was a whore, sure. But for tonight, she’d revealed a weakness. And if there was one thing I loved to do, it was exploit my enemy’s weaknesses.
She was just one more opponent, however close to the center of my world she might be.
We pulled up some time later to the site where our intel told us the target would be meeting a shipment from out of the country. It could be guns, drugs, or even humans, it didn’t matter. The goal tonight was to intercept the cargo, kill the man, and leave him for the fish to pick at until harbor patrol found his bloated body days later.
With any luck, the crocs would get to him first.
The man who’d taken the hit out on him was the brother of one of his former victims, a man who’d worked for him long enough to find out there was a side to the business he wanted no part in. But see, when you join a criminal organization, no matter what level you start on, there’s no easy way to get back out. Especially once you knew their darkest secrets.
So they killed his brother, dumped him off a boat at night, and his body washed up three days later, in chunks, more or less.
So, the man wanted him to suffer the same fate. We were told we could torture him as we saw fit before we dumped the body.
Ivy was about to get her first real taste of what it was like to live with real killers. Men who eliminated other humans without batting an eye. Men whose darkest fantasies were to torture, maim, and defile the bodies and memories of these filthy humans who fed off the back of society. Who treated other humans like their?—
Fuck, she really was her father’s daughter.
He’d also treated people like they were all expendable, like they were beneath him, like the women he trafficked, the girls he kidnapped and violated, were nothing more than playthings, toys that, once broken, were good for nothing more than the trash bin.
Was she any different?
“Oi, Jackal, mate, are you gonna get off that bike and get moving, or are we flying without you? ”
Dingo’s voice yanked me out of my dark thoughts, and I realized with a start that she’d dismounted without me even noticing, and now the three of them waited for me, bats slung over their shoulders, looking like half a baseball team on Halloween. My foot connected with the kickstand of my bike, and I slid off the damn seat, aggravation and shame rolling through my veins.
I didn’t want to be so damn affected by her that I lost my senses, but every step away from her I took, she pulled me two steps closer, fighting me for control I didn’t even possess.
“Alright, alright, hold your horses,” I whisper-shouted, “and keep it down. We don’t know if they’re here already, and they probably brought friends.”
“Yes,” Coyote muttered, “they did.”
His eyes were trained on the end of the alley where we’d stashed our rides, and I spotted two men dressed in all-black leaning against a light post, no guns in sight. That didn’t necessarily mean there were none, just that it would buy us a few seconds if we gave away our element of surprise.
I turned to Dingo with a nod, slipping into the shadows like usual, inching my way past the guards until I was behind them. He kicked a can over at the other end of the alley, and when there was a few feet between the men, I reared back and slammed my bat into the side of Unlucky Man 1’s head, felling him in seconds. When his cohort turned back, I waggled my fingers at him and watched Dingo take aim and swing on him next. We pulled their bodies off to the side and buried them under a few bags of trash to keep them hidden until we were already gone.
We went through this systematic process two more times, taking out all of the eyes and ears watching the perimeter. Only once we’d secured the meeting space did we finally regroup with Coyote, who’d gotten stuck making sure Ivy didn’t give away our positions.
We found the man of the hour with relative ease. He leaned against a costly grey car, his arms crossed as he tried his hardest to look disinterested and bored. Flanking him were two men with very visible, very powerful guns. Our bats were no match for their firepower, which meant we’d either have to take him out before reinforcements arrived or chance taking a bullet or two as we fought our way to the target.
Neither of which seemed particularly smart or appealing.
“What’s the plan, Dingo?” I asked pointedly, waiting for the organizer of our group to say something, direct us in a way that made sense. Instead, he just frowned, staring at the target as another car pulled up, effectively doubling the number of guns in our way.
We were fucked. There would be no completed contract tonight, not with so many obstacles?—
Ivy slammed her bat into my chest and straightened her jacket, mussing her hair a tad before she let her coat slip off one shoulder and bent down to unlace her shoes. We watched in confusion as she kicked them off and ripped one side of her fishnet stockings, then removed her mask and crooked a finger at Dingo, her eyes flashing with mischief.
“I need to make it believable.”
She yanked his mask up and planted a kiss on his stunned lips, licking the side of her mouth as she pulled away, just enough of her lipstick smeared to make her look a little messy.
“Be ready,” she whispered with a wink, and then, before any of us could stop her, she stumbled around the corner like a drunken hooker.
Fuck.