Chapter Five
Jack had it all worked out. He’d found her easily: traced a trail of Dove chocolate wrappers, asked a bus driver if he’d seen an anxious redhead, and gotten off in the hostel district, where he’d worn an easy smile and asked whether anyone had seen his sister, said that he was supposed to pick her up here and she’d maybe mixed up the numbers in the street address, and had they seen her?
People had pointed him in the right direction—and even if they hadn’t, a little more digging and she would’ve turned up. As it was, the hostel manager had only shrugged when he asked whether she was staying here.
So he’d gone around back, pried open a window when he’d seen his notebook sticking out of a jacket pocket, and been waiting for her ever since.
And now here she was, naked and dripping wet, her scream still echoing in the small room.
Good.
Not because he was leering at her; he wasn’t. She was a good-looking woman, of course. But he was on a job. The important thing was that it made her vulnerable, and that would make it easier to convince her that she needed him.
“You work for me now,” he said quietly.
The initial shock was fading from her face, and Ava didn’t seem bothered—by her lack of clothing, by his gun, by any of it. Instead, the fear was evaporating into pure confusion.
And then she looked angry.
“And who the fuck are you?” she asked.
“My name is Jack,” he said. “And you interrupted me on a job. In fact, you’ve ruined it in just about every way somebody can ruin a job. So now you’re going to make it right.”
“Or?” Ava didn’t even blink at the new name. He’d introduced himself as AJ, not Jack.
He lifted the gun. Clicked the safety off.
And aimed it straight for her head.
And then Ava Cavalcante did the unthinkable.
She stared down the barrel of his gun.
And she laughed.
They stared at each other for the longest of moments.
The smile on Ava’s face was grim, hard. “You’re just some dickhead from the café who ruined my plans,” she said. “You think a gun is going to stop me? A billionaire couldn’t stop me.”
“I stopped you already,” Jack said. “And I’m the one with the gun, so I’m the one in charge here.”
His voice was smooth, commanding. Controlled.
All the things he had trained himself to be, because loss of that control was unthinkable.
And here was Ava Cavalcante, laughing in the face of it all.
“And you want me to, what?” she snapped. “You want me to do something for you, or you’ll, what—kill me? Turn me in? My life is already over, motherfucker. There isn’t anything that can be taken from me.”
He heard it in her voice—the loss echoing through it all. He knew that kind of loss, the kind that ate you alive.
Still, Jack knew well enough that there was always something more to lose. Even at rock fucking bottom. “You’ll get something you want,” he said tightly. “Something you didn’t have the guts to do today. But I saw in your eyes that you wanted to, Ava Cavalcante.”
She flinched, and he knew his knowledge of her name, her full name, unnerved her. Despite the way she was playing it cool—or at least unbroken—she was running scared.
“I had something important planned,” Jack continued when Ava said nothing.
She was still dripping wet, fully naked. Her curves were generous, her breasts full, the look in her eye as deadly as it was alluring. But it was the way she stood tall, staring down the gun, that made his own breath catch unevenly.
“Do you hate him, too?” she asked.
Because it was that simple for her.
“I don’t hate anyone that I kill,” Jack said.
At this revelation, her eyes widened.
It wouldn’t matter that she knew any of this, of course.
If she survived this somehow, which was doubtful based on her impulsive behavior today, who would she tell?
She was already discredited, a mad woman with a grudge.
Regardless of the truth, Cale had seen to that.
So who would believe her when she was arrested and told stories about a contract killer?
She’d have a description, certainly. A first name.
But nothing beyond that, and he’d be in the wind.
“Were you hired?” Ava asked.
He could see the next question forming on her lips: Who?
Were they friends of hers, people she knew?
The likelihood was the simplest answer: that everyone except billionaires hated billionaires. There was always a reason to hate them.
“Yes, I was hired,” he told Ava now. “And no, you don’t get to know who hired me. As I’m sure you saw from my notebook, my completion date was supposed to be tomorrow.”
“Completion,” Ava said, her lip twisting in scorn. “That makes it sound a little like you’ve scheduled an . . . an orgasm. Not an execution.”
Jack choked.
“What?” she asked. “You make it all sound so . . . professional. But you’re not a professional. You’ve been staring at my tits and telling me that we’re going to work together whether I like it or not. Not much of a professional if you can’t even finish your own damn jobs, are you?”
He was speechless for the second time in as many minutes. This woman was nothing like anyone he had met before—not in his old life with Jay, and not in the new one he had built brick by bloody brick.
“Are you going to get on with it?” She sighed and walked past him. Just—walked past. Not even sparing a glance at his gun.
“Ava.”
Jack said her name sternly.
She froze for a shadow of a moment, stopped in her tracks by the growl of his voice when she did not seem to be fazed by his Glock.
Then she kept going, bent over to rummage through her bag for clothes to wear.
It was a shame, because the view he had of her ample ass was . . . well, continuing to prove distracting.
“Well?” She peered at him over her shoulder.
His own face burned hot for a moment. “He’s seen my face,” Jack managed. “I can’t get close to him again until it’s time to take the shot, and his security is going to be high for at least the next several days, if not the next several weeks. Especially if they don’t catch you.”
“So why don’t you turn me in, then?” Ava pulled on a thin black tank top, but no bra, her nipples pushing against the sheer fabric.
“Because I think you can help me,” Jack told her. “And because this delay has cost me money and the happiness of my customers. The way I see it, you owe me a debt.”
“I have plenty of that,” she said easily. “You’ll have to get in line.”
She did, too.
He’d done some research while he waited for her to finish showering. The woman took long showers.
Ava Cavalcante had credit card debt, medical debt, and a defaulted mortgage, a house that had already been repossessed. That was as far as he’d gotten. He’d heard her coming across the hall just as he was scrolling through a copy of the restraining order Cale Jacobson had taken out on her.
If he had to guess, she blamed Cale for the medical debt, maybe. He owned a majority share in his family’s health insurance company, one famous for two things: record-breaking profits for shareholders and efficiently denying customer claims.
“Well, this debt takes precedence,” Jack told her. His phone buzzed, pulling his attention.
The only people who had direct access to this line were his clients—that was his habit on each job he carried out.
Don’t play with us, the first text said.
Another buzz.
We heard there was an unsuccessful completion attempt.
A third buzz.
We expect to get what we paid you for. No delays.
Jack’s hand clenched tighter around his burner phone, knuckles whitening. Of course the client was pissed. And of course Ava’s attempt on Cale’s life had made the news.
“Am I keeping you?” Ava said, moving toward the door. “Don’t let me be a nuisance. You were just going—”
He stood, blocking her path, and she crashed into him.
For the second time that day, he caught her against his chest with one arm.
“How did you find out his schedule?” Jack asked. He was close enough to her now that he could feel her breath, hot against his neck. “That takes social engineering that most people would have no idea how to do. How did you find him? Did somebody send you?”
She was a puzzle, a goddamn enigma, and an infuriating one at that.
“How did you?” Ava retorted, putting two hands on his chest and shoving.
He didn’t move. She was petite, despite her curves, not even big enough to jostle him.
“Fuck you.” Ava smacked his arm and stepped back. She returned to the side of her room that contained her bag and pulled on a pair of joggers, her dark-brown eyes darting toward the window.
Jack sighed. “You’ll come with me to my place,” he said. “You’ll tell me everything you know about Cale, and every contact you spoke to, and every possible piece of information you’ve gained. And if I need you to, you’ll use your existing contacts to find more information. Do you understand me?”
“And what if I don’t?” Ava asked, shoving her phone into her pocket.
It was probably a phone registered to her, too, one still on some plan in her name, pinging off every cell tower in the area.
Their first step was to get rid of that phone.
Their second step was to get the hell out of here before the police or Cale’s security squad arrived in full force.
Their third step was Ava doing something useful.
“Ava,” Jack ground out. “Do you not understand how serious this is?”
“If I don’t, what’s the punishment? Are you going to spank me?” Ava tilted her head at him. She was smirking, as if the threat Jack presented was nothing but a fun, sexy little challenge.
It was a tempting offer.
She must have seen that thought in the hungry look on his face, because she took another small step back toward the window.
“I think you know as well as I do that your only option is to help me,” Jack said. “Because you’re right. I could just turn you in to the police. Or I could make sure nobody ever hears from you again.”
He didn’t want to kill her, not least because it would add a layer of mess he didn’t need in an already-messy affair.
“I think you’re scared,” Ava shot back. And then she moved, faster than he thought was possible. The second time he’d underestimated this spitfire today.
And the last.
She knocked the gun from his hand with a well-placed kick and launched herself at his throat, her arm wrapping around it as the weight of her momentum knocked him backward.
Maybe that shove earlier, the one that hadn’t so much as moved him, was to catch him off guard. Maybe she had been playing a longer game than he’d realized.
Those were the thoughts in Jack O’Sullivan’s head as this little hellcat of a woman knocked him on his ass.
Glass shattered before he was back on his feet, Ava Cavalcante’s heavy bag breaking the hostel window, and then she was through it, bits of glass clinging to her as she ran for her life.