Chapter Seven
The house was removed from the road, set back into the trees so far it was barely visible to anyone driving by. The listing had advertised privacy, and it had more than delivered.
The house was also owned by a host who had happily accepted cash.
It was the perfect location, as far as Jack was concerned.
And more than that, it was far enough from the city that when there was inevitable uproar and a manhunt for him, the police would run circles trying to find enough security cameras out this way to properly track him.
By the time investigators had found this place at all, it would be clean and ready for the next guest, with no trace he had ever existed at all.
Ava wrinkled her nose as he helped her out of his car. “Why did you take me all the way out here, again?” she asked. “The hostel was so much closer to Cale.”
“You were about to get caught,” Jack told her, pinching his fingers on the bridge of his nose. There was no way to stave off the headache that was Ava, though. Especially since she never stopped talking.
“Do they teach you that in James Bond school?” she asked. “Which hostels to stay in, and how far from the crime scene you’re supposed to be?”
Jack lifted her bags and headed for the house, ignoring her. It was a beautiful three-bedroom log cabin, with a pool and hot tub out back, enclosed to keep guests in and wilderness out. The driveway was long, lined with trees, the nearest neighbor mostly obscured.
The fewer eyewitnesses, the better.
“I won’t take the rental car when I complete the job,” he told her when she caught up with him, still pestering him with questions. Truthfully, his path to killing Cale Jacobson had grown a lot murkier, and he didn’t have answers to her questions.
He unlocked the door with the keypad and let Ava go in first. The house was open concept: vaulted ceilings above the entryway, hardwood floors through the living room, and an expansive kitchen that contained a large refrigerator, a double oven, and pristine marble countertops.
“I’m going swimming,” Ava said the moment she saw the back steps leading down to the pool and hot tub. “And I don’t have a swimsuit, but you’ve already seen me naked, so.”
“You need to focus,” Jack told her sternly.
“You don’t decide what I need,” Ava told him, pulling her tank top over her head. “And don’t sneak any peeks at me while I’m swimming.”
“Ava.”
“Jack.”
“I kill people for a living. I am going to kill you if you don’t do this for me. How much clearer do I need to be?” Jack had never met anyone with such an impaired sense of personal safety—her meter for acceptable risk was as broken as his.
“So you’ve said.” Ava was shrugging off her shorts now.
A moment later she was naked. Again.
In other circumstances he would be delighted at the chance to see an ass like that twice in as many hours. But this infuriating woman wouldn’t see the danger standing right in front of her.
Jack reached out, hand closing over her wrist.
Hauled her back to him.
Ava was not hard to pull, and she didn’t offer any resistance, either. Instead, she crashed against his chest, eyes widening, breath quickening as she stared up at him.
For a moment, just a moment, he thought she was about to acquiesce, agree to work with him.
And then something sharp pinched against his stomach. A knife. A small one.
How could he have missed that?
Ava grinned up at him, her brown eyes crackling with fury as much as mirth. “Checkmate, motherfucker,” she said.
“Easy,” Jack told her slowly. He could still strip the knife, break her wrist, but in that split second, if she had the guts to cut him, it would be game over. For good.
And he had someone still counting on him, someone he would let down if he were dead on the floor of this rental.
“You said you’d kill me. What do I have to lose?
” Ava leaned closer, naked breasts pushing against his chest as the tip of her knife dug in farther.
She tilted her head up, lips nearly brushing his jaw as she spoke.
“You think you’re better than me. Smarter, scarier, stronger.
But underestimate me again, Jack, and see what fucking happens. ”
“O’Sullivan,” he said stupidly.
“What?” Ava hesitated, startled.
“That’s my name,” Jack said. “My real name. Jack O’Sullivan. And I don’t think I’m—”
But he had thought he was smarter and stronger and scarier, hadn’t he?
“I was going to kill Cale Jacobson with this knife,” Ava said icily, letting the tip of the blade drift lazily down, just centimeters from touching his skin. A little lower, and she’d have that knife at his balls.
Think, O’Sullivan.
“Did you really think,” Ava murmured, the words warm against his throat, “that I wouldn’t try to kill you, too?”
He sucked in a breath. “Ava,” he said.
“Saying my name like that won’t get me to change my mind,” she said, and then, just as suddenly as she’d leveled her knife at his gut, she stepped back, hands raised, the small weapon still held in her right hand.
Jack moved instinctually before rational thought caught up with him, pinning her against the wall behind them, his fingers wrapped around her wrist. She opened her hand, laughing, and let the knife clatter to the ground.
“I didn’t kill you, Jack O’Sullivan,” Ava said. She was still laughing, but the sound was a jagged, harsh thing, sharper than the knife she’d dropped. “But if we do this, you’re going to stop discounting what I’m capable of, and we do this as equals. Is that clear?”
It was achingly clear.
Mess or not, Ava Cavalcante was capable of surprising him. And like it or not, she both had information he needed and too much information about him.
He kicked her knife, sending it spinning across the floor away from them, and then stepped back, raising his own hands in a gesture of—peace, maybe. Maybe even defeat.
“Equals,” he said. “All right. So, we—”
“No,” Ava said cheerfully. “I have had a hard day, so I’m going to do some self-care in the pool while you figure out dinner.
After we eat, I can tell you everything your silly little notebook was missing.
And, damn, for a trained hit man or whatever you call yourself, there’s a lot you don’t know about Cale Jacobson. ”
“Contract killer,” Jack said automatically.
“Hmm,” Ava said. “More gender inclusive that way, I guess. ‘I support women’s wrongs’ and all that.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, but that seemed like a reality he had better start getting used to sooner rather than later.
His expertise was narrow: reconnaissance, bullets, neatly wrapped endings.
Hers was broader, apparently, encompassing library science, well-placed punches, and whatever “women’s wrongs” were.
He probably supported them, too, though.
She turned and walked away from him, hips swaying infuriatingly. She picked up the knife as she went, too, and when he next saw her through the window, she was sitting in the hot tub, head tipped back and eyes shut, knife on the edge of the pool beside her.
Murder was a meticulous business.
And Ava Cavalcante, naked in his hot tub with a knife at her side, was anything but.